“Sarah Palin’s Letter from God”:
Among some 13,000 messages [in the Palin emails] was an unexpected, revealing and touching email from Palin to friends and family.
It was initially written, obviously not for publication, in April of 2008 just a few days before the arrival of her fifth child, Trig, who was born with Down syndrome. In her email Palin imagines a letter from God to the family about to launch on its challenging child-rearing experience together.
Here is Palin’s entire letter:
To the Sisters, Brother, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and Friends of Trig Paxson Van Palin (or whatever you end up naming him!):
I am blessing you with this surprise baby because I only want the best for you. I've heard your prayers that this baby will be happy and healthy, and I've answered them because I only want the best for you!
I heard your heart when you hinted that another boy would fit best in the Palin family, to round it out and complete that starting five line-up.
Though another girl would be so nice, you didn't think you could ask for what you REALLY wanted, but I knew, so I gave you a boy because I only want the best for you!
Then, I put the idea in your hearts that his name should be 'Trig', because it's so fitting, with two Norse meanings: "True" and "Brave Victory". You also have a Bristol Bay relative with that name, so I knew it would be best for you!
Then, I let Trig's mom have an exceptionally comfortable pregnancy so she could enjoy every minute of it, and I even seemed to rush it along so she could wait until near the end to surprise you with the news - that way Piper wouldn't have so long to wait and count down so many days - just like Christmastime when you have to wait, impatiently, for that special day to finally open your gift? (Or the way the Palmas look forward to birthday celebrations that go on for three, four days_ you all really like cake.) I know you, I knew you'd be better off with just a short time to wait!
Then, finally, I let Trig's mom and dad find out before he was born that this little boy will truly be a GIFT. They were told in early tests that Trig may provide more challenges, and more joy, than what they ever may have imagined or ever asked for.
At first the news seemed unreal and sad and confusing. But I gave Trig's mom and dad lots of time to think about it because they needed lots of time to understand that everything will be OK, in fact, everything will be great, because I only want the best for you!
I've given Trig's mom and dad peace and joy as they wait to meet their new son. I gave them a happy anticipation because they asked me for that.
I'll give all of you the same happy anticipation and strength to deal with Trig's challenges, but I won't impose on you... I just need to know you want to receive my offer to be with all of you and help you everyday to make Trig's life a great one.
This new person in your life can help everyone put things in perspective and bind us together and get everyone focused on what really matters.
The baby will expand your world and let you see and feel things you haven't experienced yet. He'll show you what "true, brave victory" really means as those who love him will think less about self and focus less on what the world tells you is "normal" or "perfect°.
You will grow and be blessed with greater understanding that will he born along with Trig.Trig will be his dad's little buddy and he'll wear Carhartts while he learns to tinker in the garage. He'll love to be read to, he'll want to play goalie, and he'll steal his mom's heart just like Track, Bristol, Willow and Piper did.
And Trig will be the cuddly, innocent, mischievous, dependent little brother that his siblings have been waiting for_in fact Trig will - in some diagnostic ways - always be a mischievous, dependent little brother, because I created him a bit different than a lot of babies born into this world today.
Every child is created special, with awesome purpose and amazing potential. Children are the most precious and promising ingredient in this mixed up world you live in down there on earth. Trig is no different, except he has one extra chromosome. Doctors call it "Down's Syndrome", and Downs kids have challenges, but can bring you much delight and more love than you can ever imagine! Just wait and see, let me prove this, because I only want the best for you!
Some of the rest of the world may not want him, but take comfort in that because the world will not compete for him. Take care of him and he will always be yours!
Trig's mom and dad don't want people to focus on the baby's extra chromosome. They're human, so they haven't known how to explain this to people who are so caring and are interested in this new little Alaskan. Sarah and Todd want people to share in the joy of this gift I'm giving to the Palin family, and the greater Alaska family.
Many people won't understand_ and I understand that. Some will think Trig should not be allowed to be born because they fear a Downs child won't be considered "perfect" in your world. (But tell me, what do you earthlings consider "perfect" or even "normal" anyway? Have you peeked down any grocery store isle, or school hallway, or into your office lunchroom lately? Or considered the odd celebrities you celebrate as "perfect" on t.v.? Have you noticed I make 'em all shapes and sizes? Believe me, there is no "perfect"!)
Many people will express sympathy, but you don't want or need that, because Trig will be a joy. You will have to trust me on this.
I know it will take time to grasp this and come to accept that I only want the best for you, and I only give my best. Remember though: "My ways are not your ways, my thoughts are not your thoughts- for as the heavens are higher than the earth, my ways are higher than yours!"
I wrote that all down for you in the Good Book! Look it up! You claim that you believe me - now it's time to live out that belief!
Please look to me as this new challenge and chapter of life unfolds in front of you. I promise to equip you. I won't give you anything you can't handle. I am answering your prayers. Trig can't wait to meet you. I'm giving you ONLY THE BEST!
Love,
Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father
Now, as most of you know, I’m not particularly religious. In fact, I’m agnostic — though I do believe in a higher power, or at least in the idea of a higher power, as a way to establish the provenance of natural rights (however you decide to name it). And here’s what I see in this letter: An optimism based in faith; a can-do spirit that used to be the hallmark of American individualism; a humility before a power Palin clearly sees as greater than herself — the power from which we derive our natural rights; a willingness to embrace difficult challenges; a love of family, and a recognition that because of the strength of that family, what at first appear to be challenges will, in time, reveal themselves as blessings…
— This is the Sarah Palin that is revealed here — far from the scheming, manipulative bitch willing to squeeze a slack-jawed political prop from her cooter (or pretend to do so, so that she can cover up that the child is not hers but rather is the illicit love child of her daughter and husband), what resolves here is a portrait of a hard-working, politically savvy governor who is vindicated in nearly every instance from the libels created to diminish her.
It is profoundly saddening to me to reflect on what the media — and many on our own side — have tried to do to this woman, who clearly embodies the very principles conservatives and classical liberals claim to embrace and fight for, and who is clearly (in my mind) qualified to lead this country back from the brink of socialist hell, so comfortable and committed is she to constitutional authority, and so battle-tested is she after having had to endure a 3-year pop-cultural attempt to destroy her and her family.
I hope in their most private moments, Kathy Griffin or Andrew Sullivan or Janeane Garafalo or Jen Rubin — and a host of others I can name — feel wash over them the sudden rush of shame and embarrassment they so richly deserve.
And I hope it fucking burns.
The truth is, we have allowed a media culture to form in this country that is rotten to its core. It is petty, spiteful, vindictive, triumphalist, arrogant, profoundly biased, and undoubtedly left-leaning. We have given this media the power to shape our narratives, inform our decisions, and — because there are few if any consequences for doing so — create and destroy individuals with the impunity of a hive minded mob embarking on a wilding.
Helping the media along in such a project — as many “conservatives” do, by accepting as a matter of nature, unchangeable as a hurricane, the premises the media advances — is the kind of intellectual dereliction that has brought us to this point in our nation’s history, where 20% or less of the population controls the reins of political power, as well as the vast majority of our cultural institutions, from the media and the academy, to putative moral authority to champion the environment, the working man, the poor.
Losing more slowly is now nearing lost. And yet still we’re hearing from some on “our” side that we need to find an “electable” candidate that will appeal to “moderates” — someone who doesn’t represent the kind of “extremism” that, in an Orwellian turn, has become synonymous with the very legal conservatism and classical liberalism around which this country was founded, and which provided the template for the most free and prosperous country the world has ever known, with the most free and prosperous people history has ever produced.
