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Media Malpractice, redux

John Hayward, Human Events:

The new Sarah Palin documentary, The Undefeated, opened to solid box office numbers this weekend. Oddly, the Atlantic tried to cook up a quick hit piece on the Palin film by sending the hapless Conor Friedersdorf to an unadvertised midnight showing in Orange County on a Thursday night. He proceeded to note at great length that not many people were in the theater.

This story was quickly picked up and run by other media outlets, in an attempt to construct a “flop” narrative, quickly rendered as hollow and irrelevant as an Obama economic prediction.

Friedersdorf, and the others who ran with his story, cannot be stupid enough to think that theater attendance at 12:45 AM on a Thursday night, at an unadvertised screening of a documentary, while one of the year’s most anticipated summer blockbusters was rolling out, could be truly indicative of The Undefeated’s opening weekend performance.

They had to work fast to manufacture this hit, since the eagerness of Palin fans to see The Undefeated was not exactly a secret. Their goal was to pump one more anti-Palin story into the billowing cloud of toxic smog pouring from major media outlets. They did it so that liberal readers who won’t go anywhere near a screening of this movie can high-five each other and chuckle about what a bomb it was, providing the ”reality-based community” with another of its many fables that survive any chance encounter with contradictory evidence.

I want Palin to run because I want a candidate who inspires that kind of desperation in the Left. I want someone who drives them to sit in little circles around their campfires and tell ghost stories.

This might sound harsh, but I also consider the way Palin brings out the knuckle-dragging misogyny of liberals to be a plus. Modern liberalism is an ideology of hatred and envy. Its blood burns hotter as every product of its imagination becomes a titanic failure in the real world. It has nothing left but hatred now. Liberals have sunk so low that they openly value punitive taxation more than avoiding national default. They spend their time looking for targets, not solutions.

Similar levels of shrieking hysteria are directed at the Left’s other class and ideological enemies. The sexist fury they unleash against Palin is a useful reminder of their true nature to voters that should understand what kind of future they are voting for, when they vote for a liberal. Palin has proven she can take the heat.

Squeal, little piggies, squeal.

Here’s why I hope Palin runs: I’ve been arguing for years now — often in heated exchanges with other “conservatives,” which has turned me into something of a pariah, shouting into the cyber void — that what constitutional conservatism/classical liberalism needs is a candidate that perfectly pits our ideology against that of the “progressives,” that the “pragmatic” horse race politics pushed by the drivers of the conservative narrative, both on line and through the GOP establishment, is a net loser for liberty, a minor speed bump in the long march the left has been making through institutions once dedicated to individual freedom, free markets, and equality of opportunity.

It seems that for at least a segment of the population, that argument is beginning to take hold; and I’m glad that it has, even if in helping to drive it I’ve reduced myself to a kind of blogging footnote.

If Palin runs, she will force a moment of societal clarification: who are we, what do we want our country to be, and who are we going to allow control us? And I for one will not give the left, the GOP establishment ruling class, or the online “pragmatic” conservatives the power to determine who is allowed to run for president, or, in the case of the latter two, what I’m permitted to say to remain in their good graces as they try to shore up the GOP narrative, making it palatable to the “independents” and “moderates” — even as they miss the disconnect that the left has taken full hold of our country and its institutions not by presenting palatable moderation, but rather by promoting vitriol, envy, hatred, and division.

111 Replies to “Media Malpractice, redux”

  1. cranky-d says:

    I haven’t decided if I want her to run or not. I know that it would be a defining moment if she did, and I know it would make a lot of teevee unwatchable and a lot of podcasts unlistenable due to the sheer outrage and tantrums that would pour from the left and some on the right. I’m not sure if it would end up being about her or what she represents.

    I also wonder if she can overcome the smear machine that has done its best to thoroughly discredit her.

    On the other hand, I said to my friend the other day that I hope she gets in, because while there are candidates who appear worthy to carry the classical liberal mantel, none of them are particularly inspiring. None of them are as polarizing either, but that’s where we’ve been taken as a country by the MBM. This might blow her chances down the road, which I think will be better, but then again, there may not be much left to be president of if she waits 4 or 8 more years.

    I think we will know more after that statute of limitations with respect to her being governor and the filing of ethics complaints runs out. I expect some noise at the end of this month if she is going to run.

  2. sdferr says:

    While I’ll gladly welcome Gov Palin should she choose to enter the contest for the Presidency, what if she should not? That is, how to understand her own thoughts if she should decide not to enter? Is the nation utterly dependent for its well-being on the choice of one individual? Well, yes, at least in a negative sense, I think we’ve seen that proposition proven out over the last two and a half years.

  3. Jeff G. says:

    I haven’t decided if I want her to run or not. I know that it would be a defining moment if she did, and I know it would make a lot of teevee unwatchable and a lot of podcasts unlistenable due to the sheer outrage and tantrums that would pour from the left and some on the right. I’m not sure if it would end up being about her or what she represents.

    I also wonder if she can overcome the smear machine that has done its best to thoroughly discredit her.

