KICK ME
Is this necessary?
Former press secretary to President George W. Bush Dana Perino was appointed as a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) Wednesday evening.
The board governs all government sponsored, non-military international broadcasting outlets, such as Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Asia, and Alhurra. The BBG is a nine member, bipartisan panel.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) urged the Obama administration to appoint Perino.
Perino is currently a Chief Issues Counselor for the United States at Burson-Marsteller, an international public relations firm, and is a contributor to Fox News. ...
Yeah, I gather it's fairly common to name members of the opposite party to jobs like this -- but a member of the opposite party who actually attacks you in public?
October 21, 2009, 12:42PM
Former Press Secretary Dana Perino told Sean Hannity last night that what the Obama White House is doing to Fox News is something "like dictators do."
Full quote:
PERINO: Here's what I think. I think -- let's step back for a second. When you are the White House you don't just speak to the 16 reporters who are in the room. What you say at that podium really matters. What you say -- as the chief of staff or other members, the senior staff, matters to everybody, including emerging democracies around the world.
And what they see is what they see like dictators do, right? They go after illegitimate news organizations.
More:
Former White House press secretary and current Fox News contributor Dana Perino has recently contrasted the Obama administration's criticism of Fox News with the Bush administration's treatment of MSNBC, saying, "I could have taken that tack, but I thought it was not the right thing to do and I think it's mostly because it's really unproductive, it feels un-American, and it's not inspiring." However, Perino did criticize NBC, MSNBC's parent network, during her time as press secretary, asserting that NBC had "intentionally" mischaracterized remarks made by President Bush....
Granted, the Obama administration is just making Perino one member of the governing board; the head will be Walter Isaacson, formerly of Time and CNN. But contrast this with the Bush years: W first appointed as chair of the BBG one Kenneth Tomlinson, a Rove crony and right-wing ideologue who attempted to politicize the joint, as he did the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which he also chaired:
Tomlinson has also focused on deposing staff that he considers to be Democratic sympathizers....
... Under his reign, longtime civil servants have found themselves replaced by Republican ideologues.
... in the Tomlinson era, VOA management has focused far more intently on burnishing the image of the Bush administration and the Republican Party....
Tomlinson was eventually replaced by the less ideological James Glassman, and then the chairmanship was left vacant (as were four seats on the board).
Mitch McConnell wanted Perino on the board? I suppose this could have been worse:
Under President Bush ... McConnell ... nominated the neoconservative writer Clifford May ... his confirmation was stalled.... Since Obama’s election, McConnell renominated May, as well as former Wisconsin Republican Party chair Rick Graber, but both were refused by the White House.
Still -- is Obama going to get anything in return for this from McConnell? Or any of Perino's other pals? Thewn what's the point?
Thursday, November 19, 2009
PALIN THROWS A RIGHT-WING GANG SIGN
From Politico:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin smacked the "lamestream media" on Wednesday for allegedly distorting what she writes in her book.
Speaking on Sean Hannity's radio show, Palin said that "some on the left, that lamestream media, they're contradicting what I wrote in the book."
Hannity jumped in to ask, "did you say lamestream media?"
"Yeah, lamestream," Palin responded....
Although it's been around for a while, this is obviously the phrase of the week -- it also shows up in passing in Bernie Goldberg's grumbling about why liberals hate Palin. (By the way, Bernie, Ann Coulter doesn't have any kids, much less five, Down syndrome or otherwise, and she goes to fancy restaurants and has probably never seen a moose in her life -- and we hate her, too.) "You lie!" is so early fall.
Yeah, "lamestream media." Oh, and I love the way Hannity makes doubly sure that we all notice this, as if he's got an arrangement to share revenue with Palin on the inevitable T-shirt sales. ("ANNOY THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA! VOTE PALIN 2012!" You know this is coming.)
I really, really want Palin to keep this up. I want her to pepper her Facebook posts with references to "NObama" and "President Zero." I want her to talk about "Dingy Harry" Reid. I want her to use all the most immature, grade-school-level shibboleths of the right (you know, stuff like "libtards") on the presidential campaign trail -- and I want her to win Republican primaries by doing so, while appalling everyone who's not in the talk radio/Fox/tea party cult.
Seems hard to believe it won't happen, really.
****
Maybe she can practice her gang patois during Phase II of her book-tour-slash-presidential-campaign, which will probably start early next year with this:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The first National Tea Party convention is going to be held in Music City, with Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker.
... Palin will be in Nashville for the tea party convention held Feb. 4 to 6 at Gaylord Opryland.
Tickets are $549 each....
I don't think she's going to set foot in Alaska for more than a month a year between now and whenever she loses three years from now.
From Politico:
Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin smacked the "lamestream media" on Wednesday for allegedly distorting what she writes in her book.
Speaking on Sean Hannity's radio show, Palin said that "some on the left, that lamestream media, they're contradicting what I wrote in the book."
Hannity jumped in to ask, "did you say lamestream media?"
"Yeah, lamestream," Palin responded....
Although it's been around for a while, this is obviously the phrase of the week -- it also shows up in passing in Bernie Goldberg's grumbling about why liberals hate Palin. (By the way, Bernie, Ann Coulter doesn't have any kids, much less five, Down syndrome or otherwise, and she goes to fancy restaurants and has probably never seen a moose in her life -- and we hate her, too.) "You lie!" is so early fall.
Yeah, "lamestream media." Oh, and I love the way Hannity makes doubly sure that we all notice this, as if he's got an arrangement to share revenue with Palin on the inevitable T-shirt sales. ("ANNOY THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA! VOTE PALIN 2012!" You know this is coming.)
I really, really want Palin to keep this up. I want her to pepper her Facebook posts with references to "NObama" and "President Zero." I want her to talk about "Dingy Harry" Reid. I want her to use all the most immature, grade-school-level shibboleths of the right (you know, stuff like "libtards") on the presidential campaign trail -- and I want her to win Republican primaries by doing so, while appalling everyone who's not in the talk radio/Fox/tea party cult.
Seems hard to believe it won't happen, really.
****
Maybe she can practice her gang patois during Phase II of her book-tour-slash-presidential-campaign, which will probably start early next year with this:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The first National Tea Party convention is going to be held in Music City, with Sarah Palin as the keynote speaker.
... Palin will be in Nashville for the tea party convention held Feb. 4 to 6 at Gaylord Opryland.
Tickets are $549 each....
I don't think she's going to set foot in Alaska for more than a month a year between now and whenever she loses three years from now.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
THE DEFINITIVE ANSWER TO THE QUESTION "IS NEWSWEEK'S PALIN COVER DISRESPECTFUL?"
From a couple of her greatest admirers -- people who stood in line for hours to get copies of her book autographed in Grand Rapids, Michigan:
... Palin fans -- many who have been in line since before daybreak -- waited in lawn chairs with copies of Palin's new book "Going Rouge" near their feet....
Wyoming resident Matthew Witte said he was still a bit stunned after being interviewed by Maria Menounos from Access Hollywood. Witte figures Menounos picked him out of the crowd because he wore his U.S. Army fatigues....
The 26-year-old said he was caught off guard when Menounos whipped out the Newsweek magazine cover featuring Palin in a track suit and asked him if he thought it was sexist....
"I didn't feel it was sexist at all, it wasn't like she was in spandex," Witte said. "And with her figure she could sport spandex. I want a president that's fit. Healthcare is a big debate."
The question from Menounos amused Grand Rapids resident Mark Vainner who sat nearby.
"Why do they keep asking that?" Vainner said. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know if you show a guy a picture of a girl with boobs and say 'Does this bother you' the answer is going to be no."...
There you have it, straight from her fan base. This is what about her appeals to a significant portion of her base. Feel better now?
****
UPDATE: The Detroit Free Press also quotes breast man Mark Vainner in its story about the Grand Rapids signing. We learn from the Freep that Vainner has a jacket he asked Palin to sign (she agreed), one that already bears signatures Vainner has collected from a number of right-wing personalities. First autograph Vainner got? G. Gordon Liddy. Make of that what you will.
From a couple of her greatest admirers -- people who stood in line for hours to get copies of her book autographed in Grand Rapids, Michigan:
... Palin fans -- many who have been in line since before daybreak -- waited in lawn chairs with copies of Palin's new book "Going Rouge" near their feet....
Wyoming resident Matthew Witte said he was still a bit stunned after being interviewed by Maria Menounos from Access Hollywood. Witte figures Menounos picked him out of the crowd because he wore his U.S. Army fatigues....