I noted this before, but let me note it again: the antidote to Carter was not Howard Baker or George HW Bush. We’re at the brink. And if we can’t articulate the enormous CHASM that separates classical liberal and legal conservative principles from those on witness by the democratic socialists in power — who are actively working to increase government’s size and the people’s dependence on it, intentionally sabotaging energy production and private sector job growth while putting in place the bureaucratic structure to control us through our healthcare decisions and through regulations on the very exhalation that comes from our bodies, or the dust we kick up when we walk — we have lost our country anyway, and it’s damn certain that Mitt Romney and his carbon emission-sensitivity or his ethanol panders isn’t going to do dick structurally to help us get it back. At best he’s a kind of cultural procrastination. And at worst, he comes (courtesy of the press — and like George Bush did in his two terms) to count as the benchmark of right-wing “extremism,” against which the next leftist candidate positions himself.
The GOP is content being the more frugal, more incremental, of the two big government ruling parties.
I’m not content with that as a choice.
And so I fight on.
Stupid chillbilly can’t even spell “aisle” correctly. No way is she qualified to be President of all 57 states.
And who does she think she is, writing a letter from God, like somehow she knows what He’s thinking?
Clearly a religious zealot who will inspire hatred from our enemies abroad and threaten to trample on civil liberties domestically.
That is a moving email/letter from Palin and a very well stated post. Thank you Jeff.
And she punctuates “Down’s”/”Downs” inconsistently.
—
There. I think I might have everything the Left can torture out of this email as evidence of the manifest unfitness of Gov. Palin.
I’m slowly coming around.
I wasn’t really a Palin – gal for president because 1) she performed rather poorly during a Chris Wallace interview a few months back and 2) I thought the anti-Palin crowd was simply too powerful.
I’m not all in. I’m just starting to dip a toe into the water.
Brilliant, Jeff.
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln’s famous opinion of General Grant:
I cannot spare this woman. She fights.
Sullivan is too far gone to feel anything like shame… I suspect the same of Griffin and am more sure of Garafalo on that account as well.
I do think Rubin and Krauthammer should go sit in the penalty box, and feel shame.
profoundly biased
“Biased” is too kind. More like “happy to lie to further the cause.”
As for those who should feel ashamed, well, you can’t shame the shameless. Watch for accusations that the “good stuff” got withheld from the batch.
In 2008, the Obama campaign spent about a billion dollars, much of it untraceable, much of it from overseas, in violation of the law.
What will they spend in 2012? A billion and a half, two billion? By then they will have had four years to launder stimulus cash and salt it away.
Maybe I’m still thinking too small.
Let’s see here. The reason that the Democratic Party did things like filing nineteen frivolous ethics complaints against Governor Palin, and then filed suit against her legal defense fund, is because these things work, as it turns out.
Meanwhile, purported Palin fan John Ziegler publishes this: http://dailycaller.com/2011/06/12/the-sarah-palin-i-know/
I’ll take the insight gleaned from personal emails over an opinion piece, thank you very much.
Dead on, but you left out humor.
Van Palin?
Yes. Anyone who would write and post a missive soliciting the deposit of “milky loads” into his “power glutes” does not have a shame gene.
Blake —
I commented on that yesterday. My guess is, Ziegler – a man scorned – thought with the rest of the media that this release of emails would show us something else about Palin than it does, and he was looking to get out in front of it.
Whoops!
He should have questioned the timing.
It already burns them, incandescently. Which is precisely why they hate her so. Her own nature reveals the black pit that resides at the center of each and every one of them.
Sure there are those that may disagree with her without vitriol, they have their own center and their own sense of true self worth so are not driven to extremes.
Those who are reveal themselves, and more tellingly know that they reveal themselves, cannot help but do so, such is their own nature that it drives them to openly wallow in their spite.
Ziegler’s article has way too much focus on Ziegler. Poor Ziegler. I learned nothing from it.
Says he’s unemployable because he helped her. Jesus. This is not a serious person.
An account I read of Reagan mention his tendency to move on and not stay in touch with former associates. I don’t know. Supposedly some people couldn’t deal with it and they took their revenge much like Ziegler – a rash of tell-all books.
The flip side of this is of course, the ‘helpful’ people who turn up to assist celebrities. An Olympic gold medal winner illustrated this with an anecdote – an old passing acquaintance asked if he could “talk to her for a minute,” then sent her a large bill for legal advice.
Jeff,
My mom, initially, didn’t like Sarah Palin. Mom has slowly moved toward Sarah Palin. Mom’s perception of Palin changed when Mom realized Palin started at the bottom, politically, and Palin worked her way up.
Mom is what you’d consider a right leaning moderate.
I know it’s anecdotal, but, my Mom is not known for changing with the winds. Mom is a little old school in a lot of ways.
Blake,
Jeff found that yesterday and thought Ziegler “comes across as a man scorned”. When he was defending her, Palin-haters dismissed Zielger as a “fanboi” and not reliable. Now, I’m sure they’ll hold up his opinion as “proof” that she is “cold, calculating and just in it for the money”.
I have to wonder what’s really going on…
This is just one more piece in the already voluminous body of evidence that Trig is not Sarah. Notice “God” (if that’s his real name) doesn’t specifically identify the name of “mom and dad”. More proof for Sullivan’s case, not that he needs any- his
Note to self: refresh page before posting.
:: facepalm ::
It strikes me as rather arrogant for Ziegler to claim that Obama will easily beat Palin in the general, just by using the quitter theme.
Why does Ziegler basically accept that Palin will win the primary and run in the general? After all, Ziegler also makes the claim that Palin’s fan base is rabid but not that deep. It’s a bit of a leap to automatically assume Palin wins the GOP primary.
Anyway, I missed the comments yesterday on that article.
My bad, not paying attention.
That first graf of commentary was excellent and apt. I am no fan of Palin’s–her warmth and spiritual strength here are amply in display are immediately cancelled out when she happily stages a reality show/campaign infomercial–but she has been ill-treated by the media and her political detractors. It has been an unfair and grotesque fight.
Sullivan, Griffin and Garafalo have too much money and face to lose. Their identities have been constructed to wage war against these sorts of public displays of traditional beliefs and mores. This letter is why they get up in the morning. Ironically, they all had decent, profitable careers that brought them to the pinnacle before they evolved into…haters. I’m not talking about the “haters” that is substituted for “critics” or “ballbreakers,” but actual hatred. They literally hate, without remorse, or balance. Worse, they do it for money and prestige.
I have no real idea what Jen Rubin or Krauthammer should apolgize. They simply see a Palin candidacy as being bad news. Maybe, maybe not. But lumping them in with the three above is unfair.
This is one hell of a post, JG.
Roddy,
They, like you (“I am no fan of Palin’s–her warmth and spiritual strength here are amply in display are immediately cancelled out when she happily stages a reality show/campaign infomercial”) will make a pro forma nod toward something positive about her, and then follow up with a sniff of disdain and procede to go through numerous reasons why she isn’t “serious” or “credible”, etc, etc. It is the strong whiff of snobbishness that wafts up from such that is so offputting.
Rubin and Krauthammer don’t rise (or should it be descend?) to the level of Garafalo or Sullivan or Griffin – but they are working toward the same end. Marginalization of what she is, stands for and represents – all with the effect, as Jeff says of causing us to lose slower, but still lose.
Given Rubin’s and Krauthammer’s prior history they are in no position to pronounce on the credibility of any grassroots supported candidate. that they pretend to be in a position to do so certainly does warrant an apology.
[…] Jeff Goldstein: The truth is, we have allowed a media culture to form in this country that is rotten to its core. It is petty, spiteful, vindictive, triumphalist, arrogant, profoundly biased, and undoubtedly left-leaning. We have given this media the power to shape our narratives, inform our decisions, and — because there are few if any consequences for doing so — create and destroy individuals with the impunity of a hive minded mob embarking on a wilding. […]
“Screw you, proggy” is fast becoming my favourite retort. I can get behind anyone who campaigns on it.