    This is precisely why I want her to run. If this is to be who we are — at the mercy of the media, the left, and the ruling elites — I want to know it now. That way we can stop pretending we’re fighting back and just accept our slavery in peace.

  4. Jeff G. says:

    If she doesn’t run it’ll only be because she believes either 1) she can’t win, or 2) there are other candidates with a better chance who represent the same principles, and Palin trusts that they would seek to implement them.

    As I’ve said before, I’d support Bachmann, Cain, Santorum, and even Pawlenty if push comes to shove. Romney is a non-starter for me.

    Here’s the thing, though: we’re starting to see Bachmann and her family introduced to the Palin treatment. Palin has already been through it. She’s vetted. And so it could be she’s smart enough to know that should the media once again tear into a conservative woman — and let’s face it, this is what they do, tying her to homophobia, Christofascism, pro-slavery dead white males, etc., — people will once again be turned off by such tactics (even as they work to raise doubts and ensure our “pragmatists” will start lecturing us on how Bachmann can’t win), and there Palin will be, the previous target, still standing, a reminder, and one who conveniently has available to the public an alternate narrative in the form of a feature length film, one that she had no part in making.

    Still think she’s dumb?

  5. Darleen says:

    I used to not want Palin to run only because she is so much freer to drive the left further batshit right now … Bus tours, speaking engagements … she can talk about what she wants to and isn’t worrying about the MFM’s push polls.

    But now I want her in the race to shake up and shake out the Republican primaries and offer a start choice to voters. If she loses the general, I don’t care. I will then be able to exactly count my enemies, the ostensible American citizen who is eager to give up liberty & prosperity for Big Nanny Government. They want to sell my grandkids into peonage. Damn me to hell if I don’t fight them.

  6. sdferr says:

    If she loses the general, I don’t care.

    I don’t understand what this means Darleen? I mean, it seems implausible on its face.

  7. Pablo says:

    She’s going to be useful whether she runs or not. She exposes them in their full rage, every time she opens her mouth.

    I’m not sure she can win, but then a lot of people have paid dearly for underestimating Sarah Palin. We could certainly do worse. Either way, she will remain a force to be reckoned with.

  8. Pablo says:

    I get a “I’d rather go down swinging than mewling.” vibe, sdfeer. I share the sentiment.

  9. sdferr says:

    If we assume Darleen’d rather go down swinging, then we can’t believe she doesn’t care. Because she does care.

    But beyond that, I just don’t think Barack Obama can beat a rented mule, let alone a politician with the attributes of Gov. Palin, if that’s the contest Darleen meant by “the general”.

  10. Jeff G. says:

    Darleen doesn’t care if Palin loses the general election so long as we’re given that choice as a country: Palin vs Obama, classical liberalism vs baldfaced Marxism. Of course she’d rather Palin win. But no need to start playing semantic games, or pretty soon you’ve got reader polls.

  11. geoffb says:

    Go to church, come home to find a thread where a comment from this morning fits better.

    Having a documentary feature motion picture about oneself released as a way to prepare the battleground for a possible run for the presidency is certainly unorthodox. But that is keeping with Palin’ modus operandi. She rarely does something the tried and true way. She always does the unexpected. But one suspects, that if Palin runs and wins, or even does well, people will be studying her methods for quite some time.

  12. sdferr says:

    On the score of Media Malpractice, take a look at Wolf Blitzer’s questions to Paul Ryan, which questions presume one simple lie after another, which lies Ryan is then forced to tweeze out and answer serially to the end of the interview. Ryan, at least, demonstrates to his colleagues how it ought to be done.

  13. sdferr says:

    I’d say that would be an unacceptable trade myself. Barack Obama simply must not win the next election.

  14. sdferr says:

    Is that a semantic game?

  15. Pablo says:

    The job the media has done on Sarah Palin has been incredibly effective, about as much as the job they did for Barack Obama. If she runs, she’d be spotting him at least half the distance. Which, I’m not saying she couldn’t pull it off, just that it would be a frigging miracle.

  16. sdferr says:

    I may be a simple fool, but where I come from I think we refer to as categorical, so sort of the opposite of semantic.

  17. Pablo says:

    I’d say that would be an unacceptable trade myself. Barack Obama simply must not win the next election.

    That’s the bitch of it, innit? There’s a leap of faith to be had up ahead.

  18. JHoward says:

    Here’s why I hope Palin runs: I’ve been arguing for years now — often in heated exchanges with other “conservatives,” which has turned me into something of a pariah, shouting into the cyber void — that what constitutional conservatism/classical liberalism needs is a candidate that perfectly pits our ideology against that of the “progressives,” that the “pragmatic” horse race politics pushed by the drivers of the conservative narrative, both on line and through the GOP establishment, is a net loser for liberty, a minor speed bump in the long march the left has been making through institutions once dedicated to individual freedom, free markets, and equality of opportunity.

