Stephen Silver to Palin-drones: the bloom is off the rose, sheeple!
[…] legitimate questions have been raised about the candidate. Whether she was actually given more than minimal vetting by the McCain campaign. Whether she supported or opposed the controversial “Bridge to Nowhere” (it appears she did both at different times.) Whether she or her husband Todd ever belonged to a secessionist Alaskan political party (Todd, it appears, did; Sarah didn’t but went to their convention.) And perhaps most prominently, the controversy over the firing of a state public safety official who refused to fire Palin’s former brother-in-law (the investigation is ongoing; she has lawyered up).
Here, Silver is mostly correct, if not exactly breaking any kind of new intellectual ground: no one I’ve read has suggested that “legitimate questions” raised about Palin’s record can’t or should not be explored.
Where he is wrong, however, gives away the game: the party Todd Palin belonged to, as I’ve pointed out here before, does not include secession in its platform. It is an Alaska first party dedicated to reclaiming government land; and while some of its fringe members may believe in secession (just as there are fringe members of the Republican Party who believe in Biblical literalism, and fringe members of the Democratic Party who regret only that they “couldn’t do more” than plant explosive in government facilities), there is no evidence that I’ve seen that ties Todd Palin to that fringe. Instead, there is evidence he believes in federalism and a smaller federal government — something Governor Palin, too, purports to believe.
That the Governor acknowledged the party as welcome competition suggests that, from an ideological standpoint, she hasn’t abandoned Enlightenment principles. In this regard, she shows herself to be a reactionary only with respect to the kind of progressivist ideology favored by the left and academe, which, rather than adhere to our founding principles and the idea of natural law, base their own philosophy off of a cynical (or, if you prefer, “pragmatic”) adoption of some of the descriptions offered by post modernism and the linguistic turn.
As for Troopergate — and let’s face it, the phrase “lawyered up” is about as subtle as the rest of Mr Silver’s piece will be, which is, on the subtle scale, the rhetorical equivalent of a portrait drawn in three fat crayons — the real problem there is not with Palin’s actions, all of which were perfectly legal and in keeping with her rights as Governor, but rather with those who are orchestrating the “scandal” in such a way that its maximum “allegation effect” could prove to be the Dem’s October Surprise.
So. Strike one on Mr Silver, who continues thusly:
[…] But the problem isn’t Palin herself. It’s the utterly false and dishonest narrative the GOP has built around her.
In reaction to all this, the conservative talk radio and blogosphere universes – with marching orders from Steve Schmidt and the McCain campaign – have constructed an elaborate narrative about Palin and what has happened since her pick, and it goes something like this:
The mainstream media, or more broadly, “the left,†has made the collective decision to destroy Sarah Palin, through the daily and sometimes hourly circulation of clearly false smears. Any and all bad news or negative disclosures about the candidate are a result, completely and entirely, of this conspiracy.
The media, according to his narrative, has spread the “fictions†that Palin was never vetted, spread lies about her family and background, and it’s all based both on liberal bias and sexism. This is both false and bound to fail.
It’s false, mostly because the idea of a massive media conspiracy doesn’t even begin to stand up to scrutiny. Take it point by point: The New York Times and Washington Post have both published elaborately sourced pieces, pretty much confirming that Palin was never seriously vetted until the days before she was picked, and the campaign never even sent staff to Alaska until the day before the pick was announced.
Evidently, Mr Silver has spent a great deal of time the last few days polishing a column that arrives, for all practical purposes, stillborn.
Leaving aside the rather obnoxious suggestion that Palin supporters take their marching orders from any political flack — much less one that heads the campaign of a candidate about whom many conservatives were, at best, tepid — what strikes me as rather remarkable about the writing here is that it manages to pack so much un-nuanced reportage and unfounded assertion into so relatively few words.