LtC John,
What can i tell you? The woman puts me off–Concerned about privacy violations and then turning her family space into a reality show. I’m no better than her as a human, nor am I smarter, I just think we can do better in terms of candidates. That makes me a snob? I’ll plead guilty then. I think we both know that there was once a time you could disagree with a candidate and not have it reflect on your character however.
I have to be candid though–She has been the target of the most vile campaign ever, designed to smear and denigreate her and her family, simply for personal gain. I feel terribly for her. America could do a lot better for leaders and this is the reason why we don’t get them.
Did the TV cameras come in uninvited? It’s not a violation of privacy when you invite someone in.
Vampires taught me that the hard way.
Has it occurred to you that she came to the conclusion the privacy violations were going to occur in any event, but that if she signed up for the reality show, she could negotiate terms under which she could control the exposure of her family, ensure that no violations came about through the show itself? Furthermore, the reality show might help relieve the pressure that leads to creeps renting the house next door or platoons of reporters salivating over the release of her official emails.
Roddy,
Fine, she puts you off – that does not make you come across as snobbish – its just that I can all but see you waving your hands in a batting-away-a-fart manner when even thinking that this vile woman be let near the levers of power. Could you not simply say that you disagree with her policy positions or such -without the spite leaking through? Then Jeff would not have to launch vampire remarks (which frankly, would be our loss – that was pretty funny…).
“Sod off, swampy” also has a certain ring. (That was commodity brokers harrassing the global warmenists.)
#28 RoddyBoyd:
“… I just think we can do better in terms of candidates.”
By all means, let us have better candidates, but I think that your criticism of Mrs. Palin is less about how good a job she would do based on her ability and more about things that are utterly irrelevant. Such as her accent, her family life,what she has done to make money, and so on. It has nothing to do with reason and everything to do with emotion.
By all means, let us have better candidates, but I think that your criticism of Mrs. Palin is less about how good a job she would do based on her ability and more about things that are utterly irrelevant.
Yes and no. You can like – even love – her political convictions, but these “irrelevancies” carry with them even greater significance when someone’s only meaningful political experience is two years governing an exotic state with half the population of Anthony Weiner’s congressional district.
No, LTC John, Roddy can’t simaply say that he disagrees with her policy positions – because his dislike of Sarah Palin has nothing to do with her positions and everything to do with her not knowing her place.
Being a governor for two years, after working long in local politics, provides more practical experience than spending all your time inside the Beltway trying to get David Brooks to stop buying you wine coolers.
Roddy’s opinion is very widely held in America I think. Very. What perplexes me about Palin and why it’s so hard to decide whether or not she’s running is that it’s confuzzling how she could watch Paul Ryan roll out an incredibly high-level policy response to our little country’s fail and woe, endorse that plan, and yet not feel compelled to engage the discussion at a level on par with where Mr. Ryan has set the bar.
So even as she plays make-pretendsies she’s a candidate, I rather think she’s not running. Not this year anyhoo.
Experience at what, though? Convincing Alaskans who hunt but don’t fish, Alaskans who fish but don’t hunt and Alaskans who do both that the oil companies should cut them bigger checks?
And we should care what one of the Vultures thinks?
No doubt — the lack of a Harvard degree, the lack of a penis, the lack of a high-status media job…
Hell, the fact that “happytwat” agrees with you should send you running to recant. That piece of cancerous shit… well, let’s just say he’s a perfect model of the country’s “fail and woe”.
The 21st century is when everything changes. And we need someone what’s ready I think Mr. Crawford. We can’t just dig up poor dead old Reagan and serve him up like a Christmas goose whilst invoking grit and moxie and heart and expect The People to respond as if we had actually presented them with something relevant.
Some observations:
I do not know if Sarah Palin has read Sun Tzu, Niccolo Machiavelli or Saul Alinsy. If not then she understands them instinctively. From Sun Tzu, she has them thoroughly confused. From Machiavelli she has identified her opponents and knows how to deal with them individually. From Alinsky she has learned rule five: “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” Those and the aphorism “Revenge is a dish best served cold”.
Her recent bus tour tricked the media into beclowning itself. I am coming to believe that the Paul Revere flap was a little trap she set.
She was obviously aware of the timing of the release of the emails. She knew what was in them. She infuriated them to the point that they went on a witch hunt. That’s a fact. A New York Times editor stated “This is not a witch hunt”. She got millions of dollars worth of free publicity and the media got egg on its face – rotten egg.
Krauthammer made a comment that she should have spent the last three years studying the issues. A couple of days later she went on Hannity and dropped a hint about a third party in response to Hannity’s inquiry about the subject. Both she and the Tea Party have adamantly rejected any suggestion of a third party. This was a shot across Krauthammer’s bow. “You’ve seen how I deal with my enemies, don’t make me do it to you”. Don’t believe me? Keep on eye on Charles.
There’s an enormous amount of work to be done to reverse the corrosion of our principles over the last century. There will be enormous resistance from vested interests. It’s going to be a long slog. The best that we can hope for is to plug the biggest leaks and change course toward safe harbor. It’s been said that politics is the art of the possible. We need leadership that knows where the leaks are and has the political skills to accomplish what is possible.
That’s why I’m for Sarah.
Don’t ask me to do the work for you. There 24K emails now out there available to look through.
But I will grant you this — being governor of Alaska is probably a lot simpler than the rather arduous task of taking on a Senator seat in either Delaware or Illinois, then spending the rest of your time voting to give people free shit.
Incidentally, you don’t have to get behind Palin. First off, she’s not in the race yet. Secondly, there are those in the race who are solid on principles. It’s just from where I stand, Palin is the most battle-hardened and the most thoroughly vetted. It is clear that the media and many establishment politicians have tried their best to sink her, and they’ve come out of it worse off than she, in many instances. People see that. They’ve only really begun scratching the surface on Cain, and even Bachmann has much left to unearth.
And trust me: this election they will try every last thing to win one last time to finish off the job of re-imagining the US in the image of a more sprawling European social democracy, complete with all sort of centralized, bureaucratic mandates to be followed by each of the neutered states. Which is why it makes sense to run someone who has been thoroughly exposed and has come through it with her fight intact.
In the end, so long as you back a conservative / classical liberal, I’m fine with whomever you choose — so long as there aren’t so many in the field that they cancel each others votes and we get the GOP establishment’s Romney / Huntsman dream ticket.
But I will grant you this — being governor of Alaska is probably a lot simpler than the rather arduous task of taking on a Senator seat in either Delaware or Illinois, then spending the rest of your time voting to give people free shit.
Exiting after two years would certainly suggest that the Alaska governorship is more difficult than all that.
Once again, the emails show exactly why that decision was made, and just how principled it was. The Democrats were out to destroy her, bankrupt her family, and — and I truly believe this — they would have seen her put in prison had she stayed on.
Our side would do well to stop helping perpetuate the left’s narrative of events. What’s remarkable is, they underestimated her. She’s still standing. And they can’t flippin’ believe it.
I agree that Palin is battle hardened at this point, and that’s a good thing. But in advertising parlance, she’s a lifestyle brand. That’s good for Sarah Palin as a political entity, but somewhat useless for anyone investing with expectations of Microsoft-like returns, so to speak.
Obama is a brand, as well. A big brand of fail.
Palin can sell Americanism. She is a happy warrior who loves the idea of this country — and embodies it, in many ways — and I believe that were that idea juxtaposed against an Obama with a demonstrable record who is still trying to sell us on “it’s all Bush’s fault,” having someone like Palin who is unafraid to call what are disastrous policies disastrous policies, and lies lies, would been a great asset in taking back the country from the socialists who we aren’t allowed to call such.
Our side would do well to stop helping perpetuate the left’s narrative of events.