    If any of that right reads these pages: You are wise to finally grasp that none of what you promote — actively, passively, whatever — is taken as as civil as you’d like to believe it to be. This is an incivil war; an asymmetrical battle for this nation by any means at your opponents’ disposal.

    Are you saying you defend liberty by their strategies and tactics? No? Then what are you doing?

    Understand that you support an ideological establishment, a largely passive entity of prior rules, policies, and systems, that of “originalism” handed down for decades, but that your opposition wants it dead and buried. They’ve mostly succeeded because they’re willing to do everything you rightly, morally refuse to do.

    How well has your passivity served you when this rust never sleeps and your liberty demands eternal vigilance? How are you defending yourself? By their ways and means? I think you’re playing catch-up, and badly.

    You keep expecting that you’ll be met with an equivalent argument waged in by equivalent means on a level playing field, yet your last candidate is clearly a leftist. You won’t find any of these things to be the case and you have not found any of these things to be the case yet. In this you defy history itself, as well as the nature of The Lie.

    You’re a conservative for a reason. if you fail or refuse to acknowledge that that reason is the agitating activism of everything that hates your hallowed country throughout its history, then what good are you to the cause you think you support?

  19. JHoward says:

    By the way, JG, McCarthy is on fire in that last link. At NR, no less.

    We’re catching on. Barky’s polling at 42% today.

    But we’re catching on slowly, maybe too slowly.

  20. Darleen says:

    sdferr

    I mean “I don’t care” as in arguments that Palin shouldn’t run because she’ll never ever win because SHE’S TOO EXTREME!! don’t work for me. I would rather lose on clear, concise principle then “win” with a squish only to keep losing our liberty, just more slowly.

  21. Darleen says:

    Barack Obama simply must not win the next election

    What difference would it be if Huntsman sat in the Oval Office?

  22. Bob Reed says:

    I’m inclined to agree with Darleen at #5 and Pablo at #7; regardless of what she chooses, Palin will be instrumental in shaping the battlespace for the 2012 campaign. I personally think she’s waiting to see if Perry is serious, or pulling a “Thompson”, to make her decision; which, I really don’t get because Perry, although popular among Tea-Party folks and a successful Governor also enjoys great popularity with the GHW Bush Rockefeller types as well, which I would think would tarnish his credentials more than enhance them. But it could be the ol’ “unifier” thing…

    It’s no secret that I’ve long admired Palin, and found her to be perhaps the most Reagan-esque politcal figure in America today; though I am taken lately with Senator Rubio’s oratory and ability to express essential American ideas.

    The difference between Palin and Reagan, though, is that during the campaign of 1980, the liberals didn’t necessarily “hate” Reagan as they came to, in the unhinged way they hate Palin, but more ridiculed him and predicted a slam-dunk win for Carter. They only really began with the hate after he defeated their golden boy.

    I know some of you will tell me that the left isn’t afraid of Sarah and is mostly ridiculing her now. But compared to my recollection from that time they are far more unhinged everytime Palin speaks than they ever were during the 1980 campaign. They sniggered at Ronnie’s run, to be sure, but didn’t freak-the-frig-out at whatever he said in public.

    And I personally think this belies a much greater fear than their bravado laden pronunciations about Palin slim-to-none chances in a race against Obama. She scares them to death, because she can connect with everyday Americans in a way Obama will never be able to.

  23. Bob Reed says:

    In fact, as I recall, geoffb posted an interesting link to a time magazing story from Reagan’s day in the past week or so, illustrating what the CW was on him at the time(i.e. affable dunce, washed-up actor, etc)

    Do you recall that link geoffb?

  24. sdferr says:

    What difference would it be if Huntsman sat in the Oval Office?

    Tremendous I’d assume, though that’s without knowing much of Huntsman at all, but only because I do know Obama. (This premise, of course, that Huntsman could make it through to the nomination, I take to be entirely a near impossible hypothetical for the sake of having a hypothetical? Which, that’s fine.)

    But under your meaning, you want to fight against Huntsman now (and any others you think like him), so that your views are best represented in the candidate of choice. This is good and all power to you in that fight. I expect you (us) to win it too.

    However, when it comes to the “general” I submit you will not be uncaring in the remote event that Obama wins again. You will not be uncaring should your (our) preferred approach to governing — having been well set out in contrast to Obama — loses the contest. This is unacceptable to me anyhow.

    For it seems to me to set the certain destruction of the United States against an only possible “losing more slowly” sort of destruction which can still be averted. That’s not an apposition favoring the former result.

  25. serr8d says:

    Sarah Palin must run. As I’ve said before, she is the anti-Obama; she is the one candidate who can put gloves on him at will, and she wouldn’t be afraid to take gloves off if necessary. Hell, even if she put horseshoes in her gloves, I’d support her all the way.

    I just don’t see any of these other candidates who’ve lined up (because of their timidity and/or inexperience) giving BHO a good fight. Romney? No way; like McCain, he’d be afraid to bloody or get bloody. None of the others have been in this high-level a fight for as long as Sarah Palin has. So, make room for her, the rest had better get out of the way.