To borrow Mr Silver’s rhetorical frame, let’s do take his points one by one, keeping in mind the assertion that his points pretend to service, specifically, that the GOP has built around Governor Palin an “utterly false and dishonest narrative”:
The mainstream media, or more broadly, “the left,†has made the collective decision to destroy Sarah Palin, through the daily and sometimes hourly circulation of clearly false smears. Any and all bad news or negative disclosures about the candidate are a result, completely and entirely, of this conspiracy.
Having been one of those who detailed the rash of early smears unleashed against Governor Palin, I can say for a fact that, in real time, these smears were being unleashed, just as surely as they were being documented.
But where Mr Silver tries to get cute — and much of the rest of his “argument” will rely upon this (rather obvious) rhetorical move — is in the suggestion that we sheep believe that the mainstream media and the left engaged in some sort of planned, conscious collusion; and that we also believe that “any and all bad news or negative disclosures” about Governor Palin are a “result, completely and entirely, of this conspiracy.”
First, there are many potentially negative disclosures about Governor Palin that are, as I noted earlier — and as Palin supporters (and principled journalists) have made clear — fair game, and that should in good conscience be explored by a conscientious, objective, fact-seeking media. So it is simply dishonest of Mr Silver to suggest that the “right” believes “any and all bad news or negative disclosures” are the result of some conspiracy. And in fact, such an argument tells us more about Mr Silver’s biases than it does about the rather diverse group of folk who are supporting Governor Palin, from social conservatives and GOP faithful, to right leaning libertarians and disaffected Hillary Democrats.
All of these people, Mr Silver would have us believe, are too unsophisticated to see through the machinations of a McCain campaign advisor. Whereas Mr Silver, his keen intellect having somehow pierced the fog of rhetorical war, is able to see what so many others could not.
Steroids and a lot of B-vitamins, is my guess.
Notes Silver:
The New York Times and Washington Post have both published elaborately sourced pieces, pretty much confirming that Palin was never seriously vetted until the days before she was picked, and the campaign never even sent staff to Alaska until the day before the pick was announced.
— Which, Mr Silver, being a media member and likely outraged by the accusations being launched by strawmen of his own creation against strawmen of his own creation, finds dispositive.
Of course, what Mr Silver fails to mention is that those who did the vetting on Governor Palin deny the allegations made in those “carefully sourced” pieces, in the process, answering the supposedly fraught suggestions raised by both the Times and Post pieces.
Mr Silver doesn’t bother to link either the Times or the Post. For my part, I’m happy to link the rebuttal — and to note that, both a desire to keep the Palin pick from leaking and Occams Razor (which would argue that both of the major political parties have the foresight to vet someone they are planning to include on a Presidential ticket), answer nearly every allegation made.
Nor, I should point out, do people on the right believe a media conspiracy is intentionally orchestrated; instead the argument is, and always has been, that the media — peopled as it is overwhelmingly by those who self-describe as either liberal or Democrats — suffer from selection bias. Too, the media has, per Jeff Jarvis, moved away from mere “reporting” to a different kind of journalism, one that sees itself responsible for telling the “story” — not as some open-ended set of facts intended to allow readers to draw their own conclusions, but rather as some crafted and constructed narrative determined to allow readers to read the facts correctly.
— The problem being, of course, that their idea of what readers should be taking away from a given story is pressured by their own opinions of what the lesson to be learned is — and from there, it is a short journey to taking what they believe are necessary rhetorical actions to ensure that a piece is being interpreted correctly.
Mr Silver, it would seem, is well-practiced in this regard. And so, strike two.
He continues:
Did the “mainstream media†violate Palin’s privacy in disclosing her daughter’s pregnancy? I’d say no, considering that the news was broken, on Monday, by the Palin family itself. Yes, the National Enquirer claims that it was about to break the story before the family came forward, but I don’t remember the Enquirer being considered part of the Liberal MSM Complex back when it was ending John Edwards’ career a few weeks ago.