The 26-year-old said he was caught off guard when Menounos whipped out the Newsweek magazine cover featuring Palin in a track suit and asked him if he thought it was sexist....
"I didn't feel it was sexist at all, it wasn't like she was in spandex," Witte said. "And with her figure she could sport spandex. I want a president that's fit. Healthcare is a big debate."
The question from Menounos amused Grand Rapids resident Mark Vainner who sat nearby.
"Why do they keep asking that?" Vainner said. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know if you show a guy a picture of a girl with boobs and say 'Does this bother you' the answer is going to be no."...
There you have it, straight from her fan base. This is what about her appeals to a significant portion of her base. Feel better now?
****
UPDATE: The Detroit Free Press also quotes breast man Mark Vainner in its story about the Grand Rapids signing. We learn from the Freep that Vainner has a jacket he asked Palin to sign (she agreed), one that already bears signatures Vainner has collected from a number of right-wing personalities. First autograph Vainner got? G. Gordon Liddy. Make of that what you will.
EVEN OUR "BOLD" OFFICEHOLDERS ARE TOO TIMID
At first glance, this seems like a very good thing:
Philadelphia Gives Homeowners a Way to Stay Put
... Under the rules adopted by Philadelphia's primary civil court, no owner-occupied house may be foreclosed on and sold by the sheriff's office before a "conciliation conference," a face-to-face meeting between the homeowner and the lender aimed at striking a workable compromise. Every homeowner facing a default filing is furnished with counseling, and sometimes legal representation.
... In some cases, deals are struck that lower monthly payments for borrowers and allow them to retain their homes. When a homeowner cannot afford the home even at modified terms, the program helps to create a graceful exit, in which the borrower accepts cash for vacating the property or signs over the deed in lieu of further payment.
It also seems like a rebuke to the caution and timidity of the Obama administration:
Those outcomes are similar to the ones produced by the Obama administration's $75 billion program aimed at stemming foreclosures.... But in Philadelphia there is one crucial difference: the mortgage companies have no choice but to participate. They have to attend the conferences and negotiate in good faith or they cannot proceed with a sheriff’s sale.
But there are some problems:
... Some suggest the city's program is plagued by the same basic defect as the Obama rescue plan: Nearly all the loans that have been modified have been altered on a trial basis, requiring homeowners to reapply for an extension of the terms after only a few months -- a process that appears rife with obstacles, according to participants.
"There's no teeth to the conciliation program," said Matthew B. Weisberg, a Philadelphia lawyer who represents homeowners in cases involving alleged mortgage fraud. "It's a largely ineffective stopgap prolonging what appears to be the inevitable, which is the loss of homes."
Still, Mr. Weisberg grudgingly praised the plan.
"It's arbitrary and unpredictable," he said, "but it's better than what anybody else is doing."
There's the failure of liberalism in what's supposed to be the post-conservative Obama era: the president's approach to huge problems is weak and watered down ... and the "cutting-edge" approach at the non-federal level is only slightly less weak and watered down.
In a better world, negotiation would be mandatory and settlements would stick -- nationwide -- and the wheeler-dealers would shut up and take it, as the inevitable price to be paid for the government's benevolent decision not to allow their entire playhouse, otherwise known as the global economic system, to go through the laissez-faire process of collapse and rebirth, which would have meant a far longer and more painful downturn, in all likelihood a full-blown depression. But the profound corruption of our political system means that supposedly liberal Washington pols search for much more direct ways to improve the bottom lines of the wheeler-dealers, bypassing relief for ordinary schmucks altogether.
"Liberal" Democrats inevitably fail in this country because, as a result of our money-drenched political culture, their main promise -- advocacy of the interests ordinary people rather than those of the powerful -- becomes impossible to fulfill. Right-wingers don't have this problem; they say they're going to help the capitalists, and they do. The trickle-down that's supposed to derive from that may never arrive, but at least they're not saying one thing and doing another. Democrats always let us down. How can they not?
At first glance, this seems like a very good thing:
Philadelphia Gives Homeowners a Way to Stay Put
... Under the rules adopted by Philadelphia's primary civil court, no owner-occupied house may be foreclosed on and sold by the sheriff's office before a "conciliation conference," a face-to-face meeting between the homeowner and the lender aimed at striking a workable compromise. Every homeowner facing a default filing is furnished with counseling, and sometimes legal representation.
... In some cases, deals are struck that lower monthly payments for borrowers and allow them to retain their homes. When a homeowner cannot afford the home even at modified terms, the program helps to create a graceful exit, in which the borrower accepts cash for vacating the property or signs over the deed in lieu of further payment.
It also seems like a rebuke to the caution and timidity of the Obama administration:
Those outcomes are similar to the ones produced by the Obama administration's $75 billion program aimed at stemming foreclosures.... But in Philadelphia there is one crucial difference: the mortgage companies have no choice but to participate. They have to attend the conferences and negotiate in good faith or they cannot proceed with a sheriff’s sale.
But there are some problems:
... Some suggest the city's program is plagued by the same basic defect as the Obama rescue plan: Nearly all the loans that have been modified have been altered on a trial basis, requiring homeowners to reapply for an extension of the terms after only a few months -- a process that appears rife with obstacles, according to participants.
"There's no teeth to the conciliation program," said Matthew B. Weisberg, a Philadelphia lawyer who represents homeowners in cases involving alleged mortgage fraud. "It's a largely ineffective stopgap prolonging what appears to be the inevitable, which is the loss of homes."
Still, Mr. Weisberg grudgingly praised the plan.
"It's arbitrary and unpredictable," he said, "but it's better than what anybody else is doing."
There's the failure of liberalism in what's supposed to be the post-conservative Obama era: the president's approach to huge problems is weak and watered down ... and the "cutting-edge" approach at the non-federal level is only slightly less weak and watered down.
In a better world, negotiation would be mandatory and settlements would stick -- nationwide -- and the wheeler-dealers would shut up and take it, as the inevitable price to be paid for the government's benevolent decision not to allow their entire playhouse, otherwise known as the global economic system, to go through the laissez-faire process of collapse and rebirth, which would have meant a far longer and more painful downturn, in all likelihood a full-blown depression. But the profound corruption of our political system means that supposedly liberal Washington pols search for much more direct ways to improve the bottom lines of the wheeler-dealers, bypassing relief for ordinary schmucks altogether.
"Liberal" Democrats inevitably fail in this country because, as a result of our money-drenched political culture, their main promise -- advocacy of the interests ordinary people rather than those of the powerful -- becomes impossible to fulfill. Right-wingers don't have this problem; they say they're going to help the capitalists, and they do. The trickle-down that's supposed to derive from that may never arrive, but at least they're not saying one thing and doing another. Democrats always let us down. How can they not?
If You Read Only One More Palin Review--Read This.
Just read the whole thing.
aimai
The most unbelievable thing about Going Rogue, by the author-function "Sarah Palin," is that it's supposed to be self-serving. The problem a self-serving narrative about Sarah Palin confronts is that it's about Sarah Palin, whose entire life, it appears, consists of worse and worse attempts to create self-serving narratives explaining away bigger and bigger fuck-ups. Going Rogue's burden is that it must claim to be the definitive, encyclopedic explanation, the final excuse, for a long history of failure begat by failure; it's an epic of failure, if you will, and if the goal here is some kind of ultimate vindication, well, it is monumentally unsuccessful. Going Rogue is, at bottom, the story of every one of Sarah Palin's projects ending in grotesque catastrophe; it is only self-serving in the sense that these catastrophes either prove benign or turn out to be some other schlub's fault. If everything I knew about Sarah Palin came from this book (and basically it does), I would say her life has been like a play in which a deus-ex-machina descends at the end of every act to bestow peace and harmony, except the deus forgot to put on pants and everyone's just standing around going "uhhhh..." and then the lights go out and the scene changes.
Just read the whole thing.
aimai
Who Took the Virtue out of Virtually?
We are actually, literally, at war with two countries this very minute. Body bags come home every day. Iraqi and Afghan civilians are killed every day. We are paying a shit-load of money for a literal war and yet it wasn't real enough for the RNC, absent the AG's verbal "thumbs up?" Isn't this rather postmodern for the GOP?
aimai
Rudy Giuliani, on a RNC conference call with reporters just now: "I was glad to see Holder say 'we're at war.' I had thought we had virtually stopped being at war with the terrorists."