  26. serr8d says:

    Huntsman? Seriously? He worked for BHO. No one knows (or cares) about him. Let’s see him put together a tenth of the following as Sarah Palin has, before he ambles in.

  27. Darleen says:

    sdferr

    I respectfully disagree. Obama is certain destruction of the US against a certain future destruction of the US with an Obama-lite Republican in the White House … who would necessarily help like minded GOP Congresscritters isolate and dismiss Constitutional congress members.

  28. sdferr says:

    We’ll just have to disagree then. I don’t see someone like Romney as auguring the death of the country, particularly in an environment where the Tea Party movement is taking over school boards, town council upon town council, state legislature after state legislature, sending new House members and Senators to Washington and etc. Romney will follow these sorts of people, not opposed them.

  29. newrouter says:

    So the wider release is really a given at this point. The bigger question will be how long the film sustains itself at the box office. After all, Palin needs more than just the already-convinced to go see this film. For the film to have the political impact Whittington suspects, it has to draw Palin agnostics and Palin skeptics into the theater. The measure for success there won’t be first-weekend metrics, but second-, third-, and fourth-weekend metrics. We can expect Palin’s fans to rush to theaters when the film opens (especially given its limited release), but if people are still buying tickets in significant numbers four weeks later at these theaters, that will mean that the film has broken out beyond the Palin base. We’ll know the answer to that by mid-August at the latest.

    link

  30. cranky-d says:

    The problem with electing weak republicans is that even the most moderate get painted as conservative by the MBM. The average person who doesn’t pay attention absorbs that, and seeing that the moderate Republican does the same thing as a Democrat, just more slowly, results in the idea that “there isn’t a lick of difference between the Republicans and Democrats.” So all you get is losing more slowly, no reversal, and losing faster once a Democrat again takes the white house.

  31. cranky-d says:

    A lot of us here will not vote for Romney. If he is the candidate, I will expect a lot of debate on that subject here in the comments. I hope it doesn’t get too out of hand.

  32. sdferr says:

    I don’t favor Romney in any way shape or form. However, if it unfortunately comes to a binary choice between Romney and Obama? I’ll vote Romney in a heartbeat. And continue to advocate against his vision of governing and toward a more limited, less intrusive, less regulatorily punitive Federal government, with a view to eventually rolling back decades of progressive depredations on the scheme of government that set the US apart from the rest of the despotically governed world. It will take time. And I may be dead before genuinely American results take hold. But so long as they do eventually take hold, that will be enough, despite the opportunity costs.

  33. geoffb says:

    Here it is Bob.

    Nation: But Can Reagan Be Elected?

  34. Bob Reed says:

    Thanks a lot geoffb! I couldn’t remember which thread I saw it on…

  35. pdbuttons says:

    aside- anybody running against this current nightmare is a lock
    ]i waved at sarah palins bus once!
    i am- totally and without a doubt
    wee wee’d up
    as for independents- non-info voters
    like i said-fail!
    high water everywhere

  36. geoffb says:

    A quote:

    National opinion polls continue to show Carter leading Reagan by an apparently comfortable margin of about 25%. They also show that more moderate Republicans like Ford would run better against the President. This suggests that Reagan is not the strongest G.O.P. choice for the November election and that he clearly faces an uphill battle. Nonetheless, few political observers now write off Reagan’s chances, and certainly not Jimmy Carter’s chief election strategists.

    As recently as last month, before Reagan’s New Hampshire victory, White House advisers looked forward with relish to the possibility of Reagan as their target. No longer. Says one Georgian: “People like what Reagan’s saying about the economy, about foreign policy. He’s offering simple solutions and that’s what people want.” Adds another White House aide: “To dismiss Ronald Reagan as a right-wing nut would be a very serious error—for us or anybody else.”

    California Pollster Mervin Field, who just last fall felt that Reagan’s nomination would lead to a Republican disaster, has changed his mind. Says Field: “I just don’t see how you could dispassionately and factually argue that it will be a Carter victory. It’s going to be a very close race.”

    But it wasn’t close was it.

  37. Darleen says:

    Romney will follow these sorts of people, not opposed them.

    Romney would be the head of the Republican Party, sdferr, with a lot of pull on who gets funded, who does not, who gets nods, who does not. If Romney believes the TEA Party conservatives are too much in his way in the Grand Compromise, then he’ll use his power to isolate and marginalize ’em.

  38. sdferr says:

    I don’t think so Darleen, only because I see the Tea Party movement as self-motivated and growing, not diminishing, in strength. And combining that presupposition with Romney’s vaunted disposition to put his moist finger in the wind? I think he goes with the flow.

  39. Chuck W says:

    I would love to see Palin debate his holiness. Reagan totally destroyed Carter if I remember correctly.

  40. Bob Reed says:

    No it wasn’t geoffb.

    Those paragraphs you quoted are sooooo much like today’s situation it sends chills up my spine; the only difference being that most pollsters right now are saying Palin hasn’t got a chance against the Won

    I personally think that’s only because she hasn’t put her hat in the ring. I get the feeling that after a debate that the numbers would shift dramatically.