Nor, evidently, does Mr Silver — so charmed by his own red herring, or perhaps merely just ignorant — recall that, in the case of Edwards, the media was not at all interested in pushing the story until the Enquirer threatened to break it anyway. Whereas in the case of Palin, Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic was demanding Governor Palin’s medical records as proof that she was actually the mother of Trig — in advance of the Enquirer story.
The Palin family broke the news in reaction both to the Enquirer story, and in answer to the vicious rumors that were already circulating among the mainstream press that Trig was actually the daughter of Bristol — and (in some extreme instances) that the father was someone from the family.
You know, because that’s not at all unusual when one is dealing with trailer trash, the implicit justification seemed to be.
So again, Mr Silver is acting either dishonestly, or else is showing himself to be rather slow on the uptake. Because the complaint from the right was not about the Enquirer. It was about how the mainstream press reacted to two similar “scandals” — in the first instance, refusing to dignify the Edwards story; in the second instance, pushing ahead, even, of the Enquirer story. If anything, in fact, the Enquirer story was able to put to rest the actual “scandalous” rumors that Governor Palin was claiming a grandchild as a child (well, in most minds; Sullivan, whose expertise lay far outside the realm of the vagina, continues to demand medical records, while preaching privacy in all matters that may redound to him), and merely broke the story about the pregnancy of her 17-year-old daughter. Which, last I checked, such a pregnancy is neither unusual nor illegal.
What it was instead was a way to try to disgrace the Palin family in the eyes of the kind of cartoon evangelicals and social conservatives that live in the minds of liberal elites. That it backfired only shows just how out of touch with such a constituency the media elite tend to be — which has left us with the spectacle of that same elite media, and its political sympathizers, doubling down with arguments that break sharply with the type of feminism they purport to support.
Which, in turn, has caused them even greater consternation.
— None of which gives Mr Silver pause, unfortunately:
As for the wildly untrue, “Paul-is-Dead”-like conspiracy theory about the parentage of Palin’s youngest child, it started on one blog, and was virtually ignored by the mainstream media until it was called false in light of the later news.
There is technically some truth to this: most mainstream outlets had not yet run these rumors, though many were preparing to under the guise of “this story is floating around, and therefore it is our obligation to air it” — a maneuver commonly adopted by the press, and generally only used against one side of the political divide. But it is not in dispute that the Atlantic — through Andrew Sullivan — was airing this story and lending it gravitas, the only excuse, really, other media outlets would need to pick it up and run with.
After all, the austere Atlantic Monthly is not the Enquirer, we’d be told, and so needs to be taken seriously.
And of course, Mr Silver engages in a bit of disingenuousness when he attributes the story to “one blog site” without mentioning that the site in question, the DailyKos, has published “diaries” from the leaders of the House and Senate, as well as other Democratic party power brokers — and that it organizes a national convention each year that is attended by those self-same politicians, people who wield considerable power and so pander to the considerable influence of netroots nation, the progressive base of the Democratic party.
So, you see, this “one blog site” is a bit misleading. Just as it was intended to be.
Additionally, writes Silver in a startling bit of post hoc ergo propter hoc:
The “Media Hates Palin†narrative was also sort of undermined when that very same media gave nearly universal praise to her acceptance speech.
Actually, there are a number of logical fallacies at work here, but for the sake of brevity, let me just note that, being forced to acknowledge what 37 million people witnessed is hardly proof that the media has suddenly found itself in a love affair with Sarah Palin. Instead, it suggests that those in the media who oppose the party of Palin are savvy enough to recognize that any attempts to denigrate what was clearly a well-delivered and powerful speech — not to mention an “historic” one — would likely backfire, and would show them up as naked partisans masquerading as objective journalists.
And even then, some — like the crew of MSNBC — could not resist getting in its jibes; others were less overt in their rather lame stabs at criticizing, noting only that Palin had her speech written for her, a practice I believe that is generally unremarkable, unless, as in this case, the speaker simply electrified viewers (to the chagrin of those who were hoping and predicting she’d fail). Remember, Eleanor Clift and others “literally laughed” at the Palin pick, while others in the media were caught speculating that McCain must be getting blowjobs from Governor Palin.