But I’m not. Sure, I was deliberately being a dick, but I’m not who needs convincing about Palin. Nor is Roddy or the chirpy dipshit Angeleno really. The point is, however, that she has done her part as well as the media in painting herself as an unserious person with the reality shows and the like since quitting. Nobody outside of her established constituency is going to do the mental gymnastics required to take her seriously.
If she runs then we shall see just how many there are who are standing/sitting/lying down and sleeping outside under the glorious [seriously serious] rainbow of O!
I’ve been watching this rodeo since about 1952. This next election is only superficially about policy for the portion of the electorate that determines the outcome. The people are troubled and sore afraid. They went for the “The Savior” in 2008 and found a false god. To me this most resembles 1980. Ronald Reagan was the knight on a white charger. A leader of men. Time for Joan of Arc.
The reality show didn’t paint her as unserious. At least, not to me. And it provided her the wherewithal to circumvent traditional sources of funding to get her message across.
Not every candidate is a blue blood with deep pockets, nor can every candidate rely on the GOP establishment to back their play. She needed the money to go around them.
You ask me, she’s played it pretty flippin’ well, to this point — against considerable odds, not the least of which is that even the GOP insiders have been trying to take her out.
And yet here she is, watching the media jackals pore over her emails and coming out smelling like a rose. One who can kill wolves from a chopper with a rifle.
it was more that she was filming the reality show while someone else was finishing her term as governor I think
“while someone else was finishing her term as governor I think”
political office as indentured servitude.
The reality show didn’t paint her as unserious. At least, not to me. And it provided her the wherewithal to circumvent traditional sources of funding to get her message across.
Not every candidate is a blue blood with deep pockets, nor can every candidate rely on the GOP establishment to back their play. She needed the money to go around them.
You ask me, she’s played it pretty flippin’ well, to this point — against considerable odds, not the least of which is that even the GOP insiders have been trying to take her out.
And yet here she is, watching the media jackals pore over her emails and coming out smelling like a rose. One who can kill wolves from a chopper with a rifle.
But again, who are you trying to convince here? I can reason that all out in my head because I care enough to be bothered. But we’re talking about a woman who was mayor of Mayberry, became governor of Northern Exposure and quit after two years. Then she made a reality show, ruined Dancing with the Stars and damn near killed Gabrielle Giffords with her own moose gun.
I guess the simplest way to put it is that as a practitioner of the dark arts, I know how to destroy her and how to destroy Obama. But I really have no idea how to destroy Obama with her as the centerpiece.
“became governor of Northern Exposure and quit after two years.”
you folks like her chained to desk so the left can attack her. she preferred a leveler playing field. turns out the leftoids suck at mano a mano with a girl.
An awful lot of people have tried that and failed with Palin.
Mano a mano with a girl. I love it!
Sarah got the nickname “barracuda” when she led her high school basketball team to the state championship on a gimpy ankle. Now she’s “Mama Grizzly”. Barracuda is her sweet, feminine side.
An awful lot of people have tried that and failed with Palin.
Only if one defines winning the way Charlie Sheen does.
If I ever consult with a Pokemon over how to vote in a presidential election, somebody please shoot me.
“Only if one defines winning the way Charlie Sheen does.”
hanging out with porn actresses?
Sarah Palin is well on her way to becoming a conservative Jesse Jackson figure I think Mr. McGehee. That seems to be her political role model near as I can tell. Identity politics and saucy locutions and permanent outsider status what is to be celebrated and revered.
So through that lens she will run … in 2016.
She knows she only gets to pull that trigger once and have it be meaningful. She’ll bide her time.
Hanging out with porn actresses while unemployed and increasingly unemployable was more what I was going for.
That seems like it would be a bad strategic move hf, given that Barack Obama is a brain-dead tweef who’ll be gone for just about anybody the Republicans put up in 2012. Gov Palin would then be in the position of having to run against a sitting Pres. Are the third party prospects going to be that strong so soon? I kinda doubt it. But then I’ve missed simpler things before.
@happyfeet,
Palin is sui generis. Look it up. Doesn’t happen very often.
I don’t think with the negatives Palin brings to the table from the git-go that she can beat Obama cause I think she energizes his base way way too much, and I think she unifies Team R far less than other candidates as well. So she’s better off waiting. I think a year in politics is still a year in politics, and I don’t see Obama as being as sure-fire vulnerable as all that. Not to a Pawlenty Romney Perry anyway. But I’m curious to see more of Mr. Perry.
If a sitting R president forced her to wait til 2020, that’s even better for her, really. Sashay shantay and all that.
Um, ok, if you want to change hypothetical horses mid-stream, though I thought the scenario was *not run 2012 > run 2016*, which, 2016 is neither 2012 nor 2020. But 2020 might be doable I guess.
Obama’s Democrat base is unemployed with no equity in their homes, too. He’s going to lose many of them.
His real base — progressives — make up maybe 20% of the country.
Palin: I’ll take the boot of the throat of American energy and businesses, cut corporate tax rates to draw business back to the US, repeal a largely inefficient and job killing health care “reform” in which a 15-person unelected panel, rather than a competitive market, determines whether you get treatment, and will unleash American innovation and industry.
Obama: Bush did it. And Palin is dopey. Now, who wants to stick with my plan to increase energy costs 40-60%, further destroy the private sector, and kill off the currency, while running a real unemployment number of close to 20%? And honestly, weren’t you getting tired of all those stores open in your malls?
Seems like a winning message to me. Plus, some people act as if the 2010 elections didnt happen.
ot hey boss debate open thread?
Mr. sdferr I just think this year is too abrupt cause she’ll get tagged as a failed presidential candidate way too soon for her purposes. If Obama wins then I think she’d be hard-pressed not to run in 2016 or risk alienating her fans. But if an R beats Obama, she gets a reprieve from running til 2020, and that’s her best-case scenario what maximizes her earnings and influence I think.
Codswallop.
I’d be glad to entertain the possibility of Obama winning the next race if anyone could spell out how that’s remotely achievable for him (‘specially since such a case would simultaneously and necessarily detail his path to victory, thus enabling any and all counters to be prepared ahead of time). Thing is, I just can’t see it myself, not only because of the way things are now (which may change slightly, though we cannot expect radically for the better) but the way brain-dead Barry already is (which can’t change).
@Jeff G,
I am in substantial agreement with you. Where I differ is in what motivates sea changes in society. Most of the isms are grounded in the concept of man as an economic animal. The great movements in history have more, if you will, spiritual motivations.
In our own history we note the tsunamis – revolution, abolition, suffrage, abstinence and civil rights. Economics played a minor, perhaps insignificant, role.
I sense one of those times. This is not an argument about policies. It is a debate about fundamentals. As always, I place my faith in We The People. It gives me comfort.
Roy
we’ll see Mr. sdferr but inasmuch as some people act like the 2010 elections didn’t happen, it’s also easy to overlook the biggest lesson of 2008:
Americans are borderline retards.
Obama’s re-election is dependent on 3 very doable things I think. Instilling fear. Driving up the Team R candidate’s negatives. A hard-working media.
Bonus if he gets a remotely viable third party candidate in the mix.
The biggest known unknown is where will the energy level be on either side.
But yeah I think it’s hard not to get re-elected when you have tons of money and a slavishly prostrate media.
I guarantee you President Obama is afraid to run against Sarah Palin. Obama has waged an unrelenting proxy war against Sarah Palin and it has only brought Palin more attention. Remember, when Sarah Palin was announced as the VP running mate of McCain, the Obama campaign started campaigning against Sarah Palin. The Obama campaign was that shocked and worried. And Obama has not stopped running against Sarah Palin.