  41. Darleen says:

    They also show that more moderate Republicans like Ford would run better against the President

    “more moderate Republicans”

    It’s like a spell the Smartest.People.In.The.Nation trot out every friggin election … “Extremists can’t win” “You have to have a moderate to win the Independents” “You have to have someone willing to listen and work with both sides”

    Never said about the Dems, right? I mean, Obama may have postured as a “moderate” during the election, at least for the ankle-licking press; but any one with one iota of curiosity about his past knows he was a hard leftist from the beginning.

    There has been an incremental yet unrelenting push leftward … Conservatives have been forced to accept the encroachments on Liberty by virtue of “pragmatism” again and again until we are at this point where things anathema to American principles are accepted as normal.

    No.More.

  42. pdbuttons says:

    i am selling sarah palin exhaust fumes
    cuz i followed her bus anshit and i
    collected her [nice] fumes
    oh- btw- i am a credentialed fume a tologist
    breathe deep the gathering gloom

  43. Jeff G. says:

    Is that a semantic game?

    Shifting the context of the caring was the semantic game. So yes.

    And if you find it an unacceptable trade that we finally have a clarifying election at the risk of our side losing it, well, then I don’t know what else to say. I’m willing to take the risk, and in fact I welcome it. At the very least, as I say, it’s clarifying — and I like to flush out those who don’t mind enslaving themselves or seeing me and my family enslaved right along with them.

  44. geoffb says:

    Bob that article was March 31st 1980 after the New Hampshire primary. Before that Reagan was considered a very long shot against Carter. Too attached to his arch-conservative far right base to even get enough votes to win.

  45. geoffb says:

    Ever, not even.

  46. sdferr says:

    . . . I like to flush out those who don’t mind enslaving themselves or seeing me and my family enslaved right along with them.

    I don’t think you don’t already know who these people are, or at least that you have a very good idea who they are. So further proofs would seem beside the point.

  47. Darleen says:

    I don’t think you don’t already know who these people are

    It’s not about clarifying it to Jeff or myself or any of the PW commentariat … it’s about exposing it to the a-political citizens who accept that GOP squishes ARE the face of Constitutional Conservatives and, therefore, equally to blame for economic messes and liberty destructive legislation and regulation.

  48. sdferr says:

    And you know, I didn’t shift the context of a context I simply didn’t understand, by the way. I mean, when I asked Darleen what she meant, I meant that I didn’t know what she meant.

  49. geoffb says:

    An interesting comment at Belmont Club:

    Go & look up the statistics on actual votes cast in Presidential elections (not percentages). Since Watergate, Democrat votes for President have increased in line with the population, regardless of the candidate. Goodness! Al Gore got more votes than Clinton, despite Gore being amateur league.

    What varies in Presidential elections is the number of votes for the Republican. There is a large pool of Contingent Voters — people who will vote for a Reagan but not for a McCain. If the Republicans nominate an acceptable candidate, the Contingent Voters go to the polls and the Republican wins. If the Republicans nominate a McCain, the Contingent Voters stay home and the Democrat wins.
    […]
    Which is why the media & the Dems have worked so hard to discredit Sarah Palin.

    This effect starts with the 1980 election which would be the first real post-Watergate one as Ford was tainted by his pardon of Nixon.

  50. happyfeet says:

    didn’t it open in like 10 theaters what is this “solid box office” of which he speaks exactly

  51. happyfeet says:

    I would love to see Palin debate his holiness. Reagan totally destroyed Carter if I remember correctly.

    Palin’s efforts against Biden in their debate were tepid and mostly notable for the winky winky factor

  52. happyfeet says:

    Romney is a non-starter for me too he’s pancakes without syrup he’s an egg-white omelette he’s non-alcoholic beer

  53. Jeff G. says:

    A documentary not advertised traditionally, which was funded by the filmmaker, selling out the limited venues in which it appeared. Is the solid box office of which he speaks.

  54. pdbuttons says:

    i and i am so stoned that i’m
    ha a doodle about pink floyd
    “breathe- breathe in the air’
    and its gots money and time
    an blah blah greatest album blah blah
    but i can’t think of the next line

    breath, breath in the air..?

  55. Bob Reed says:

    I remember it like yesterday geoffb,
    I recall the wrangling, and the party being nearly divided between big Bush and Reagan, and that whole wacky Ford-Kissinger untited candidacy plan that floated for a week or two, and the who mish-mash…

    I remember that national media trying to advise the Rethugs to put Bush up or it would be a sure loss; after all, it was his turn!

    And while it was close, through the convention, once nominated Ronnie never really looked back. It seemed as if it was destined.

    Good times, for sure, to see the intelligent, honest, good man Carter resoundingly rejected by the very same electorate that so many predicted would be laughing up their sleeves at candidate Reagan.