Evidently, her mouth was too full of near-death prickshrivel to be properly vetted.
All of which allows Mr Silver to conclude with a flourish — his argument now inexorable given the rather sloppy thinking that precedes it:
The reason this strategy can’t work is that a constant blame-the-media strategy works with the base and only the base – and this year, the Republican base isn’t large enough to win by itself. If they’re going to defeat Obama, the GOP needs to pursue some independents and undecided voters – who tend not to be persuaded by the-media’s-against-us appeals.
For a party that for decades has claimed to reject both identity politics and victim-mongering, the GOP has certainly found ways to love both in the past week.
On that second point, I wrote yesterday at length. And on the first point, Mr Silver’s assertion is quite frankly wrong.
Which is just another way of saying, strike three, Mr Silver.
Next time, bring your A game.
****
update: The Huffpo is reveling in the fact that many reporters in Alaska, along with many in the Republican party in AK, don’t much care for Governor Palin. In the first instance, who cares? In the second, well, let’s just say that defeating the party machine and rooting out its corruption tends not to make one popular with those who represent either the machine or engage in the corruption.
The Huffpo piece likewise makes the claim that Palin’s 80% approval rating is untrue — that her approval rating is 65% and falling. But such a disclosure would come as a surprise to those doing the actual polling.
Now, it is possible that Palin’s popularity has fallen off since she announced she’d be accepting the VP nod. But that would speak to Alaskans’ being disappointed in her leaving them, not to some dissatisfaction about her governing style or effectiveness.
That was a first rate Fisking if I have ever seen one!
As you asked once before, I will spread this one around… FOR FREEDOM!
Silver is the medal for 2nd place isn’t it?
Was that “nearly universal praise” before or after they reminded everyone that she has a speech writer?
You are such a gift.
But what if that was his A game?
Well done, Jeff.
Goldstein: 1
Silver’s strawman army: 0
“independents and undecided voters – who tend not to be persuaded by the-media’s-against-us appeals. ”
The Oprah brand in jeopardy
What do you mean ‘us’ Kimosabe?
Another great post! I hardly know where to begin commenting. There is plenty here to chew on.
First, there are many potentially negative disclosures about Governor Palin that are, as I noted earlier  and as Palin supporters (and principled journalists) have made clear  fair game, and that should in good conscience be explored by a conscientious, objective, fact-seeking media.
We keeping hearing from the media about their duty to “vet” Sarah Palin. What about Biden? The guy has been in the Senate for 35 years and the crack vetting team at the Los Angeles Times has yet to unearth a single negative, critical, or unflattering itenm to print about him. The Times was reduced to running a story about how “Regular Joe” likes to putter in his garden. What about Obama? Everyone in the USA has been exposed to saturation coverage of every one of Palin and her childrens imperfections. How many average voters have even heard of ACORN?
Fanfuckingtastic job Jeff.
is currently knocking back horns of mead in Strawhalla, you know.
Looking through some of Silver’s other columns, the suggestion that he doesn’t have an A game looks to be bang on.
It’s like someone made a garment composed of equal parts cliche and leftist boilerplate.
Maybe not equal parts. There’s an awful lot of cliche there.
That’s a fine loop of drawn conspiracy animation that Silver has running around in his head.