We are actually, literally, at war with two countries this very minute. Body bags come home every day. Iraqi and Afghan civilians are killed every day. We are paying a shit-load of money for a literal war and yet it wasn't real enough for the RNC, absent the AG's verbal "thumbs up?" Isn't this rather postmodern for the GOP?
aimai
I GUESS McCARTHYISM AND UNMITIGATED GALL WAS DEEMED INSUFFICIENTLY CATCHY
Well, now we know the title of Karl Rove's forthcoming memoir, due in stores March 9:
Courage and Consequence
I don't know if the "courage" part is intended as a reference to his White House superiors or himself, but if it's the latter, I'd say this is the most egomaniacal book title since A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and that was meant to be ironic.
I'll give him the "consequence" part, in the sense that the meeting of that iceberg and the Titanic was "consequential."
Well, now we know the title of Karl Rove's forthcoming memoir, due in stores March 9:
Courage and Consequence
I don't know if the "courage" part is intended as a reference to his White House superiors or himself, but if it's the latter, I'd say this is the most egomaniacal book title since A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and that was meant to be ironic.
I'll give him the "consequence" part, in the sense that the meeting of that iceberg and the Titanic was "consequential."
CHENEY'S DIPPED NECK
Just a reminder of one moment in the history of the guy who said this:
Dick Cheney is blasting Barack Obama for plunging the presidency to a new low -- by bowing to the Japanese emperor....
"There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone," Cheney complained to the Politico.com. "Our friends and allies don't expect it, and our enemies see it as a sign of weakness." ...
Yeah, right, Dick -- you'd never show deference to a foreign leader, would you?
(Date: March 21, 2008.)
There was plenty of deference of this kind in the Bush years, as you probably recall, but mostly the president got to do it himself.
Just a reminder of one moment in the history of the guy who said this:
Dick Cheney is blasting Barack Obama for plunging the presidency to a new low -- by bowing to the Japanese emperor....
"There is no reason for an American president to bow to anyone," Cheney complained to the Politico.com. "Our friends and allies don't expect it, and our enemies see it as a sign of weakness." ...
Yeah, right, Dick -- you'd never show deference to a foreign leader, would you?
(Date: March 21, 2008.)
There was plenty of deference of this kind in the Bush years, as you probably recall, but mostly the president got to do it himself.
PALIN, STILL FAILING CIVICS 101
An exchange from "Sarah Palin Answers PEOPLE Readers' Questions":
If you could have one job in the White House tomorrow, what would it be? -- Alisha Cordoncillo, Copperas Cove, Tex.
It would be chief of staff, so I could start appointing people who would recognize those things that America needs to get our economy back on the right track and to secure our nation.
Yup, that's what she thinks: that the chief of staff actually has the authority to alter administration policy by making personnel decisions -- over the president's head.
Granted, until recently someone other than the president did have a job more or like that. But that was a special arrangement, and now Dick Cheney is out of office. Palin thinks it's in the chief of staff's job description.
I can't wait for the 2012 primary-season debates.
An exchange from "Sarah Palin Answers PEOPLE Readers' Questions":
If you could have one job in the White House tomorrow, what would it be? -- Alisha Cordoncillo, Copperas Cove, Tex.
It would be chief of staff, so I could start appointing people who would recognize those things that America needs to get our economy back on the right track and to secure our nation.
Yup, that's what she thinks: that the chief of staff actually has the authority to alter administration policy by making personnel decisions -- over the president's head.
Granted, until recently someone other than the president did have a job more or like that. But that was a special arrangement, and now Dick Cheney is out of office. Palin thinks it's in the chief of staff's job description.
I can't wait for the 2012 primary-season debates.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
IS THERE AN ECHO IN HERE, OR IS IT PALIN?
Sarah Palin, in an interview on Rush Limbaugh's show today:
But those commonsense solutions there, especially with the cutting taxes on the job creators, that's not even being discussed.
****
Let's go back to what Reagan did in the early eighties and stay committed to those commonsense free market principles that worked.
****
...it's all about jobs, it's all about Americans who are hurting right now and what those solutions are that are so obvious, so commonsense that need to be plugged in. And those are Republican, they're commonsense conservative principles that we just need to apply.
****
... it's a clearer and clearer picture that what Americans are seeking, even in a district there in New York, they are seeking commonsense, conservative solutions to all the challenges that we're facing. I'm glad to see this.
****
Todd's not a Republican and yet he's got more commonsense conservatism than a whole lot of Republicans that I know because he is one who sees the idiosyncrasies of the characters within the machine and it frustrates him along with a whole lot of other Americans who choose to be independent. But in answer to your question, I don't think that the third party movement will be what's necessary to usher in some commonsense conservative ideals.
****
In Alaska, about 70% of Alaskans are independent. So that's my base. That's where I am from and that's been my training ground, is just implementing commonsense conservative solutions.
****
I don't like the idea, in general, of the federal government thinking it needs to take over health care -- which essentially this is -- and control one-sixth of our economy. Not when there are commonsense solutions to meeting health care challenges in our country, like allowing the intra- and interstate competition with insurers, tort reform, cutting down on the waste and fraud that the Obama administration insists if we just did that we'll pay for this one-point-some trillion-dollar health care reform package. So lots of commonsense solutions that need to be plugged in before ever considering federal government taking it over.
****
It was just a lot of hard work and it was a lot of very commonsense measures that I undertook politically and practically speaking, and the book is about that, and hopefully people will read it and enjoy it and learn something from it.
If you're keeping score at home, that's eleven "commonsense"s in an interview than runs about 3,400 words.
Well, we've always known this about Palin -- she absorbs catchphrases rather than ideas, and then she runs those catchphrases into the ground. (Remember "hungry markets"?)
George W. Bush also glommed onto simple words and phrases -- you know, like "freedom." But at least that was aspirational. Freedom! What did it mean to be a champion of freedom? It was a worthy goal, even if the execution was abysmal.
Palin, though, just latches onto phrases the way you would if you'd been caught unprepared for a pop quiz -- and then she actually seems to start believing that these substitutes for knowledge and thought actually are knowledge and thought. And that's what a third of the country wants in the Oval Office....
****
UPDATE: Chris Kelly of the Huffington Post noticed the same thing.
****
UPDATE, WEDNESDAY: The echo continues in another interview.
****
UPDATE: Even more.
Sarah Palin, in an interview on Rush Limbaugh's show today:
But those commonsense solutions there, especially with the cutting taxes on the job creators, that's not even being discussed.
****
Let's go back to what Reagan did in the early eighties and stay committed to those commonsense free market principles that worked.
****
...it's all about jobs, it's all about Americans who are hurting right now and what those solutions are that are so obvious, so commonsense that need to be plugged in. And those are Republican, they're commonsense conservative principles that we just need to apply.
****
... it's a clearer and clearer picture that what Americans are seeking, even in a district there in New York, they are seeking commonsense, conservative solutions to all the challenges that we're facing. I'm glad to see this.
****
Todd's not a Republican and yet he's got more commonsense conservatism than a whole lot of Republicans that I know because he is one who sees the idiosyncrasies of the characters within the machine and it frustrates him along with a whole lot of other Americans who choose to be independent. But in answer to your question, I don't think that the third party movement will be what's necessary to usher in some commonsense conservative ideals.
****
In Alaska, about 70% of Alaskans are independent. So that's my base. That's where I am from and that's been my training ground, is just implementing commonsense conservative solutions.
****
I don't like the idea, in general, of the federal government thinking it needs to take over health care -- which essentially this is -- and control one-sixth of our economy. Not when there are commonsense solutions to meeting health care challenges in our country, like allowing the intra- and interstate competition with insurers, tort reform, cutting down on the waste and fraud that the Obama administration insists if we just did that we'll pay for this one-point-some trillion-dollar health care reform package. So lots of commonsense solutions that need to be plugged in before ever considering federal government taking it over.
****
It was just a lot of hard work and it was a lot of very commonsense measures that I undertook politically and practically speaking, and the book is about that, and hopefully people will read it and enjoy it and learn something from it.
If you're keeping score at home, that's eleven "commonsense"s in an interview than runs about 3,400 words.
Well, we've always known this about Palin -- she absorbs catchphrases rather than ideas, and then she runs those catchphrases into the ground. (Remember "hungry markets"?)
George W. Bush also glommed onto simple words and phrases -- you know, like "freedom." But at least that was aspirational. Freedom! What did it mean to be a champion of freedom? It was a worthy goal, even if the execution was abysmal.