  56. happyfeet says:

    that’s sort of contrived as far as solid box office goes we’ll see what the per screen was later I guess and see how many of these ten theaters they hold on week 3

  57. Jeff G. says:

    I don’t think you don’t already know who these people are, or at least that you have a very good idea who they are. So further proofs would seem beside the point.

    As I’ve said before, I can forgive those who fell the first time around for the hopey changey blank slate historic pragmatist who would assuage cultural guilt.

    Those to work at getting him re-elected, and those who vote for his re-election, is clarifying in a way 2008 wasn’t.

  58. pdbuttons says:

    big titted warrior bitch/
    vs. faggy black whiner..

  59. sdferr says:

    Know who was down and dirty seriously blank-slatey?

    Yeah, that’s right, John Locke! Ha.

  60. Bob Reed says:

    I dunno happyfeet, you may be biased a bit. As I recall, she owned Joey B in that debate, and not because of any winky-winky. But YMMV.

    She would definately own Obama, if not on presentation she would get under his skin enough to cause the teleprompter-less won to tell some major whoppers; which she could call him out on.

  61. Jeff G. says:

    And you know, I didn’t shift the context of a context I simply didn’t understand, by the way. I mean, when I asked Darleen what she meant, I meant that I didn’t know what she meant.

    Your follow-up in which you explained that Darleen really couldn’t mean she “didn’t care”, when she clearly does care that Obama not be reelected, and most assuredly would want Palin to win, was an exercise in semantic game playing, in my opinion.

    Which I’ve given, and stand by, and am now prepared to move beyond.

  62. happyfeet says:

    she didn’t hit him nearly as hard as she should have she didn’t even mention that his running mates was a dirty socialist soros-fellating no-account ghetto trash whore for example

  63. sdferr says:

    I didn’t think I was playing a semantic game explaining my own confusion at Darleen’s initial statement. For if that were to be the case, then in a sense nothing I might think would be anything other than a semantic game, which, I don’t know, seems somehow reprehensible.

  64. Jeff G. says:

    She was running on McCain’s ticket. McCain is currently calling Bachmann a cumslut hootchie extremist for wanting to hold firm on the debt ceiling, when everyone knows that Americans can’t be entrusted with their own money. They need John McCain to help direct them.

    Plus, he’ll cut taxes!

  65. Jeff G. says:

    I didn’t think I was playing a semantic game explaining my own confusion at Darleen’s initial statement. For if that were to be the case, then in a sense nothing I might think would be anything other than a semantic game, which, I don’t know, seems somehow reprehensible.

    Okay.

    We’ll all stipulate that you were confused at Darleen’s statement because you really thought that Darleen doesn’t care if Obama wins re-election, so long as Sarah Palin runs.

  66. pdbuttons says:

    film sarah dont matter
    iffn u like her
    download
    don’t argue- just give them a copy..
    ooh that sarah!

  67. cranky-d says:

    I think Palin running the show would be a different candidate than Palin with McCain running the show. Much different.

  68. sdferr says:

    I think Palin running the show would be a different candidate than Palin with McCain running the show. Much different.

    Cheers to that. And she thinks so too, I think.

  69. happyfeet says:

    She was running on McCain’s ticket.

    and then she endorsed him for senate – nay – she actively campaigned for his reelection

    oh my goodness that does not sit right with me

  70. Dire Wolf says:

    she didn’t hit him nearly as hard as she should have

    Well, she just gave birth to a Down’s syndrome child. She wasn’t ready to start kicking some other woman’s retarded child in the head on national TV.

  71. Jeff G. says:

    and then she endorsed him for senate – nay – she actively campaigned for his reelection

    misguided politeness and a mark against her, in my book.

    Of course, she did campaign actively for many of the TEA Party candidates, too. And McCain ran his campaign as a conservative. Perhaps she took him at his word.

    What’s interesting is that you seem always to want to seize on what she’s done wrong, rather than all she’s done right.

  72. happyfeet says:

    she campaigned for Rick Perry whose another one what’s dilly-dallying

  73. happyfeet says:

    *who’s* another one what’s dilly-dallying I mean

  74. Jeff G. says:

    And by “interesting”, I of course don’t mean “interesting” at all.

  75. Bob Reed says:

    Personally, I think she’ll be doing a lot more rippin’ team dirty socialist if she decides to run happyfeet. Last time she was under McMav’s marching orders of comity at all costs; which, you know, makes little sense since the Veep candidates traditionally play a very aggressive role anyway.

    So I’ll blame McCain instead of her, and give her a pass for endorsing him for Senate last time around. I’m a giver that way :)

  76. happyfeet says:

    Mr. Jeff I just don’t think she’s ever ever hit the “presidential” level of political donkey kong anymore than bumble ever has and when you put candidates like that forward you debase the office – it’s more and more the province of the celebrified and the shallow every day and I don’t think Sarah would help walk back that impression at all in fact I think just her candidacy would put another nail in the coffin of the dignity of failshit America’s executive branch – to look upon America’s teeming millions and say hey look a half-term governor/reality tv queen! She’s the future! – That’s kind of scary and a lot disheartening.