One of these days Silver and those of his ilk who drank the aqua Kool-aide of Hillary’s “vast right wing conspiracy” rant just might come to a crashing realization that conservatives and classical liberals are not the Zombie Army of the Dark Lord Rove (hallowed be his name.) This loony attitude coming on the heels of of the “call to action” E-Mails sent to Obamatrons to disrupt a talk radio show, not to mention the request sent to the DoJ to prosecute a PAC for daring to question The One’s connections to the unrepentant terrorist bomber raises both eyebrows.
no … no I won’t … argh ..can’t.help.it… BECAUSE OF TEH HYPOCRISY! *pant,pant*
Here’s a clue for you, Mr. Silver, free of charge: We are individuals loosely connected by intersecting political philosophies, not glassy eyed brain eaters. Many of us profess conservative principles while maintaining “independent” as our affiliation. The idea that any campaign manager could force us lockstep into a pied piper ambush for the sake of a candidate, be we bloggers, activists or just plain folk, is not only ludicrous but also reeks of the foul odor of desperation.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and suggest you’re aware and concerned rather than ignorant and clueless. You may thank me at your convenience.
Like CNN. From 9/1, the very day the Palin’s released their statement:
Because some nutball on the Daily Kos said so. CNN. Kyra Phillips. I used to like her.
kk, i unnerstand the bun thing.
Palin is just 5 feet tall.
dwarfish.
thus the bun, the heels.
can we have an extremely short person for President?
it will just look sillie.
cant wait for the debates….i guess she and mccain will both have to stand on a box.
short ppl, lol.
also mccains spray tan is just not working visually…..with the green background he looks just like this.
I for one don’t think the Democrats did do any vetting of Palin. And that’s why they’re going apeshit now.
Flounder
oooooh this is so grrreeeaaat
/Flounder
Extremely Short Person.
forgot caps.
Can we have someone who can’t write a fucking sentence as a pundit? Shut up, quellx.
Nishi: “Palin is just 5 feet tall. dwarfish. thus the bun, the heels. can we have an extremely short person for President?”
Why not, freakishly tall has been done. Crippled has been done. Greasy burger-eating white-trash has been done.
One a serious note, it is obvious that you’ve napped in civics again. The Constitution defines the requirements for President — there is no “you must be taller than this” sign outside the Oval Office.
Nishi Paste-bot — getting shallower by the day.
https://proteinwisdom.com/pub/?p=1423#comment-92806
Shorter Ric, don’t feed the trolls.
srsly pablow, the height thing is a killah.
we dont elect short ppl.
or cudlips either.
See the sad thing is, nishfong, all us cudlips are so stoopid we pay attention to what the candidates are saying instead of judging them purely on looks and fashion. I will try harder to be more of a fashist, if it will make seem more smarter, tho.
Democrats and their media want to utterly destroy this woman and her family. That’s immoral on several levels I think, but to do it in the cause of advancing Baracky’s socialist agenda is unconscionable I think. The things that are done in Baracky’s name are chilling. I can’t imagine what it would be like if he and his media actually attained the power they crave.
i also wudnt want a very tall preznit
or even one that was very dark or pale or had too straight or curly hair
or one that was too smart or stuupid
Someone needs to lend Nishi a copy of “The Time Machine.”
lol, this is the Visual Age.
we elect tall ppl, not achondroplastic dwarves.
they just dont seem…..commanding i guess.
look on the bright side!
even Nejad and possibly Lil Kim can look down on her!
lol, it will be a platform heels contest!
hahaha, Palin is a joke candidate.
We haven’t had a blond president in like forever. Ever? It would be historic I think.
lol! lol!
What a beautiful take-down, Jeff. You must work out.
Maybe JFK counts depending on the light I guess.
srsly pablow, the height thing is a killah.
we dont elect short ppl.
We don’t elect blacks, either, so I guess we are at a real standstill here, huh?
But he really wasn’t really blond blond.
Thomas Jeff was a redhead hf. Not a blonde sure, but close as I can come. Wait…….what about Andy Jackson?
oh thatsrite, Palin is running for veep
stooopid me
I want the wind from the blowback on these thuggish media types to be so hard it sails their little “Ship of Fools” over the edge of that “Flat-Earth” they so proudly say we right-wing-nuts believe is true.
Good thing Baracky isn’t too dark. He’s just the right shade of dark – Dark enough to solicit guilt from the liberals, but not so dark that he puts them off.