As soon as anyone in the Obama camp mentions “quit after two years” the Palin camp will immediately counter attack with Obama leaving the Senate before his term was up, how much Obama has failed in general, etc. I think the Palin camp realizes reacting doesn’t get the job done. If anything, the Palin camp has taken to heart “audacity, always audacity.”
I would love to see Sarah Palin run against Obama, because I know Palin gets under the skin of the president. And more than likely, we’d get to see just how brittle Obama actually is.
Bottom line, I want someone who will go after President Obama from day one. I’m sure Palin would. It looks like Pawlenty might have the cajones. Herman Caine probably does too.
As one among the few hundred million borderline retarded Americans I’d assert we’re probably not all that exceptional in that regard. So. Still, even marginal retards catch up with the phenomena eventually so long as the phenomena are persistent enough, and it seems to me brain-dead Obama’s trailing ruin has been and will be sufficiently persistent to persuade plenty ‘nough of us not to make the same awful mistake twice, media friends or no media friends.
but Mr. sdferr that can be true yes yes as far as it goes but if Team R puts someone in office what is unmatched to the horrific urgency of the challenges our little country faces then it’s all for naught
our doom it is upon us
time to unleash the goddamn kraken
ok who has the keys to the kraken lair I thought you had them
I’m too simple to expect a miracle I think. First job, loose brain-dead tweef Obama. Second job, let people loose. Third job, don’t get run over.
Those other necessities are just going to have to wait their turn.
ok but putting an inadequate-to-the-task bim in the white house can have horrific consequences for that party’s legislative majority or lack thereof two years’ hence
That was one of my takeaways from that 2008 thinger.
But I suppose you’re right about the steps.
What a terrific post. Thank you, Jeff. You sure are in fine form tonight.
(Unlike some people who have just been allowed back, who sure don’t know when to shut up, whose comments I have quickly learned once again to skip over.)
I really liked reading this:
“Our side would do well to stop helping perpetuate the left’s narrative of events. What’s remarkable is, they underestimated her. She’s still standing. And they can’t flippin’ believe it.”
A good thing to dwell on.
Adding to your summary at 67, if I may be so bold… with the Middle East in disarray, Palin: We need to get serious about national security and foreign policy, extend our military power to protect the interests of America and its allies, and not provide support to those who wish us harm. Obama: I think the State Department knows about that stuff.
Great comments, Roy, I appreciate your contribution.
For folks like Carin and Blake’s mom who are just getting interested in who Sarah Palin is, I recommend her book Going Rogue. Skim it if you’re short of time; it explains a lot.
With you I sure would like to have a better one than a worser one to put in the various jobs that got to be done — including those other jobs way more important than the executive — I just don’t think I’ll have much say so over these outcomes.
Shit, snarfles for supper again?
Frickin’ pickacheap.
no but me mostly I want to hear Mr. Daniels’ message one more time before the lights dim and we are all left to merely endure in the cold darkness of unfreedom
I want someone what can tell us what matters and why and not be pandering.
Please?
I’ll clean my room every day and water the roses and not spray any water on the leaves cause of that’s how they get fungus you said.
geoffb posted his good speech over in the pub for you to read if you want.
Dear Sarah,
Thank you for the kudos. I am new to the community here. Not to the blog, but WordPress ain’t the easiest thing to deal with. Hi y’all. Looking forward to jawing with you.
Love,
Roy
If I ever appear to take seriously the opinion of a Pokemon about anything, somebody please shoot me. Sideways. With a swordfish.
4) oh farking hell
:: sigh ::
Prison?
They wouldn’t have stopped until she and/or most of her family were dead.
They firebombed her fucking church. Fer crissake, the left has been egging people on to kill her since about ten minutes into her convention speech.
Amazing how easily the left’s lies slip from your fingers.
Been practicing it?
In reading through the Palin emails, it is striking how efficient and supportive she is as an executive or manager. She manages the big picture and allows her staff to manage the day to day stuff. Her emails are full of followups with her people supporting what they are doing and shaping the message that needs to get out. All in all a model of teamwork. Hire competent folks and let them do their thing, shape and guide the ship and make sure everyone is headed for the same destination. Sounds like the very model of a modern major president.
Contrast that with the disarray of the current admin’s idiotic handling of even the most mundane matters. They all step on each others dicks as they clamor for the spotlight and the glory.
And as to Alaska being an exotic little backwater that isn’t much harder to manage that Mayberry – remember that she was the only governor given the highest security clearance and security briefings due to Alaska’s ICBM and other defensive postures that the US takes against Russia and China. Don’t seem to recall any leaking of national security secrets from that neck of the woods. :cough: Rockefeller, Kerry :cough:
BTW, is it just me or is Bachmann in love with the first person pronoun thing just like Obama? This ‘debate’ is illuminating.
So now she’s a lunatic drug addict?
Don’t tell me — you prefer another Harvard-educated lawyer with a penchant for socialized medicine. Because the last one worked so fucking well.
Me, I want an American president.
At least she was smart enough to get off the crazy train while it was just financial ruin they were facing.
Seems like a winning message to me. Plus, some people act as if the 2010 elections didnt happen.
It’s the only message. Unfortunately, Palin hasn’t shown any ability to sing it to anyone who doesn’t already know the lyrics, and the media isn’t going to fill in the gaps and soften her edges the way they did for the telepromptered fuckstick. Quite the opposite will happen, obviously.
For all the talk about the absence of Harvard degrees and an inside the beltway pedigree, – as though the absence of these things are themselves qualifications – the universe of people who put a premium on those things is pretty damned small. We tend to elect governors, not legislators, after all.
But when our betters say she’s stupid and her communication skills are such that it is VERY easy for people to believe, you’ve got a rather sizable problem. She has gotten a little better, but nowhere near good enough for prime time. The odd thing, of course, is that the Sarah Palin of her convention speech, no baggage real or manufactured, hit it out of the park. But subsequently she hasn’t shown any indication that she can paint a picture, capture peoples’ imagination, and, most importantly, close the deal on the reluctant or unwilling.
But I suppose that all of this is what primaries are for, if she even runs.
But We The People didn’t go to Harvard, so clearly can’t be trusted with any power.
So now she’s a lunatic drug addict?
Don’t tell me — you prefer another Harvard-educated lawyer with a penchant for socialized medicine. Because the last one worked so fucking well.
Me, I want an American president.
You should channel that perpetual rage of yours into something productive like killing hobos.
Ronald Reagan — Eureka College
George H W Bush — Yale
Bill Clinton — Yale JD
George Bush — Harvard MBA
Barak Obama — Harvard
Mitt Romney (presumptive nominee) — Harvard MBA/JD
Have we done better with the Ivy League, or the cow colleges?
You don’t know fuck about her communication skills except what you’ve been told to think.
Seriously, man, shouldn’t you go pop a valium and make mad sweet love to your blowup doll?
I’ll take Cow Colleges for $1,000 Alex – they at least know the proper use for bullshit and can apply it without giving the entire fucking country e coli.
@Crawford,
Couldn’t quite figure out whether that was sarcasm or not.
I grew up not far from Harvard. In my life I have known some very competent people with Ivy League degrees. By competent I mean you can find their names at the top of professional directories. I have also met a number of poseurs. That’s French for arrogant assholes. Credentials mean you are twenty-ish and passed another exam. Has little to do with real life.
Roy
Gonna take a lotta brats (or red velvet cake) to fill that black pit o’ hate.
I’m glad to hear it, Roy. Me, I’ve been making that case for some time now — down to and including the very assumptions about language that inform and institutionalize our epistemology. I have rejected the GOP except insofar as they are willing to adopt classical liberalism and legal conservatism as non-negotiable bedrock principles.
Doesn’t get any more about fundamentals than that.
“For all the talk about the absence of Harvard degrees and an inside the beltway pedigree, – as though the absence of these things are themselves qualifications “
Absence of a beltway pedigree is definitely a qualification for me.