    That said she needs to run so Team R can get that shit out of its system.

  77. Jeff G. says:

    I know what you think happyfeet. I think you’re wrong, and that you actively help the very people you claim to oppose.

  78. Jeff G. says:

    I should add that you’re also fiercely — no, intentionally, provocatively, and brazenly, would be better terms — ignorant on the matter.

  79. happyfeet says:

    half psychotic sick hypnotic Palin’s blueprint it’s symphonic

  80. Jeff G. says:

    Somebody’s got mommy issues.

  81. cranky-d says:

    If Palin runs we’re going to need special threads for hf to vent on, because he never tires of repeating the same slurs over and over and over again. Or we need SBP to come out of hiding.

  82. happyfeet says:

    hey I said I was pro-Sarah running that’s a big big concession on my part I think – a radical paradigm shift in my thinkings

    run run rudolph Sarah save the christmas!

    chop chop

  83. sdferr says:

    …because you really thought that Darleen doesn’t care if Obama wins re-election, so long as Sarah Palin runs.

    and

    I mean “I don’t care” as in arguments that Palin shouldn’t run because she’ll never ever win because SHE’S TOO EXTREME!! don’t work for me. I would rather lose on clear, concise principle then “win” with a squish only to keep losing our liberty, just more slowly.

  84. cranky-d says:

    Something else just occurred to me. Let’s say Palin runs and wins the presidency (which appears to be a long-shot right now), but still cannot stop the titanic from ripping its whole side out on the iceberg. That would tell us there is absolutely no saving this country as it stands, and hunkering down might be the only option. Part of me still believes there is a way, but that part is shrinking daily.

  85. pdbuttons says:

    happyfeet i luv u internet love
    give it up!sarah is viable
    cryable
    you betcha!
    not pliable!
    she got grit
    and tits
    and i like her anger
    bring it

  86. happyfeet says:

    i’m with you Mr. buttons she needs to run run run – she has to run run run – and god bless america

  87. Jeff G. says:

    …because you really thought that Darleen doesn’t care if Obama wins re-election, so long as Sarah Palin runs.

    and

    I mean “I don’t care” as in arguments that Palin shouldn’t run because she’ll never ever win because SHE’S TOO EXTREME!! don’t work for me. I would rather lose on clear, concise principle then “win” with a squish only to keep losing our liberty, just more slowly.

    And?

    She would rather lose on principle than lose on electability; that’s not the same as actually not caring that you lose. That’s not caring if you lose provided you run and fight on principle, in the sense that the choice one cares about is not between winning and losing, but between principle and electable.

    Honestly, I’m confounded that you find this all so puzzling.

    But if it helps you, I’ll admit that you really were and are confused, and dammit, you are determined to set that record straight. Can we move on now?

  88. Jeff G. says:

    I’m going to get offline now.

  89. sdferr says:

    Yeah, we can move on just as soon as you can establish that I’m somehow at fault for asking Darleen to clarify a facial contradiction.

  90. Pablo says:

    Mr. Jeff I just don’t think she’s ever ever hit the “presidential” level of political donkey kong anymore than bumble ever has…

    Have you been off the planet for the last few years? You’re not gonna believe who’s sitting in the Big Chair.

  91. happyfeet says:

    i do not understand

  92. motionview says:

    From deep within the bowels of the National Journal: Do you think it might be too condescending if we headline this piece “These rubes really are causing a recession”? Too much? How about this?

  93. serr8d says:

    From motionview’s link…F

    For his troubles, McConnell attracted nothing but hatred from the Republican base. Conservative blogger Erick Erickson compared him with Pontius Pilate and suggested activists both burn him in effigy and send him a weasel. DeMint pledged to “use all the tools available in the Senate” to stop the plan. And though Boehner said McConnell’s plan was a good backup, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, whose role in the negotiations has increased in the last week, rejected it outright.

    Time is winding down before the U.S. reaches the limits of its deficit spending.

    We’ve got to support Cantor and DeMint, and their too-small clique. Delaying tactics past August 2nd, then let ’em reformulate the payola.

  94. geoffb says:

    Obama needs to get his “big deal” or at least the McConnell plan deal in order to have the money to keep his paid base assuaged and working. Now not raising it would bring a fight over just what would get paid and Obama is sure to attempt to pay his government union base and not the military. There would be a fight over what gets paid. Some of the complications get laid out in this piece by Prof. Larry Tribe. Feeding him small increases with spending cuts and without the big number he needs to “stimulate” his base is probably the best solution but one he may not go for at all.

    Soc. Sec. is a different case. From what I’ve gathered the debt held in the “trust fund”, unlike what I’d thought, is a form of T-bill and is part of the debt that counts toward the debt ceiling. That means that the trust fund debt could be sold to investors or the public in order to meet any shortfall in revenue coming in without affecting the debt ceiling. If however they are taking in more than they pay out they can’t add new debt to the trust fund.