That Palin, though, she’s waaaaaay too short. And probably too stupid.
why do I keep talking about palin as if shez the canidat for pretniz?
becuz im stooooooopd i guess
sure, the repubs base is a lock for Sarah Pretty and Short.
but that wont carry America.
better to have 45% lukewarm voters and a bunch of centrist independents, than 45% rabidly enthused voters.
Palin is a polarizing candidate on abortion and creationism.
Plus…..shes Really, Really Short.
;)
Check out the update on Drudge. Oprah has responded thusly:
OPRAH’S STATEMENT: “The item in today’s Drudge Report is categorically untrue. There has been absolutely no discussion about having Sarah Palin on my show. At the beginning of this Presidential campaign when I decided that I was going to take my first public stance in support of a candidate, I made the decision not to use my show as a platform for any of the candidates. I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over.”
short peeple gots
no reisin
short peapl gotz
no resin
short peopl got
no raesn to liv
Oprah has decided who the president should be and her viewers had better get in line, chop chop.
Not to be forgotten, the Eagleton meme! Goldberg on same-ish.
eye needz prezedint whooo makez mee gasm
mccane to oldz n pail not like bama mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
eye don lyke grrrls wit glasez n to shorte
Nishi do you use marijuana?
why do I keep talking about palin as if shez the canidat for pretniz?
nishfong does it because she is an idiot politically. What I want to know is why does Obama?
this is accurate i think
the cudlips, who believe in creationism and educational romanticism (Phds for Everyone!), vs the talking class, the college educated elites, who can actually understand evolutionary biology and quantum physics.
the IQ gap.
“I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over.—
Good Luck on that Opie.
Nishi: “sure, the repubs base is a lock for Sarah Pretty and Short.
but that wont carry America. better to have 45% lukewarm voters and a bunch of centrist independents, than 45% rabidly enthused voters.”
Someone obvious doesn’t understand the difference between “registered voters” and “likely voters.” The polls are tightening up, and the whole of McCain’s bounce not yet measured.
Lastly, Nishi, you obviously are still hung up on the popular vote.
All other factors held equal, McCain needs but a single state peeled off of Obama’s current electoral college count.
Colorado and New Hampshire are both less than one percent lead for “Teh Messiah.”
Nishi you have no raisin to live.
“I agree that Sarah Palin would be a fantastic interview, and I would love to have her on after the campaign is over.â€Â
Yeah, she’ll make an appearance on Oprah right after she does that US Weekly photoshoot.
The mainstream media, or more broadly, “the left,†has made the collective decision to destroy Sarah Palin, through the daily and sometimes hourly circulation of clearly false smears. Any and all bad news or negative disclosures about the candidate are a result, completely and entirely, of this conspiracy.
If the MSM were continuing to peddle lies obtained from Daily Kos would we have a legitimate concern?
Your aunt Daisy’s home-made website featuring snapshots of her rose bushes is “a blog.” Daily Kos is the flagship headquarters of Obama’s base. Does that distinction make any difference when we evaluate the significance of DKos driving MSM coverage of Palin?
Wait. She’s 5′ tall and has that “naughty librarian” look?
Have I ever mentioned that The Librarian, my ex-fiance who got back in touch with me, is petite? About 5′ tall, actually.
Yeah. No one here who’s ever read Dawkins or understands wave v particle could ever support a Palin.
Except, you know, those who aren’t hoping to elect her to teach us evolutionary biology or particle physics — but are rather looking to elect someone who has never let her personal beliefs affect her understanding of her function vis-a-vis the Constitution.
You don’t see this much from the left. Instead, they drag out their living Constitution and make it do party tricks.
By the way, as President, will Obama roll back gay marriage? He’s against it you know.
Nishi: “the cudlips, who believe in creationism and educational romanticism (Phds for Everyone!), vs the talking class, the college educated elites, who can actually understand evolutionary biology and quantum physics.”
Whistling “Die Badenweiler” past the graveyard again, Nishi?