Palin, though, just latches onto phrases the way you would if you'd been caught unprepared for a pop quiz -- and then she actually seems to start believing that these substitutes for knowledge and thought actually are knowledge and thought. And that's what a third of the country wants in the Oval Office....
****
UPDATE: Chris Kelly of the Huffington Post noticed the same thing.
****
UPDATE, WEDNESDAY: The echo continues in another interview.
****
UPDATE: Even more.
TO GET PITY IS GLORIOUS
I see that David Brooks is concerned about America's mettle (or intestinal fortitude or something), which doesn't seem as robust as China's -- and this has gotten me thinking about (of course) Sarah Palin. Here's some of what Brooks says:
...eschatological faith in the future has motivated generations of Americans, just as religious faith motivates a missionary. Pioneers and immigrants endured hardship in the present because of their confidence in future plenty. Entrepreneurs start up companies with an exaggerated sense of their chances of success. The faith is the molten core of the country's dynamism.
... The Chinese, though members of a famously old civilization, seem to possess some of the vigor that once defined the U.S. The Chinese are now an astonishingly optimistic people. Eighty-six percent of Chinese believe their country is headed in the right direction, compared with 37 percent of Americans.
The Chinese now have lavish faith in their scientific and technological potential.... The majority of the Chinese believe that China will produce the next society-changing innovation, while only a third of Americans believe the next breakthrough will happen here....
For better or worse, I don't think we particularly value tech innovators in this country (Steve Jobs and videogame designers excepted), and I don't think we care all that much about truly innovative entrepreneurs. Our heroes tend to be sports stars and entertainers, a few politicians and fist-shaking pundits, plus (in the tonier zip codes) the wheeler-dealers who make killings for themselves but don't add much to ordinary people's lives beyond that.
Oddly, this is true even on the right.
Think about it. You'd imagine that right-wingers, those great admirers of capitalism, would have many capitalist innovators and entrepreneurs as their big heroes. But that's not true. Their heroes aren't titans of industry or builders of better mousetraps.
Their heroes are whiners.
The biggest heroes on the right are the people who complain the loudest and most compellingly about what evil people liberals are. Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck. Rush Limbaugh. Joe Wilson. They don't make anything, except a high-pitched whiny noise. Isn't that odd?
Even their greatest intellectual hero, Ayn Rand, was a whiner -- her books are nothing but thousand-page complaints. Isn't it curious that the quintessential Randian act is not an act of creation, or even wealth creation, but a massive hissyfit -- the John Galt-led strike in Atlas Shrugged?
****
Via Barbara at the Mahablog, I see that Max Blumenthal has concluded that Sarah Palin's particular appeal to the right-wing base is specifically as a victim of the evangelical persuasion:
By emphasizing her own crises and her victimization by the "liberal media," Palin has established an invisible, indissoluble bond with adherents of that [evangelical] subculture -- so visceral it transcends any rational political analysis. As a result, her career has become a vehicle through which the right-wing evangelical movement feels it can express its deepest identity in opposition both to secular society and to its representatives in the Obama White House. Palin is perceived by its leaders -- and followers -- not as another cynical politician or even as a self-promoting celebrity, but as a kind of magical helper, the God-fearing glamour girl who parachuted into their backwater towns to lift them from the drudgery of everyday life, assuring them that they represented the "Real America."
A shared non-urbane background helps Palin connect (and, as Blumenthal says, even having a teenage mother in the family helps fprm a bond, given how common that problem is for rural white evangelicals) -- but don't forget that many of these same people deeply admire Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, who live secular lives and go to tony restaurants.
The base wants respect for its way of life, whether from fellow non-urbanites or not. Beyond that, the base wants victimized whining. And then more whining. And more whining. From anyone, as long as it's directed at the correct target.
I see that David Brooks is concerned about America's mettle (or intestinal fortitude or something), which doesn't seem as robust as China's -- and this has gotten me thinking about (of course) Sarah Palin. Here's some of what Brooks says:
...eschatological faith in the future has motivated generations of Americans, just as religious faith motivates a missionary. Pioneers and immigrants endured hardship in the present because of their confidence in future plenty. Entrepreneurs start up companies with an exaggerated sense of their chances of success. The faith is the molten core of the country's dynamism.
... The Chinese, though members of a famously old civilization, seem to possess some of the vigor that once defined the U.S. The Chinese are now an astonishingly optimistic people. Eighty-six percent of Chinese believe their country is headed in the right direction, compared with 37 percent of Americans.
The Chinese now have lavish faith in their scientific and technological potential.... The majority of the Chinese believe that China will produce the next society-changing innovation, while only a third of Americans believe the next breakthrough will happen here....
For better or worse, I don't think we particularly value tech innovators in this country (Steve Jobs and videogame designers excepted), and I don't think we care all that much about truly innovative entrepreneurs. Our heroes tend to be sports stars and entertainers, a few politicians and fist-shaking pundits, plus (in the tonier zip codes) the wheeler-dealers who make killings for themselves but don't add much to ordinary people's lives beyond that.
Oddly, this is true even on the right.
Think about it. You'd imagine that right-wingers, those great admirers of capitalism, would have many capitalist innovators and entrepreneurs as their big heroes. But that's not true. Their heroes aren't titans of industry or builders of better mousetraps.
Their heroes are whiners.
The biggest heroes on the right are the people who complain the loudest and most compellingly about what evil people liberals are. Sarah Palin. Glenn Beck. Rush Limbaugh. Joe Wilson. They don't make anything, except a high-pitched whiny noise. Isn't that odd?
Even their greatest intellectual hero, Ayn Rand, was a whiner -- her books are nothing but thousand-page complaints. Isn't it curious that the quintessential Randian act is not an act of creation, or even wealth creation, but a massive hissyfit -- the John Galt-led strike in Atlas Shrugged?
****
Via Barbara at the Mahablog, I see that Max Blumenthal has concluded that Sarah Palin's particular appeal to the right-wing base is specifically as a victim of the evangelical persuasion:
By emphasizing her own crises and her victimization by the "liberal media," Palin has established an invisible, indissoluble bond with adherents of that [evangelical] subculture -- so visceral it transcends any rational political analysis. As a result, her career has become a vehicle through which the right-wing evangelical movement feels it can express its deepest identity in opposition both to secular society and to its representatives in the Obama White House. Palin is perceived by its leaders -- and followers -- not as another cynical politician or even as a self-promoting celebrity, but as a kind of magical helper, the God-fearing glamour girl who parachuted into their backwater towns to lift them from the drudgery of everyday life, assuring them that they represented the "Real America."
A shared non-urbane background helps Palin connect (and, as Blumenthal says, even having a teenage mother in the family helps fprm a bond, given how common that problem is for rural white evangelicals) -- but don't forget that many of these same people deeply admire Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, who live secular lives and go to tony restaurants.
The base wants respect for its way of life, whether from fellow non-urbanites or not. Beyond that, the base wants victimized whining. And then more whining. And more whining. From anyone, as long as it's directed at the correct target.
Imitation of Life:
Elvis Impersonators make good money imitating Elvis. Tina Fey made good money imitating Sarah Palin. Why shouldn't Sarah Palin make good money imitating a Presidential Candidate?
aimai
Elvis Impersonators make good money imitating Elvis. Tina Fey made good money imitating Sarah Palin. Why shouldn't Sarah Palin make good money imitating a Presidential Candidate?
aimai
In Jim Wallis's America the Passive Voice* Fucks You**
Lets not argue about who killed Health Care Reform! It was obviously those faithless pro-choice people who faithlessly failed to negotiate in good faith with the faithful.
*Semantics Police in Comments corrects me. Edited to change "Passive Tense" to "Passive Voice." My Bad.
**And after a hospital bed conversion during which I decided to stop swearing, too! I blame fucking Jim Wallis for dragging me back.
Lets not argue about who killed Health Care Reform! It was obviously those faithless pro-choice people who faithlessly failed to negotiate in good faith with the faithful.
This is an alarming turn for the worse from several months ago, when both pro-life and pro-choice advocates recognized that health insurance reform would be difficult enough to achieve without injecting the old culture wars into the debate. Because health-care reform was so important to key people on both sides of the abortion debate, they agreed to the principle that existing legal precedents should be applied, and that neither side would use the health-care debate to advance its abortion agenda. While it was clear that some political groups were anxious to use this divisive issue to try to kill health-care reform, a number of both pro-life and pro-choice leaders were very committed to it and decided to seek common ground.