  95. happyfeet says:

    Unlike a typical private pension plan, the Social Security Trust Fund does not hold any marketable assets to secure workers’ paid-in contributions. Instead, it holds non-negotiable United States Treasury bonds and U.S. securities backed “by the full faith and credit of the government”. The Office of Management and Budget has described the distinction as follows:

    These [Trust Fund] balances are available to finance future benefit payments and other Trust Fund expenditures – but only in a bookkeeping sense…. They do not consist of real economic assets that can be drawn down in the future to fund benefits. Instead, they are claims on the Treasury that, when redeemed, will have to be financed by raising taxes, borrowing from the public, or reducing benefits or other expenditures. The existence of large Trust Fund balances, therefore, does not, by itself, have any impact on the Government’s ability to pay benefits. (from FY 2000 Budget, Analytical Perspectives, p. 337)

    I don’t think they’re marketable

  96. McGehee says:

    i do not understand

    I think we’ve all figured that out.

  97. geoffb says:

    Okay this part is right according to Wiki.

    Because under current federal law these securities represent future obligations that must be repaid, the federal government includes these securities within the overall national debt. The portion of the national debt that is not considered “publicly held” represents the obligations incurred by the government to itself, the bulk of which consists of the government’s obligations to the Social Security Trust Fund.

    Now if the trust fund has to redeem its bonds to pay out Soc.Sec. benefits then the US debt would go down by the amount redeemed which would then allow the Treasury Dept to have room under the ceiling to issue new Treasuries equal to what Soc.Sec. redeemed and so the total debt would stay the same. This would in effect be a pass through sale of the debt from the Soc. Sec. fund to a non-federal government party with the Treasury Dept acting as a middle man, or to use the lingo of the “Gunwalker” program Treasury would be a “straw purchaser.”

  98. happyfeet says:

    that makes sense

  99. Jeff G. says:

    Yeah, we can move on just as soon as you can establish that I’m somehow at fault for asking Darleen to clarify a facial contradiction.

    Somehow everyone else seemed to understand what you keep insisting is a facial contradiction.

    Here, let me help you. No one here really wants to lose, and of course it matters to us when we do. But we really want to have the opportunity to lose with a conservative candidate, if we’re going to go on losing. So long as we have conservative candidates running and we happen to lose, we’re at least doing it right — putting up candidates who represent us. And it beats putting up McCains or Romneys and losing, or — to some of us — even “winning” under such conditions.

    Now, you don’t have to move on; you can try to parse and parse and point out the “facial contradictions” that are so nettlesome to you. Others who understood have already answered your concerns, however, and I suspect don’t feel the need to keep revisiting what to you seems some fascinating point of deconstruction.

  100. happyfeet says:

    the congress Rs could run against President Romney in 2014 but if they ever ran against President Palin her fanclubbers would track them down and make them eat canned asparagus

  101. happyfeet says:

    that’s just an observation

  102. pdbuttons says:

    if u owe money to
    bank of america or whatever and they
    slice it off to some collection
    agency and they keep
    calling u- just don’t answer the phone

  103. sterlinggray says:

    I really don’t see her running at this point. Palin vs. Obama would be the most interesting race but the Republicans are likely to end up with Romney. If Sarah Palin doesn’t take the plunge very soon we’ll know that she simply does not want it bad enough.

  104. happyfeet says:

    really?

    I think Perry v Obama is way more interesting cause of how the union whore government flunky monkeys are so relentlessly bullying texas

  105. cranky-d says:

    As soon as Perry gets in the hater will start hating on him. The only good candidate is one who isn’t running and has never run before. That way they’re as pure as a vanilla cupcake.

  106. happyfeet says:

    I’ve already pointed out that the Perry Jindal mega mega christersploitationfest scheduled for august is the gayest thing since the million man march met the cast of Glee if that helps

  107. cranky-d says:

    I guess you’re consistent then. That’s something, I suppose.

  108. Crawford says:

    I’d say that would be an unacceptable trade myself. Barack Obama simply must not win the next election.

    What would we gain from a Romney victory? A momentary reprieve at best — and most likely simply more of the same, though perhaps a bit slower. No intent on taking out the criminal organization known as SEIU (printed instructions on how to commit extortion!), no intent on actually getting the government out of our lives — rather the open intent on ruling us ever more minutely, for our own good, but this time from a supposed “conservative” angle.

  109. Crawford says:

    half psychotic sick hypnotic Palin’s blueprint it’s symphonic

    GFY, psychopath.

  110. Crawford says:

    As soon as Perry gets in the hater will start hating on him. The only good candidate is one who isn’t running and has never run before. That way they’re as pure as a vanilla cupcake.

    You’re forgetting the “the only good Republican is one who can never run again” factor. There have already been stories extolling the moderation and good sense of the man they dreamed of assassinating a few years again.

    What is the purpose of having “happyfeet” around — comic relief? Because it offers no substance, and the comedic value is rather on the level of high-pressure diarrhea.

  111. happyfeet says:

    you must be a Palin fan!

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