Mr. Ed luvs u ,nishi!
a meme is a meme and often seen.
whenever the nishbot is messaging
there’s only around seventeen
memes for nishzoni!
recycle the memes for everything,
no matter the topic that you have seen
just wash and rinse until they’re clean
memes for nishzoni!
I am sure those “blogs” would be identified if it was FreeRepublic pushing “Michelle isn’t really the mother” memos to the press. They would also be sure to identify every Republican that wrote there, or attended their convention, and make sure they were forced to “disavow” them.
The fun thing, the absolutely hilarious thing, about all this is encapsulated in that winge. The Democrats have been playing Identity Politics Go, carefully building their patterns and gleefully anticipating the sure victory — and John McCain places one stone, and the whole thing turns around to trap them. It’s not that they’re playing identity politics. It’s that they’re hopeless at it when the Master comes.
If you aren’t laughing your ass off as nishi tries to revive the original strategy, you have no sense of irony-as-slapstick.
Regards,
Ric
Gasp.
Sarah Palin fired people! Horrors!
Ya know, I’d bet good money that Palin could reduce nishi to a pile of goo in any debate.
Sdferr, gotta love this bit from Monegan:
Oh! Look! A recovered memory!
Fungus could whip nishi in a debate, so that’s not saying much.
I’m 6′ 3″ tall, and my ex-wife is 5′ (maybe 4′ 11″). One day I laughed at her threat to kick my ass until she reminded me of a birthday party we attended where she took a turn beating the pinata. I shut up right away.
NB: they’re spinning it as a fault of hers that Carney was upset she didn’t vote to funnel cash into his pocket.
In college I knew a 5′ tall champion kick-boxer. She was The Librarian’s roommate. Between the two of them, I learned that petite doesn’t mean push-over.
[Palin] even appeared on the cover of the notoriously liberal journal US Weekly, above the headline “Babies, Lies and Scandal.” (And it’s Barack Obama who’s similar to Paris and Britney?)
Is it just me, or does that paragraph imply that Palin knew beforehand which headline “Us” would use with her cover photo, and nevertheless posed because she seeks celebrity?
Palin’s height just increases her everywoman street-cred.
Ya know, I’d bet good money that Palin could reduce nishi to a pile of goo in any debate.
Sarah or Piper?
Well, yes, ric, it is to laugh.
Especially when you consider that the carefully crafted identity politics meme was based upon the idea of competing narratives with sexism taking a header (heh) over TEH RACISM!! Just when the the smoke had cleared and melanin reined supreme in post partisan Obama-land and the 30 year DC insider white guy is ensconced on the ticket, in walks Sarah Palin and the whole house of cards collapses in a wail fest of broken memes. All nishi can do now is line of the cartoons even though they exist only in her fevered imagination.
Hi-larious!
…a party that for decades has claimed to reject both identity politics…
Interesting thing is how some folks are confusing “identity politics” with “affirmative action.” On Fox last weekend, Juan Williams said Palin was clearly an “affirmative action” pick. I was surprised no one on the panel corrected him by making a distinction between affirmative action enforced as a government policy and affirmative action as practiced by individuals.
Trig.
From sdferr’s Politico link in #58:
OMG, “stern looks!!! She’s the Devil Wears Prada! BURN HER, SHE IS A WITCH!
This is both laughable and pathetic.
Dammit, Rob beat me to the punch line.
Now, it is possible that Palin’s popularity has fallen off since she announced she’d be accepting the VP nod. But that would speak to Alaskans’ being disappointed in her leaving them, not to some dissatisfaction about her governing style or effectiveness.
Toopergate-Taser Boy doesn’t think so
He added that McCain’s choice of Palin as his running mate was “absolutely wonderful for the state of Alaska.”
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/05/palin.trooper/index.html
plop plop fizz fizz
I remember someone editing comments concerning Trig since [attacking children is -ed] off-limits. Cough. Cough.
Nope, no problem there. BURN SARAH PALIN, SHE IS A WITCH!!