I believe there were some sincere early efforts by leaders on both sides to abide by what became known as "abortion neutrality." But somewhere along the line, the process broke down. Instead of building on the initial common ground of neutrality and bringing both sides together to hammer out compromises, many pro-life Democrats felt excluded from the conversation about how abortion would be addressed in the bill. Ultimately, they felt they were presented with a final "compromise" on abortion drafted by a predominantly pro-choice committee. Although the Capps Amendment was meant as a good faith effort to find common ground, it was drafted and finalized without enough substantive input from the pro-life community, and it failed to address many pro-life concerns. (In several situations, it even made things worse instead of better.)
Unfortunately, from that point forward, mistrust grew, and the rhetoric and battle lines became more pronounced. Capps might have been a fruitful starting point for dialogue and a first step toward a workable compromise. Instead, those shepherding the bill made public statements that Capps had "taken abortion off the table" and was the best the pro-life community could hope for -- take it or leave it. In response, some in the pro-life community cried foul and claimed this process demonstrated why they could never trust the pro-choice Democrats. Both sides accused the other of "moving the goal posts," "violating neutrality," and threatening to sabotage needed health-care reform if they didn't get exactly what they wanted on abortion.
*Semantics Police in Comments corrects me. Edited to change "Passive Tense" to "Passive Voice." My Bad.
**And after a hospital bed conversion during which I decided to stop swearing, too! I blame fucking Jim Wallis for dragging me back.
GLENN BECK WILL BE PRESIDENT BEFORE PALIN OR JINDAL
OK, that's hyperbole -- but, much as it pains me to say it, Beck's response to Beck parodies on South Park and Jon Stewart's show is good-humored and self-effacing -- or seems so, even if (as is probably the case) he's faking it. Watch:
Now, when Bobby Jindal gave the response to an Obama presidential address and he was deemed the second coming of 30 Rock's Kenneth the Page, he had the chance to show (or pretend) that he could take a joke, the way Bill Clinton and even Nancy Reagan did at similar moments. Instead, he bristled, refused to address the subject with even fake good humor, and now he's The Guy Who Used To Be A Rising GOP Star.
Palin, obviously, is in a much stronger position -- but nobody outside her base likes her, and even a majority of Republicans (according to a new CBS poll) don't think she should run for president. Needless to say, she doesn't dodge attacks like Jindal -- instead, she lashes out in response. (Is it any surprise that Politico's lead story right now is titled "Going Rogue: Guide to Who Gets Whacked"?) But these are two sides of the same coin -- neither Palin nor Jindal can seem to take a joke, or a criticism.
America always thinks it wants Jimmy Stewart as president. Sure, it wants someone who can bestrides the earth like a colossus, but it also wants that person to be jes' folks. Part of being jes' folks is rolling with the punches and coming up smiling. It turns out whack-job Glenn Beck is better at that, or better at faking it, than two of the GOP's supposed great hopes for the future.
OK, that's hyperbole -- but, much as it pains me to say it, Beck's response to Beck parodies on South Park and Jon Stewart's show is good-humored and self-effacing -- or seems so, even if (as is probably the case) he's faking it. Watch:
Now, when Bobby Jindal gave the response to an Obama presidential address and he was deemed the second coming of 30 Rock's Kenneth the Page, he had the chance to show (or pretend) that he could take a joke, the way Bill Clinton and even Nancy Reagan did at similar moments. Instead, he bristled, refused to address the subject with even fake good humor, and now he's The Guy Who Used To Be A Rising GOP Star.
Palin, obviously, is in a much stronger position -- but nobody outside her base likes her, and even a majority of Republicans (according to a new CBS poll) don't think she should run for president. Needless to say, she doesn't dodge attacks like Jindal -- instead, she lashes out in response. (Is it any surprise that Politico's lead story right now is titled "Going Rogue: Guide to Who Gets Whacked"?) But these are two sides of the same coin -- neither Palin nor Jindal can seem to take a joke, or a criticism.
America always thinks it wants Jimmy Stewart as president. Sure, it wants someone who can bestrides the earth like a colossus, but it also wants that person to be jes' folks. Part of being jes' folks is rolling with the punches and coming up smiling. It turns out whack-job Glenn Beck is better at that, or better at faking it, than two of the GOP's supposed great hopes for the future.
Monday, November 16, 2009
BE AFRAID. BE MILDLY AFRAID.
I missed Sarah Palin on Oprah, so I've been over at the Huffington Post watching clips -- and I'm vaguely concerned that Palin seems to have put syntax-mangling incoherence behind her. Her sentences sound as if they're in the English language! When did this happen? And what if this continues? America doesn't have particularly high standards for this sort of thing -- we sent Reagan and both George Bushes to the White House. I'm afraid people are going to see the new, not-inarticulate Palin and think she's ... um ... intelligent.
Well, there's an explanation. She's not talking about foreign policy. She's not talking about foreign policy. She's talking about the one and only subject she really knows a lot about: herself. So of course she's semi-articulate.
Can she talk about nothing but herself all the way through the 2012 primary season? Probably not -- but she may try. And she'll feel aggrieved if it's deemed insufficient.
*****
(Now go read the Oprah liveblogs at Rumproast and Wonkette, which are hilarious.)
I missed Sarah Palin on Oprah, so I've been over at the Huffington Post watching clips -- and I'm vaguely concerned that Palin seems to have put syntax-mangling incoherence behind her. Her sentences sound as if they're in the English language! When did this happen? And what if this continues? America doesn't have particularly high standards for this sort of thing -- we sent Reagan and both George Bushes to the White House. I'm afraid people are going to see the new, not-inarticulate Palin and think she's ... um ... intelligent.
Well, there's an explanation. She's not talking about foreign policy. She's not talking about foreign policy. She's talking about the one and only subject she really knows a lot about: herself. So of course she's semi-articulate.
Can she talk about nothing but herself all the way through the 2012 primary season? Probably not -- but she may try. And she'll feel aggrieved if it's deemed insufficient.
*****
(Now go read the Oprah liveblogs at Rumproast and Wonkette, which are hilarious.)
SAVE SARAH PALIN FROM HER OWN DECISIONS! AS A FEMINIST ACT!
I would have thought it was sexist to tell a grown woman -- middle-aged at that -- that she needs to be protected from the consequences of decisions she freely made. Apparently not. Apparently it's sexist not to want to save Sarah Palin from herself.
Last summer, Sarah Palin -- of her own free will -- made the decision to do an interview with Runner's World, which was accompanied by a series of photos for which Palin posed -- also of her own free will. One of the photos, arguably, was low-level cheesecake.
Now that photo is used on the cover of Newsweek:
Palin fangirl Amy Siskind* is livid:
... The worst thing is this disgusting cover from Newsweek, who as you see has decided [sic] to run a picture of Palin with lots of bare leg.…
So they resort, in desperation, to sex and sexism to sell their magazine? Editor-in-chief Jon Meacham should be ashamed of himself!! This magazine ... is another Exhibit A about why the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is no refuge for feminists. It has become a refuge of sexist scoundrels. Phooey to them!!!
More from David Brody of Pat Robertson's CBN:
Newsweek Photo of Palin Shows Media Bias and Sexism
... This cover has got to be a new low right? They don't use a photo of Palin on the campaign trail. No instead they take the sexy Runners World photo. Yes she posed for it but don't tell me they didn't purposely use that photo to make a point? I predict this cover will become a bigger story over the next 24-48 hours and let's face it. This isn't JUST about media bias. This cover should be insulting to women politicians. Where's the sexy photo of Mitt Romney? Why not a picture of Tim Pawlenty with an unbuttoned shirt relaxing on a couch in the Twin Cities?
Funny, I don't recall these folks having an outraged reaction to this:
Or, for that matter, to the billion uses by admirers of the George W. Bush codpiece photo.
This picture wasn't the work of a paparazzo, nor was it some photojournalist's least flattering shot from a news event. Palin posed for this photo. She's never complained about its appearance in RW, and neither have her fanboys and fangirls. And you know what? She's not the president. She's not even a governor anymore. In fact, she doesn't have a job. Maybe a president deserves to be portrayed in the national press with a bit of class -- I'm not sure I'd go even that far -- but she's not the president; she's just a private citizen selling her story. She sold part of it to Runner's World's readers with that photo shoot, and now she's selling another part of it. She lowered the dignity standard, not Newsweek.