“But subsequently she hasn’t shown any indication that she can paint a picture, capture peoples’ imagination, and, most importantly, close the deal on the reluctant or unwilling. “
Inability to close the deal with the unwilling is a deal breaker huh? You’re hard.
I’m not that hard. By the unwilling, I don’t mean moistening Janeane Garofalo’s yeast hatchery, just regular people who are all in on the caricature.
I’m not that hard.
Neither is Hillary’s strap on after that Garofalo viz… EYEBLEACH!!!
[…] also whined yesterday, in part, about people letting Andrew Sullivan off the hook. Well, Jeff didn’t. ShareDelicious Dan CollinsDan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he […]
OT: I was out at my son’s baseball practice getting eaten by mosquitoes while the GOP debate ran live. I recorded it and have just started watching it.
About 20 minutes in, some GOP delegate for Bush in 2004 stands up and asks how the GOP is planning on keeping him — he said he was just a regular Republican, and he wasn’t down with all that TEA Party extremist stuff — and I immediately thought to myself, uh, if the choice is between a TEA Party candidate and Obama, you’d move to Obama? And you’re a Republican?
There, in a nutshell, is the problem with establishment GOP types. And why the party might not be worth saving.
Jeff, did any of the GOP hopefuls challenge the premise of the question?
Obviously, the delegate has accepted the extremist definition of the TEA party.
Pretty simple to respond to that, along the lines of “Do you really consider the Constitution to be extreme?”
@Jeff G,
I have been a Republican since I was a kid in the 1950s. I had a paper route where I delivered the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald Traveler. I was told that the Globe was for the Democrats and the Traveler was for the Republicans. I surely didn’t understand the distinctions, but the Traveler customers tipped three times what the Globe folks did. Lesson learned.
I have always been a 51% Republican. It just seemed that every time I cast a ballot the R was the better choice than the D. That has changed. The Democratic Party, once the noble party of Daniel Moynihan and Henry Jackson, has been captured by radicals. The sight of the riots at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago was the catalyst for the “Solid South” switching from D to R.
The Republican Party succumbed to the lure of the gravy train. I am no longer loyal to the party today but I totally agree with the Tea Party’s strategy of taking over the party at the local level as the most efficient means of taking back our heritage.
Roy
Jeff, RINO trap.
Don’t think the media and the dems aren’t above trying to force the tea party to 3rd party candidates. Most of these candidates are just dumb enough to fall for the ‘run to the middle to get elected’ spiel…
Well-written and substantive post, JeffG. Bookmarked.
Markos! Long time no see!
That Vampire line is classic. I hope I remember to reference you if I use it.
31. I will reconsider my tone. Though one poster isn’t going to hurt or help her in any way, she has suffered enough and I am NOT trying to say that support for her positions is something that is to frowned upon. I accept the criticism.
33. Mikey, come on. I went to a mid-level Jesuit school and am hardly in a position to dictate to anyone in terms of credentials. Your comment is unfair. Her accent is what it is. I don’t like Palin as a candidate but I’m not rejecting her humanity. I guess it’s ugly not to like reality show families but well, I’ll be ugly. It was a fine premise–Alaska–but the whole “Palin meets Kate Plus 8” is reminiscint of when Scooby Doo started “meeting” the Globetrotters and sonny and Cher. Politics is largely staged. So, too, her life. Glad she banked some scratch, but there again, I though the Fox contract and book deals were for that.
39. Rob Crawford I believe. Long the ugliest poster here not named Thor. Yuck. Bitterness and anger, and little wit.
Happy: She’s a human. Give her a break or be funnier about it. Also, I have told you how tiring your speech pattern schtick is, right?
Abe: my next book will feature you. Sue me if needs be. [Actually putting it together now.]
That’s the main reason I’ll support her to the bitter end, the shotgun attacks that take in a lot of good people as collateral damage. I don’t like having my candidates ‘selected’ by New York City sorts; as a matter of fact, by anyone living in any of the overpopulated and near-dead ‘burgs that seem to ooze support for blue-blooded elites. Yes, Frenchy Revolutionary thoughts, sorry. But there’s places in this nation I really, really don’t care for.
“Rob Crawford I believe. Long the ugliest poster here not named Thor. Yuck. Bitterness and anger, and little wit. “
Says you.
Bitterly.
@111 Roddy,
Jesuit school? Your voice doesn’t comport with the Jesuits I have known,
Roy
I’m liking what I hear from just about all the candidates so far (I’m about an hour in). I think Santorum can be a bigger player than some have suggested, based on his performance the first hour.
Oh. Just got an email from the National Journal telling me that “political insiders” polled said Romney DOMINATED, while Pawlenty lost.
Imagine! A poll of political insiders going for Romney. Why, what’s next? A steady rain of frogs and crickets? Charles Bronson in a skirt?
(Too be fair, they threw some love to Bachmann, as well. But that’s because they want to keep Palin out).
Uh oh … this letter of Palin’s has only reinforced Sully’s delusion that Trig is not her’s
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/06/the-divine-prescience-of-sarah-palin.html
would someone PLEASE commit that idiot?
(and I came by the link in the comments on the LA times article JeffG links above … the bile in the comments against Palin as “insane” and “delusional” because she DARED speak FOR GOD!!!” Yikes)
Mr. Roddy where in this thread did I say anything at all particularly nasty about Palin? I certainly didn’t deny her humanity. She’s human and I didn’t even address the Trig thing I’ve always thought that was her business and not very relevant in terms of politics.
Her negatives are too high to take her seriously as a candidate for president is mostly what I said I think, and I think I said I doubt she’ll be actually running.
But I didn’t say anything terribly mean at all. And definitely nothing worse than I’d say about any of the Team Rs running so far. They are a very lackluster and unimpressive bunch. But they are all very human. Except for maybe Romney.
‘feets, you’ve baggage. Memories are long; why, I just conjured up listening to Nixon’s resignation speech on AM radio! For kicks and giggles!
indeed Mr. serr8d but what’s a little pikachu to do? The pikachu handbook is silent in these matters. But if anything I said about Palin in this thread crosses “the line” then the line is stupid.
Expand your horizons, ‘feets, to at least encompass the blog you’re reading. Remember when you said naasty things about Darleen?
I do. That was very untoward and uncalled for, really.
Palin – Tebow 2012~!
(Something tells me you’d better never let Mr. Tebow hear you speak ill of his mother in person… )
Palin is just a cult figure anymore Mr. serr8d. Mainstream acceptance continues to elude her.
good lord, serr8d, I bet he murdered that ball!
Hi Darleen nice to see you I hope your summer is off to a promising start.
ok I have to go for reals now I will see you later
HF, when “mainstream” thinks Tina Fey is Palin, it isn’t Palin responsible for the eluding.
Newspapers buy ink by the barrel-full, as the saying goes. No public figure could survive half as good with half the insane hatred directed at them as Palin has.
@feets,
We’re all aware of “what everyone says”. If it were that simple we wouldn’t be up this late drinking gin and bitching. What is it that you think?
Roy
Re: Tebow’s guns. Meh. Okay, I guess.
Exactly what is this, if not that? They’re reporting her basically telling them to go fuck themselves. They simply Can’t. Quit. Sarah. Palin. The lady who might could maybe run for POTUS. Possibly. Or not.
Mr. Pablo I think mainstream acceptance is sort of a you know it when you see it thing and I have to be honest with you – with Palin I just don’t see it.
Boss
I don’t think you should be allowed anywhere NEAR a golf club … ;-)
“while someone else was finishing her term as governor I think”
Questions for those not in the arena:
1. Who exactly did she hurt (besides herself) by laying down her sword? 2. Who did she help? 3. Is valor no longer recognized much less appreciated any more?. 4. Has chivalry taken permanent leave in this country?