Un -freakin’ – believable.
If I were a voter, she’d have lost me there. One more time for the world:
Good old boys = Bo and Luke; old boy = Boss Hogg. There is an “old boy network,” meanin’ harm. “Good old boys” are never doing that. No “old boy” is “good old.” They’re the damn opposite.
There’s a fucking song.
I’m convinced these phrases got conflated on purpose, mystification-like. Repeating the bad signal means not knowing an obvious, important thing.
Or the fucking song.
That’s inexcusable.
Wooten must have been very busy if divorced four times and only 36 yrs old.
You are en feugo Jeff. It’s really good to be able to read such great stuff from you again.
Forget it, my spelling is worse than my spanish. You still rock!
Comment by Sdferr on 9/5 @ 2:54 pm #
Wooten must have been very busy if divorced four times and only 36 yrs old
Yeah, did you kinda notice the left’s favorite child taserer was walking back from any Palin bashing and kinda admitting he really was a scuzbag?
[…] course, people haven’t yet seen how very short she is (well, except in Alaska, where she has an 80% approval rate, I mean), so I suppose they […]
Ahhhhhhhhhh, Palin-ton, Palin-ton
Five foot nothing, fucking weighs a ton.
Obama beware, Joe Biden beware,
She’s coming, she’s coming…
#15 matoko:
You should ask Napoleon Bonaparte about lack of height. Or ask President Bill Bradley.
For someone so smart (self-described) you don’t know much about personality or charisma.
Sarah hits a lot of buttons in being appealing and strengthening the GOP ticket — loved by the religious base, actual mom of steel, reformer, charismatic speaker, pit bull political instincts — and she is also the only one of the final veep candidates who is shorter than McCain.
Any other veep pick would make Johnny look too small and withered. Imagine Fred and Maverick together, a Mutt and Jeff act would come to mind altho I’d vote that ticket in a heartbeat. But it would not have the same visual appeal.
I’m not saying McCain picked her for that reason, it’s just one more positive she brings naturally to the campaign.
And #82 Charles, LOL! thx
I think nishi is intimidated by a woman with real accomplishments and children. In my experience socially retarded, lonely lab-rats are a dime a dozen. Women like Palin chip away at their sense of adequacy.
Spiny,
Goldstein – 1
Obama and his Ham Handers – 0
Is that better? They’re gonna keep this crap up until even the KosRhoids
are laughing at them.
I guess The Light Giver’s desciples aren’t in a panic, huh?
Love the way you took him apart, word by word. Way to go!!! He deserves it…..
Comment by BJTexs on 9/5 @ 1:14 pm #
Priceless, brother!
Mr. Pink #44, no, nishidiot definitely takes the brown acid…. when thor doesn’t Bogart the stash.
#33: Andy Jackson started out as a redhead; by the time he was elected, it had pretty much gone white.
thor lipth wrapped around shvartzschnitzel-
I remember someone editing comments concerning Trig since [attacking children is -ed] off-limits. Cough. Cough.
I guess it must be an “attack” upon Trig when one says his 4 month intellect is much superior to the nishidiot… Because I’m pretty sure even his 2nd day “verbal cockslap” was surely more intelligent than anything nishi is capable of delivering.
Quit picking on the tard!
First, Jeff, I didn’t read you prior to your guest poster period. You are a web treasure, and BTW, you’re linked all over the damn place now.
Second, this should be linked next to “fisking” on Wiki.
80% approval rating compared to what, 9% for the DemCong? Hmmmm…. That’s a tough one…
also mccains spray tan is just not working visually…..with the green background he looks just like this.
I dunno, quell, she looks pretty hot.
Especially with the ropes….
So again, Mr Silver is acting either dishonestly, or else is showing himself to be rather slow on the uptake
Hell, why settle for one? Why not both?
(PS. Love the “stillborn” sentence. how long do you suppose I have to wait before I can steal it and claim it as my own?)