****
*UPDATE: My error -- the linked piece is by Siskind's co-blogger Cynthia Ruccia. Siskind herself does, however, cite Ruccia's post favorably here. (H/T: Betty Cracker in comments.)
I would have thought it was sexist to tell a grown woman -- middle-aged at that -- that she needs to be protected from the consequences of decisions she freely made. Apparently not. Apparently it's sexist not to want to save Sarah Palin from herself.
Last summer, Sarah Palin -- of her own free will -- made the decision to do an interview with Runner's World, which was accompanied by a series of photos for which Palin posed -- also of her own free will. One of the photos, arguably, was low-level cheesecake.
Now that photo is used on the cover of Newsweek:
Palin fangirl Amy Siskind* is livid:
... The worst thing is this disgusting cover from Newsweek, who as you see has decided [sic] to run a picture of Palin with lots of bare leg.…
So they resort, in desperation, to sex and sexism to sell their magazine? Editor-in-chief Jon Meacham should be ashamed of himself!! This magazine ... is another Exhibit A about why the liberal wing of the Democratic Party is no refuge for feminists. It has become a refuge of sexist scoundrels. Phooey to them!!!
More from David Brody of Pat Robertson's CBN:
Newsweek Photo of Palin Shows Media Bias and Sexism
... This cover has got to be a new low right? They don't use a photo of Palin on the campaign trail. No instead they take the sexy Runners World photo. Yes she posed for it but don't tell me they didn't purposely use that photo to make a point? I predict this cover will become a bigger story over the next 24-48 hours and let's face it. This isn't JUST about media bias. This cover should be insulting to women politicians. Where's the sexy photo of Mitt Romney? Why not a picture of Tim Pawlenty with an unbuttoned shirt relaxing on a couch in the Twin Cities?
Funny, I don't recall these folks having an outraged reaction to this:
Or, for that matter, to the billion uses by admirers of the George W. Bush codpiece photo.
This picture wasn't the work of a paparazzo, nor was it some photojournalist's least flattering shot from a news event. Palin posed for this photo. She's never complained about its appearance in RW, and neither have her fanboys and fangirls. And you know what? She's not the president. She's not even a governor anymore. In fact, she doesn't have a job. Maybe a president deserves to be portrayed in the national press with a bit of class -- I'm not sure I'd go even that far -- but she's not the president; she's just a private citizen selling her story. She sold part of it to Runner's World's readers with that photo shoot, and now she's selling another part of it. She lowered the dignity standard, not Newsweek.
****
*UPDATE: My error -- the linked piece is by Siskind's co-blogger Cynthia Ruccia. Siskind herself does, however, cite Ruccia's post favorably here. (H/T: Betty Cracker in comments.)
STEELY-EYED ROGUE GAL
The conventional wisdom is that Sarah Palin will want to deal with her weaknesses in anticipation of a 2012 presidential run -- or not run at all. Everyone, of course, knows what those weaknesses are: according to the new Washington Post/ABC poll, she's viewed unfavorably by a majority of the country, including a plurality of independents, and 60% of poll respondents say she's unqualified for the presidency. So we ask: is this when she'll start reaching out to the center? When she'll start trying to demonstrate a real command of issues? When she'll start trying to seem more personally appealing to those who aren't in the base?
But the endless anticipation of a new, more presidential Palin is starting to remind me of the Bush years, when the conventional wisdom kept telling us that surely the steely-eyed rocket man would see the error of his ways and withdraw from Iraq while offering olive branches to Democrats. It never happened, because George W. Bush who didn't think anything was ever wrong with him -- if you didn't like him, if you didn't like the things he did, well, tough noogies for you.
Palin's the same way. She's never going to "shore up" anything we think she needs to "shore up" if she wants to run for president -- and yet she's going to run for president. As Michiko Kakutani notes in her New York Times review of Palin's book,
the second half of this book often reads like a calculated attempt to position Ms. Palin for 2012. She tries to compare herself to Ronald Reagan by repeatedly invoking his name and record. She talks about being "a Commonsense Conservative" and worrying about the national deficit. And she attempts to explain, rationalize or refute controversial incidents and allegations that emerged during the 2008 race.
And yet, as Mark Halperin has noted, the book is utterly lacking in "hefty policy prescriptions." Translation: she's running and she doesn't give a crap if you think she doesn't have policy chops.
If Palin wanted to seem more likable and more substantial, the damn book wouldn't play into a stereotype of cattiness. And yet it does. Kakutani:
The most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the news media, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign that plucked her out of Alaska, anointed her the Republican vice-presidential nominee and made her one of the most talked about women on the planet -- someone who could command a reported $5 million advance for writing this book.
[This] reads like payback for disparaging comments by John McCain's aides about her after the ticket’s loss to Barack Obama...
I know -- "cattiness" is a sexist word. Well, just as Barack Obama has taken great pains throughout his political career -- throughout his adult life, in fact -- not to embody the unfair stereotype of the "angry black man," Palin needs not to seem focused on claws-out revenge in this way, whether that's fair or not. Any other woman who wanted to be president would acknowledge this potential pitfall, seek to avoid it, and do damage control for any words and deeds that played into the stereotype. Not Palin. She's not going to change.
She's not bothering with seriousness, or outreach to voters who live in densely populated areas (her book tour is mostly sticking to the tank towns), or any attempt to broaden her ideological appeal. She's going to stand pat with her base -- and then probably whine about the unfairness of her inevitable 2012 loss, in either the primaries or the general election. But, like Bush, she's not going to change who she is, because, like Bush, she doesn't think anything about her needs changing -- ever.
The conventional wisdom is that Sarah Palin will want to deal with her weaknesses in anticipation of a 2012 presidential run -- or not run at all. Everyone, of course, knows what those weaknesses are: according to the new Washington Post/ABC poll, she's viewed unfavorably by a majority of the country, including a plurality of independents, and 60% of poll respondents say she's unqualified for the presidency. So we ask: is this when she'll start reaching out to the center? When she'll start trying to demonstrate a real command of issues? When she'll start trying to seem more personally appealing to those who aren't in the base?
But the endless anticipation of a new, more presidential Palin is starting to remind me of the Bush years, when the conventional wisdom kept telling us that surely the steely-eyed rocket man would see the error of his ways and withdraw from Iraq while offering olive branches to Democrats. It never happened, because George W. Bush who didn't think anything was ever wrong with him -- if you didn't like him, if you didn't like the things he did, well, tough noogies for you.
Palin's the same way. She's never going to "shore up" anything we think she needs to "shore up" if she wants to run for president -- and yet she's going to run for president. As Michiko Kakutani notes in her New York Times review of Palin's book,
the second half of this book often reads like a calculated attempt to position Ms. Palin for 2012. She tries to compare herself to Ronald Reagan by repeatedly invoking his name and record. She talks about being "a Commonsense Conservative" and worrying about the national deficit. And she attempts to explain, rationalize or refute controversial incidents and allegations that emerged during the 2008 race.
And yet, as Mark Halperin has noted, the book is utterly lacking in "hefty policy prescriptions." Translation: she's running and she doesn't give a crap if you think she doesn't have policy chops.
If Palin wanted to seem more likable and more substantial, the damn book wouldn't play into a stereotype of cattiness. And yet it does. Kakutani:
The most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the news media, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign that plucked her out of Alaska, anointed her the Republican vice-presidential nominee and made her one of the most talked about women on the planet -- someone who could command a reported $5 million advance for writing this book.
[This] reads like payback for disparaging comments by John McCain's aides about her after the ticket’s loss to Barack Obama...
I know -- "cattiness" is a sexist word. Well, just as Barack Obama has taken great pains throughout his political career -- throughout his adult life, in fact -- not to embody the unfair stereotype of the "angry black man," Palin needs not to seem focused on claws-out revenge in this way, whether that's fair or not. Any other woman who wanted to be president would acknowledge this potential pitfall, seek to avoid it, and do damage control for any words and deeds that played into the stereotype. Not Palin. She's not going to change.
She's not bothering with seriousness, or outreach to voters who live in densely populated areas (her book tour is mostly sticking to the tank towns), or any attempt to broaden her ideological appeal. She's going to stand pat with her base -- and then probably whine about the unfairness of her inevitable 2012 loss, in either the primaries or the general election. But, like Bush, she's not going to change who she is, because, like Bush, she doesn't think anything about her needs changing -- ever.
AN ARMY OF ROMNEYS?