And finally,
5. Should I be more upset at the force of evil that thrives or the force of good that stands idly in fear?
Mr. Danger I think at the time her abrupt resigation mostly capped a sense that with Palin it’s always drama drama drama.
She was kinda getting away from that when bam she did her blood libel thing after that one lady got shot.
hf
so Palin should have stayed and let her family and the state bleed?
and she was blood libeled after Gifford’s was shot … she was directly blamed for the shooting, what she wasn’t to defend herself?
And the sweet letter she wrote about Trig, the PDSers are citing it as evidence of her insanity and proof that Trig is Bristol’s kid.
PDSers are no more rational than Truthers & Birthers.
Darleen if Palin wanted to be a for reals contender for the presidency she needed to finish her term I think. If she wanted to become a cable news star then she played it exactly right, and nobody should judge her for that.
Funny, I thought at the time that she was always about principle, principle, principle. Like when she resigned from that board and went public with the shenanigans that she witnessed and it got cleaned up and some guys went to jail and resigned and stuff. As for the blood libel thing… OMG. She was in Alaska minding her business (or as you call it ‘getting away from that’) when Kos etal shone the light on her with their accusations. Guess it’s drama drama drama to refuse to wear the noose. Go meekly to the gallows and the pikachu will lay a wreath on your grave.
Yes feets, but who was directing the play?
And who has a choice to skip the play and go to a high school game?
I think I’ll take the game. Imperfect as it is, at least the performers are earnest.
“Darleen if Palin wanted to be a for reals contender for the presidency she needed to finish her term I think”
And what if she just wanted to do what was right?
How many of the men included their family stats in their open?
And to hell with her state and her family? Is that what you want, another “fuck everyone around me I WILL have power!” politician?
Maybe she sacrificed her ever running for the Presidency because she resigned, but she did the right thing.
Danger… ha! GMTA! :-)
Well there’s reasons she’s not the Team R nominee by acclaim. I’m just saying what I think they are. What do you guys think the reasons are?
Have you forgotten Team Outlaw rule #1?
I can’t remember that one
Rule 1. Team Outlaw ? Team R
1a. It aint Team Hot Air either
This is why I was so set on Mr. Daniels I guess
That was so sad when he said he wouldn’t run and we were all thrust into a maelstrom of uncertainty and confuzzlement
Only dead fish go with the flow. Happyfoot is most certainly a dead fish and not an outlaw.
am not any such thing
Personal financial ruin is the only way she could have proven her worthiness!
O_O
Wasn’t this obsessing the reason you got a timeout a while back?
I don’t see any obsessing Mr. Norman I think quite the contrary it’s the people what are pawing through her email to find touching personal notes about her kids and what are turning out to see a non-candidate get off a bus and sign some t-shirts are more the ones exhibiting curiously obsessive cult-like behavior.
here is a song
Hate, hate, hate, hate and hate. Surely, you’re familiar.
Is that what you think they’re doing? Really?
I think quite the contrary it’s the people what are pawing through her email to find touching personal notes about her kids
Wait, wait, wait, just who demanded the emails and is pawing through ’em, hf? Are you so dishonest about Palin you are blaming HER for the MFM’s obsession to find something scandalous in the emails and because it coughs up positive stuff it is now anyone that points that out that is obsessive?
[…] media’s incredible Palingate self-beclowning about the (pointy) head and (sloped) shoulders. Then he really takes off and soars. Now, as most of you know, I’m not particularly religious. In fact, I’m agnostic — though I […]
‘feets (&c.), don’t know about the teeth, but pretty sure I got your pallor pretty much right.
Darleen both her media detractors and her fan clubbers are guilty of treating her much more like a political pin-up than as a serious candidate. And Sarah (hey let’s do a movie about me) Palin encourages them both. Who cares about her cheesy letters from God or her refreshing take on historical events? We’re in big trouble in little china.
It’s like the Palin conversation is forever about to take a substantive turn but it never do. And she’s had ample time to claim a mantle of seriousness.
And even bumble had the self-awareness to note that, “I am a screen on which people project their visions, their hopes.”
Roy:
I dont think you’ve known a lot of Jesuits then, at least recently. An argumentative lot when sober; when drunk, which is quite often, they are hopeless. It’s sad: A once vital group with much to offer the world through missions, service and teaching, they have become marginalized via assimilation into mainstream society. All those “celibate homosexuals” and left/liberals, a fair slice of today’s Society of Jesus membership, have become very comfortable with “elite” opinion and views; alternately, many broadly reject traditional views and teachings. Perhaps, to your point, they can act quite civil and refined in embracing the easy bits of Christ’s message. Regardless, welcome and I look forward to learning some things from you.
LBascom: Here’s a drill: Read what I’ve written here since 2008-2009 and read what Crawford has written. It’ll be interesting to see to whom the word “bitter” applies more accurately. I say that, you should know, having apologized or walked back any number of postings to a degree or another. I feel that if you would do a search of the term “I accept that criticism” on PW, I’d be at the forefront. There is a strong cohort of well-educated, broadly-experienced people here and I learn much from many. Until your last comment, you were one of them. Then again, I might have to walk that last line back soon enough.
Roddy
You’ll never get better until you admit you have a problem.
haps: “Mr. Danger I think at the time her abrupt resigation mostly capped a sense that with Palin it’s always drama drama drama.”
You’re disgusted by the drama? Dude, somewhere there’s a pot trying to get you to buy a looking glass.
RoddyBoyd: You don’t agree with my assesment? My experience is that the complaints aren’t on substantial things, such as policy preferences, but rather center around the little signs and symbols – accent, schooling, job, and so on. Mrs. Palin doesn’t display the correct symbols so she isn’t to be let into the club. The importance of the symbols varies from person to person, but I think it is the symbols and nothing else that drives the disdain. “She really isn’t of our type, you know.”
I will never, ever figure out why a commentariat as smart and funny as this one continues to engage the cupcake lover. I don’t get the “fun” of continuing to beat your (collective) heads against the densest substance known to man.
Where did I say I was disgusted with “the drama” Mr. Mikey?
To be clear, what I’m saying is that my sense is that Palin tends to leave an impression in people’s minds that she’s prone to getting embroiled in rather extraneous and unserious controversies and squaffles.
Baiting people to attack her Trig letter can only feed this… syndrome I think.
If her goal is to take the stage soon as a serious presidential candidate person, I don’t think it’s the sort of thing what helps her.
‘feets (&c.), don’t know about the teeth, but pretty sure I got your pallor pretty much right.
I like her a great deal. I just happen to find those who are deeply invested in her to be a perverse curiosity as generally benign as her obsessive haters are malignant.
Abe, would you categorize Jeff as a ‘perverse curiosity?’ I don’t get how you are defining someone as ‘deeply invested in her.’ Is that someone who could cast a vote for her? Someone who could hold their nose and cast a vote for her? Or someone who would actively advocate for her candidacy? ISTM that you are derisively painting with a pretty vague brush many who post here and many whom you would give considerable thought to their views if the subject was not Palin. I just don’t get it…
See your post #133, haps. If ‘disgusted’ isn’t the word you want, then feel free to pick another word, because it is quite clear that you dislike the drama very much – so much that you said drama three times.
“To be clear, what I’m saying is that my sense is that Palin tends to leave an impression in people’s minds that she’s prone to getting embroiled in rather extraneous and unserious controversies and squaffles.”
Right – when someone says outrageous things about her she should just shut-up and not fight bAck, because not fighting back has always worked so well.
“Baiting people to attack her Trig letter can only feed this… syndrome I think.”
Right – she baited them to attack this letter by how? It seems to me anyone who attacks that letter is nuts and needed no baiting whatsoever.