In today's New York Times there's yet another aren't-those-right-wingers-weird? article about the wingnut challenge to Charlie Crist's Senate campaign in Florida. Winger hero Marco Rubio, Crist's opponent in the primaries, is trailing Crist but gaining ground, and we're told, as we're told in all these articles, that Crist is deemed a traitor to the Cause, while Rubio is regarded by wingers as part of the force that can turn the GOP back into the purist enterprise it's supposed to be.
Which means they're ignoring evidence of his less-than-perfect devotion to the One True Wingnut Faith, as The Miami Herald has noted:
The candidate Rubio rails against big-government spending and assures voters that as a senator he won't slip earmarks into the federal budget. As speaker, however, he didn't mind a state budget with $800,000 tucked away for artificial turf on Miami-Dade fields where he played flag football.
The turf [was] listed as a juvenile crime prevention initiative....
He bashes Crist for pushing a cap-and-trade program to lower greenhouse emissions, but Rubio voted for the bill that specifically declared that the Legislature wants the state to pursue market-based strategies such as cap-and-trade....
Rubio has criticized Crist for seeking a gambling accord with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. But a House speaker can kill any legislation he wishes, and Rubio stood by as his chamber pursued the largest expansion of gambling in more than 15 years. (And he took some industry contributions, though he said it had no influence.) ...
As a candidate, Rubio talks about securing the nation's borders and says he does not support amnesty for the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country.
But as the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida House, he came across as more moderate and understanding of the nuances of the issue. During Rubio's final year as speaker, there were at least six bills intended to crack down on illegal immigrants. Not one made it to a vote....
Rubio's fiscal conservatism was called into question as soon as he assumed the role of speaker. He spent hundreds of thousands on renovations, including a private dining room for lawmakers, hired the highest-paid spokesman in state government (one with no state government experience) and added more than 20 jobs, including a parliamentarian earning nearly $134,000....
Oh, and:
"He was a big disappointment to us when he was the speaker,'' said NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, who saw Rubio do little to help pass a bill allowing employees to take guns to work. "He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk.''
(Rubio's still talking the talk -- he tweeted during the Iranian student protests that everything in Iran would be hunky-dory if Iran had a Second Amendment, a message he sent to #nra and #tcot aka Top Conservatives on Twitter.)
I think this matters because I think a lot of these teabag people are going to win their primaries -- and, given the Obama administration utter lack of response to anger about the economy, I think some of them are going to win general elections. If that happens in Rubio's case, I'm curious as to which Rubio is going to show up in the Senate.
This is also a concern for 2012, when Obama really might be vulnerable -- he certainly will be if we're in an L-shaped or double-dip recession. Tim Pawlenty is sounding less moderate than he used to. Sarah Palin, obviously, is a bomb-thrower -- but Palin coat-holders such as Matthew Continetti and Amy Siskind aren't completely off-base when they say she used to work across party lines a lot more than she seems inclined to now (to say the least). And, of course, there's the godfather of shameless flip-floppers, Mitt Romney, who is still courting the wingers.
I could almost see a small silver lining in the election of one of these people on a teabag platform -- horrible as most of the agenda would be, with the creationism and the Jack D. Ripper foreign policy and the economic neo-Hooverism, maybe a teabag president would be as good as his/her word on not bailing out Wall Street after the next bubble or second recessionary dip. Maybe it would take a President Teabag to end Too Big to Fail.
But that's not how it's going to go, is it? In fact, all of this seems reminiscent of Bushism -- Bush, who'd worked across party lines in Texas ran as "a uniter, not a divider" and simultaneously on a very right-wing platform. Then he got into office and decided to dance with the ones who brung him -- the neocons, the religious right, and the Laffer Curve crowd. We got an exterminate-the-brutes foreign policy, a push toward theocracy, and "deficits don't matter" tax cuts.
That's what we'll get from a teabag president, I think, especially a president who wasn't oriented that way until it became expedient -- no painful cuts in programs the heartland likes and no Ron Paul-style suspicion of Wall Street, just war and tax cuts. It'll basically be the Cheney administration (and hell, it may literally be the Cheney administration).*
*Bizarre typo fixed on last line.
In today's New York Times there's yet another aren't-those-right-wingers-weird? article about the wingnut challenge to Charlie Crist's Senate campaign in Florida. Winger hero Marco Rubio, Crist's opponent in the primaries, is trailing Crist but gaining ground, and we're told, as we're told in all these articles, that Crist is deemed a traitor to the Cause, while Rubio is regarded by wingers as part of the force that can turn the GOP back into the purist enterprise it's supposed to be.
Which means they're ignoring evidence of his less-than-perfect devotion to the One True Wingnut Faith, as The Miami Herald has noted:
The candidate Rubio rails against big-government spending and assures voters that as a senator he won't slip earmarks into the federal budget. As speaker, however, he didn't mind a state budget with $800,000 tucked away for artificial turf on Miami-Dade fields where he played flag football.
The turf [was] listed as a juvenile crime prevention initiative....
He bashes Crist for pushing a cap-and-trade program to lower greenhouse emissions, but Rubio voted for the bill that specifically declared that the Legislature wants the state to pursue market-based strategies such as cap-and-trade....
Rubio has criticized Crist for seeking a gambling accord with the Seminole Tribe of Florida. But a House speaker can kill any legislation he wishes, and Rubio stood by as his chamber pursued the largest expansion of gambling in more than 15 years. (And he took some industry contributions, though he said it had no influence.) ...
As a candidate, Rubio talks about securing the nation's borders and says he does not support amnesty for the millions of illegal immigrants already in the country.
But as the first Cuban-American speaker of the Florida House, he came across as more moderate and understanding of the nuances of the issue. During Rubio's final year as speaker, there were at least six bills intended to crack down on illegal immigrants. Not one made it to a vote....
Rubio's fiscal conservatism was called into question as soon as he assumed the role of speaker. He spent hundreds of thousands on renovations, including a private dining room for lawmakers, hired the highest-paid spokesman in state government (one with no state government experience) and added more than 20 jobs, including a parliamentarian earning nearly $134,000....
Oh, and:
"He was a big disappointment to us when he was the speaker,'' said NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer, who saw Rubio do little to help pass a bill allowing employees to take guns to work. "He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk.''
(Rubio's still talking the talk -- he tweeted during the Iranian student protests that everything in Iran would be hunky-dory if Iran had a Second Amendment, a message he sent to #nra and #tcot aka Top Conservatives on Twitter.)
I think this matters because I think a lot of these teabag people are going to win their primaries -- and, given the Obama administration utter lack of response to anger about the economy, I think some of them are going to win general elections. If that happens in Rubio's case, I'm curious as to which Rubio is going to show up in the Senate.
This is also a concern for 2012, when Obama really might be vulnerable -- he certainly will be if we're in an L-shaped or double-dip recession. Tim Pawlenty is sounding less moderate than he used to. Sarah Palin, obviously, is a bomb-thrower -- but Palin coat-holders such as Matthew Continetti and Amy Siskind aren't completely off-base when they say she used to work across party lines a lot more than she seems inclined to now (to say the least). And, of course, there's the godfather of shameless flip-floppers, Mitt Romney, who is still courting the wingers.
I could almost see a small silver lining in the election of one of these people on a teabag platform -- horrible as most of the agenda would be, with the creationism and the Jack D. Ripper foreign policy and the economic neo-Hooverism, maybe a teabag president would be as good as his/her word on not bailing out Wall Street after the next bubble or second recessionary dip. Maybe it would take a President Teabag to end Too Big to Fail.
But that's not how it's going to go, is it? In fact, all of this seems reminiscent of Bushism -- Bush, who'd worked across party lines in Texas ran as "a uniter, not a divider" and simultaneously on a very right-wing platform. Then he got into office and decided to dance with the ones who brung him -- the neocons, the religious right, and the Laffer Curve crowd. We got an exterminate-the-brutes foreign policy, a push toward theocracy, and "deficits don't matter" tax cuts.
That's what we'll get from a teabag president, I think, especially a president who wasn't oriented that way until it became expedient -- no painful cuts in programs the heartland likes and no Ron Paul-style suspicion of Wall Street, just war and tax cuts. It'll basically be the Cheney administration (and hell, it may literally be the Cheney administration).*
*Bizarre typo fixed on last line.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
MORE MARXISM FROM THE COMMIE PINKO NEW YORK TIMES
There's yet another fawning profile of a Master of the Universe in today's Times -- this time of uber-Wall Street lawyer H. Rodgin "Rodge" Cohen. The first thing we learn about him is that he's really just an ordinary chap:
He drives a Subaru, a humble ride for a man who earned millions last year arranging shotgun weddings for the busted firms of Wall Street, and standing next to [his wife] Barbara in the darkness, Rodge Cohen, a titan of the banking bar, struggled with his automated key, initially unable to -- woop woop woop -- release the lock.
It was a typical, and typically disarming, moment with Mr. Cohen....
Yes, the temporary failure of his key is a sign of his character ... somehow. This gosh-darn ordinariness thoroughly "disarms" everybody, so we're not supposed to feel in any way squeamish or disgusted by the way he makes his living:
All told, from March 2008, when Bear Stearns was purchased for a song by JPMorgan Chase (both Sullivan & Cromwell clients), to mid-September, when A.I.G. (another client) was handed several billion by the government, Mr. Cohen, 65, took part in a breathtaking 17 financial deals, often hurrying among negotiations like a surgeon running between O.R.'s.
Not that there aren't a few cranks:
... For those of a populist bent -- those, that is, who saw last fall as a potentially disastrous shift of risk from Wall Street to the taxpayer --
... Yes, those silly know-nothing populists who have the bizarre notion that all profits have been shifted to the plutocrats and all losses to the rest of us schmucks....
there is certainly an urge to discern two horns and a tail on Mr. Cohen, whom the blog Zero Hedge recently referred to as the "overlord and viceroy of all Western capitalism." He is ... a Man Behind the Curtain who, by way of billable hours, earned his keep on the near financial ruin of the country.
Oh and:
... some of the deals that he advised on, like Wachovia's purchase of the mortgage lender Golden West, turned very sour and may have helped contribute to the meltdown.
But it would just be gauche to hold that against the man:
Still, it can be difficult to drum up rage against a man who is so mild, courtly and uncommonly unassuming.
Yes, who cares that he's helping Wall Street rob America blind? He's just so darn courteous.
And:
Indeed, in dozens of interviews with clients, competitors and government officials, it was difficult to scare up a critical word about him.
His clients, whom he helps make zillions of dollars, say good things about him -- imagine! As do officials in our thoroughly bought and paid-for government -- who'da thunk? And competitors? Well, on Wall Street it seems to me that competitors are like competitors in, say, pro football -- they compete as part of their job, but really, people on Wall Street, like people in the NFL, sense a shared bond -- they have more in common with one another than with those of us who aren't on the field. They don't really want to destroy one another. Us, they care less about, as long as we keep shelling out the money that maintains their lifestyles.
Oh, as for those government officials who won't say a bad thing about him:
Mr. Cohen is perhaps unique among lawyers of his stature in having what a New York investment banker, Gary W. Parr, called "trusted relationships with people in government." Those relationships are, in fact, so strong that the former Treasury official in charge of financial institutions during the bailout often called Mr. Cohen to ask, "So O.K., Rodge, how do we make this work?"
... the former official, David G. Nason ... said, "he was always available as a sounding board."
Mr. Cohen's role as a sounding board could not, of course, be divorced from his representation of the very banks that stood to gain from the federal programs he advised on...
Yes, but not to worry:
Mr. Nason said that these conflicts of interest were managed with both openness and trust.
"When you're dealing with a Rodge Cohen, you begin by saying, 'This is sensitive information, and you're not going to use it for your own personal benefit,'" Mr. Nason explained. "If they do use it for personal or client gain, they're not going to be part of the discussion anymore -- and they like being part of the mix."
Oh yes, I'm sure everything these guys do is on the up-and-up.
The aforementioned "populist" blog Zero Hedge explains here that Cohen made sure in fall '08 that nine big bailout beneficiaries would "have immediate recourse to essentially unlimited FDIC funding at practically no cost to them for ever and ever." It's complicated, but it's as bad as you'd imagine. And Cohen almost became the #2 guy at the Treasury Department in the Obama administration, until he withdrew for reasons that have never been fully explained. (On that subject, there's possibly the only worthwhile NewsBusters post ever.)
There's your "liberal" New York Times -- and "liberal" Democratic Party )this guy is a Democrat, and gives big money to Democratic officeholders) and "liberal" Obama administration.
There's yet another fawning profile of a Master of the Universe in today's Times -- this time of uber-Wall Street lawyer H. Rodgin "Rodge" Cohen. The first thing we learn about him is that he's really just an ordinary chap:
He drives a Subaru, a humble ride for a man who earned millions last year arranging shotgun weddings for the busted firms of Wall Street, and standing next to [his wife] Barbara in the darkness, Rodge Cohen, a titan of the banking bar, struggled with his automated key, initially unable to -- woop woop woop -- release the lock.
It was a typical, and typically disarming, moment with Mr. Cohen....
Yes, the temporary failure of his key is a sign of his character ... somehow. This gosh-darn ordinariness thoroughly "disarms" everybody, so we're not supposed to feel in any way squeamish or disgusted by the way he makes his living:
All told, from March 2008, when Bear Stearns was purchased for a song by JPMorgan Chase (both Sullivan & Cromwell clients), to mid-September, when A.I.G. (another client) was handed several billion by the government, Mr. Cohen, 65, took part in a breathtaking 17 financial deals, often hurrying among negotiations like a surgeon running between O.R.'s.
Not that there aren't a few cranks:
... For those of a populist bent -- those, that is, who saw last fall as a potentially disastrous shift of risk from Wall Street to the taxpayer --
... Yes, those silly know-nothing populists who have the bizarre notion that all profits have been shifted to the plutocrats and all losses to the rest of us schmucks....
there is certainly an urge to discern two horns and a tail on Mr. Cohen, whom the blog Zero Hedge recently referred to as the "overlord and viceroy of all Western capitalism." He is ... a Man Behind the Curtain who, by way of billable hours, earned his keep on the near financial ruin of the country.
Oh and:
... some of the deals that he advised on, like Wachovia's purchase of the mortgage lender Golden West, turned very sour and may have helped contribute to the meltdown.
But it would just be gauche to hold that against the man:
Still, it can be difficult to drum up rage against a man who is so mild, courtly and uncommonly unassuming.
Yes, who cares that he's helping Wall Street rob America blind? He's just so darn courteous.
And:
Indeed, in dozens of interviews with clients, competitors and government officials, it was difficult to scare up a critical word about him.
His clients, whom he helps make zillions of dollars, say good things about him -- imagine! As do officials in our thoroughly bought and paid-for government -- who'da thunk? And competitors? Well, on Wall Street it seems to me that competitors are like competitors in, say, pro football -- they compete as part of their job, but really, people on Wall Street, like people in the NFL, sense a shared bond -- they have more in common with one another than with those of us who aren't on the field. They don't really want to destroy one another. Us, they care less about, as long as we keep shelling out the money that maintains their lifestyles.
Oh, as for those government officials who won't say a bad thing about him:
Mr. Cohen is perhaps unique among lawyers of his stature in having what a New York investment banker, Gary W. Parr, called "trusted relationships with people in government." Those relationships are, in fact, so strong that the former Treasury official in charge of financial institutions during the bailout often called Mr. Cohen to ask, "So O.K., Rodge, how do we make this work?"
... the former official, David G. Nason ... said, "he was always available as a sounding board."
Mr. Cohen's role as a sounding board could not, of course, be divorced from his representation of the very banks that stood to gain from the federal programs he advised on...
Yes, but not to worry:
Mr. Nason said that these conflicts of interest were managed with both openness and trust.
"When you're dealing with a Rodge Cohen, you begin by saying, 'This is sensitive information, and you're not going to use it for your own personal benefit,'" Mr. Nason explained. "If they do use it for personal or client gain, they're not going to be part of the discussion anymore -- and they like being part of the mix."
Oh yes, I'm sure everything these guys do is on the up-and-up.
The aforementioned "populist" blog Zero Hedge explains here that Cohen made sure in fall '08 that nine big bailout beneficiaries would "have immediate recourse to essentially unlimited FDIC funding at practically no cost to them for ever and ever." It's complicated, but it's as bad as you'd imagine. And Cohen almost became the #2 guy at the Treasury Department in the Obama administration, until he withdrew for reasons that have never been fully explained. (On that subject, there's possibly the only worthwhile NewsBusters post ever.)
There's your "liberal" New York Times -- and "liberal" Democratic Party )this guy is a Democrat, and gives big money to Democratic officeholders) and "liberal" Obama administration.
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