“If her goal is to take the stage soon as a serious presidential candidate person, I don’t think it’s the sort of thing what helps her.”
If her goal is to take the stage she should not fight back and let people define her as the demonic Caribou-Queen of the North. Because letting others define you works so well when those others only bear malice to you.
Your advice would leave her dead in a ditch.
@Roddy,
Sorry about the tardiness of my reply. Gin and sleep catch up to the best of us.
Different experiences. The Jesuits I met were men of considerable accomplishment and held in high esteem by men equally accomplished.
Roy
Mr. Mikey I think what I’m getting is more that it would be more better for Sarah if people were discussing her Medicare proposals or her thinkings about regulatory impediments to coal gasification technology development. If she were to be disciplined focused and serious I think she’d have a much better shot at shaking the caribou queen thing. It’s worth a try anyways. There just seems to be endless iterations of omg the press is being so mean to Sarah and omg the press is being so mean to Sarah and I think these iterations come at the expense of… our heroine’s character development.
#166 Coming from you, that’s rich.
Hey, I’m game. Start by saying something about her policy proposals. Anything other than complaining how other people are going on and on about things that aren’t important. Otherwise all I hear you telling her is to not fight back, and from where I observe things that is how you end up losing everything.
No, I definitely wouldn’t characterize Jeff, or anyone else for that matter, as a perverse curiosity in this regard, Stephanie. I’m speaking of a collective impression left by a sea of people who so thoroughly identify with her that any attack or criticism of her seems to be perceived in some way to be an attack on their own education, religion, social standing and way of life. There are notes of it around here, but as a general matter I think PW’ers are infinitely more concerned with drawing an ideological line in the sand than they are about the earthly essence of the GOP queso grande. I’m in full agreement on that and certainly wouldn’t hold my nose in voting for Palin should that came to pass. My problem is that the arguments in her favor are increasingly labored and riddled with blind spots, and while being dismissive of her doesn’t answer the question of “well, who?” that we’re wrestling with, I still feel it needs to be said. On occasion. For my own sanity.
Mr. Mikey this isn’t a post about her policy thinkings. I think her refusal to look at spending cuts in the defense budget is sorta foolish in a little country what’s a superpower anymore sorta the way Lindsay Lohan has a thriving acting career.
She put it in a private email 3 years ago, wingnut! What an attention whore.
[…] Limbaugh is dubious about what I’m about to say, but I’m going to re-assert it anyway (I mentioned it briefly last evening in a comment) — and do so with a degree of certitude greater than that of Anthony […]
“I will never, ever figure out why a commentariat as smart and funny as this one continues to engage the cupcake lover. I don’t get the “fun” of continuing to beat your (collective) heads against the densest substance known to man.”
I know exactly what you mean and I try really hard not to do it but every once in a while one wonders whether maybe this creature really doesn’t understand something important, and one feels that it would be easy enough to simply supply the missing information.
For example, I am considering replying to comment 166.
But that would be foolish.
Here’s a clue, feet, in the form of something that others may also find useful. Most of the big kids have probably already read this, but just in case: http://washingtonexaminer.com/politics/2011/06/amid-media-circus-palin-lays-out-policy-positions
This is good, too: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/226068/how-palin-governed-byron-york
Sarah, I can already tell you the Pokemon’s response:
Hi Sarah I already read that Byron York thing… I thought her policy pronouncements were vague at best. What does it mean to eliminate all energy subsidies and what impact would that have on energy security? I have no idear and I don’t think she does either. Her phony populism where she says America can’t afford foreign aid is cartoonish except insofar as, yes, America can’t afford a pot of lard to stick its dick in. But foreign aid a lot of times makes the difference between some influence and no influence.
Very very thin stuff all in all – and I imagine those were the best examples Byron could find.
Folks, I’m going to insert a comment I made on Roger L. Simon’s blog about last night’s debate. I’d like to get your take on it.
—-
I would like to touch on Roger’s point that being intelligent isn’t the most important qualification for a president.
I have observed all of them since Harry Truman. I have believed for a long time that the proper temperament is vital to success. Truman, Eisenhower, Reagan and both Bushes had it.
Policy differences don’t much matter at this point. None of them will be able to get their way on most of the issues that they are debating. It has taken a hundred years to get to this point. It’s gonna be a long slog trying to fix it. The ship is sinking. Our only hope is to plug the biggest leaks and change course towards safe harbor. Try to change course too quickly and it’ll go keel up and we’ll be fighting over the lifeboats.
The leaks have been clearly identified. That’s the easy part. We need a leader with the political skills to start patching the big leaks and start the course change. By political skills I don’t mean electioneering skills. It is going a large degree of true bipartisanship – not the gotcha kind that is part of the campaign buzz.
The only person that I have seen who has actually demonstrated these skills is Sarah Palin. She tore apart the establishment in Alaska despite the mighty forces clawing tooth and nail to stop her. When she was selected as the vice presidential nominee her approval rating was above 80%.
Debating policy is great fun. I do a lot of it myself. However, when I pull the lever for our most important office I look to historically proven performance.
#175 Roy:
Good question. Temperment is vital, but what is that? Here is what I think – it is being able to choose the right people for the job and it is being able to set the broad direction and delegate your people to creating the details. Effectively managing the people you selected to do a job for you. Definitely Eisenhower had that skill, and it showed.
That is what I think is necessary. Sheer intelligence is much overrated compared to knowing what you know and what you don’t know, and from where and whom to find your answers.
The ship is indeed sinking.
\
“Glub glub,” said the little ship as we all look on, horrified.
Then I remembered I had me a buy one entree get the other one for half off coupon for tasty mexican. And off we went.
@ Mikey,
You are correct but you went only halfway. The other half is that when large changes are necessary they can not be done unilaterally. There are mighty force arrayed against change that are not open to logical persuasion. You’re going after their piggy banks and they bought those congress critters fair and square.
You have to convince the Congress that going along with your proposals is the lesser threat to their reelection than the money and support they receive from those interests. The two most successful change agents were FDR and Reagan. They went over the heads of Congress and spoke to the people. That is much easier and cheaper to do with the new media.
You must also allow them to save face. You must make sufficient concessions such that their constituents don’t view them as ineffective. This means that the campaign stops upon election
This is a balance extremely difficult to pull off. I think Sarah has demonstrated such ability.
Roy
Roy:
Ah, I wasn’t looking at that persuasive aspect – you are correct there. I was looking at the managerial aspect and that is something we are seeing lacking in the Obama White House. The managerial aspect affects the persuasive aspect, either bolstering it or undermining it. It was much easier for Eisenhower to persuade people because his competence was already accepted for the obvious historical reasons. If he said “Trust me, I know how to manage this,” people were going to take him at his word because he had already shown that he could indeed manage well.
The Obama White House is having problems with their persuasion because they haven’t shown any particular mangerial competence. They can’t get the small, easy things – such as protocol – right. Errors like that remove the level of trust necessary if persuasion is going to be used. Obama is going to have a very difficult time persuading people that he knows what to do when he and his team haven’t shown any particular skill, and as you noted, a great power of the presidency is the bully pulpit.
Now, whether Mrs. Palin has the skills necessary to do teh management so as to build the trust, I think a good case could be laid out for that with the details of her management of her the governor’s office in Alaska.
@Mikey,
Excellent point. That’s why a lot of more mature people were harping on the executive experience thing. Unfortunately that wasn’t a significant factor in the campaign. This administration has the lowest level of business experience of any in memory.
This has happened to many great organizations in the private sector. Quite often it happens when the marketing guys start to run things. Throw away the theories. Experience is what works in the real world.
Roy
” Until your last comment, you were one of them.”
That was an awesome burn, keep your left up.
[…] Goldstein recently wrote a piece regarding the release of Governor Palin’s emails, highlighting the now famous message she sent to […]