Re: Steele and the RNC: Allow me to chime in with my usual observation on this subject: This is a job for Sarah Palin. Palin would be a much better RNC chairman than presidential candidate or freelance kingmaker. She’d raise tons of money and help recruit good candidates, i.e., she’d excel at doing the things Steele should have been doing instead of appointing himself Republican pundit-at-large.
Please let this happen.
Kobie
While it would be fun to watch the carnage, the writer of that piece is probably right.
Chad S
Palin would just appoint herself GOP Pundit-in-chief. And a lot of the raised funds will be paying for various projects in and around Wasilla before long. Palin’s too much like Arlo from Justified: so convinced of her correctness about everything that she’ll try to lie, cheat and embezzle everything and everyone around her, no matter how clear everyone makes its known that they know what her scam is.
thejoz
The idiocy of Michael Steele could only be eclipsed by the idiocy of Sarah Palin.
Sure she might be good at what Steele isn’t good at, but she’d also be about 10 times worse (that’s a conservative estimate) at what Steele is bad at.
dmsilev
As far as I can tell, Sarah Palin is primarily good at raising money for Sarah Palin. I, too, support this move, as a way to stimulate the New York clothing and Alaskan home construction industries.
dms
General Egali Tarian Stuck
it won’t. I give Sarah Serendipity credit for spotting a pot of gold at the end of the fallen Mccain campaign rainbow, and going for it. The only fund raising she is interested in is the one connected to her personal bank account. And more power to her. I was wrong about her, I think. She is just smart enough to know she he stupid. But not stupid enough to kill her golden goose by political ambition, other than to suit up and show up for the fleecing of the wingnut flock.
Midnight Marauder
@Kobie:
Because Sarah Palin has an amazing track record of endorsing competent, potentially successful politicians and raising funds for any entity other than herself. Not to mention the fact that she excels when on live television, being interviewed by any media figure not in the Fox News universe, which is a featured aspect of the RNC’s chairperson’s job.
Oh, and she would never deliver a disastrous speech at a private fundraiser that would contradict one of the central tenets of the GOP’s only real major policy initiative: warmongering.
If the Republican Party has been reduced to considering Sarah Palin as their chairperson, the game is already over for them.
cleek
but then she couldn’t run for president!
jwb
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: I actually never thought Sarah was particularly stupid (and I still don’t), though she is stubborn, vindictive, lacking in discipline and a very poor improviser. In many respects she is very much like W. But we should praise the Lord and pass the ammunition that it turned out that she desired money rather than power, because if she had been interested in power, she would have been very dangerous indeed (the only politician on the right today who has any semblance of actual charisma even if I can’t for the life of me see where the appeal lies).
jwb
@cleek: I suspect the author of this comment would see that as feature, not a bug.
gbear
In what respect, Charlie?
JenJen
I can so totally get behind this.
So who do I make the check out to?
jwb
@gbear: When she goes off script, she ends up lost. That’s why she’s very careful these days not to let herself get in a situation where she doesn’t have a script.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@jwb: She could have been dangerous if she had any ambition at all to learn about policy, other than memorizing a few talking points and regurgatating them on cue with some cute digs at dems. She just doesn’t care about that stuff, nor to learn it to the degree it needs to be learned, to become a serious politician for higher office. If she cared to, she could likely have gotten by as a rep from Alaska, and maybe even a Senator, but she would be eatin alive running for POTUS, and I think she knows that. Her strength is a pretty face and a mean spirit and that’s about it. And she likes the spotlight, long as no one asks a hard question, that isn’t a winger softball.
Midnight Marauder
@jwb:
In what world is Sarah Palin not interested in power?! Not to mention that despite her interest in accumulating as much money and power as possible, the woman is fundamentally conspicuously unintelligent.
Chad S
@jwb: The McCain campaign had to explain to her about the Cold war and who we were fighting during the Korean war. Even if you skipped every single history class possible, you should know those things if you have even an average intellect.
She’s a dumbfuck. I doubt she has many actual views of her own and just parrots back what her advisors tell her to believe. If you told her that Thatcher and Reagan were in favor of gay Wiccan marriages with mandatory abortions, she would have a facebook post up about how everyone should have one.
stinkwrinkle
*Oh, please!!!*
She really would be a great fundraiser for the GOP, *plus*, she would be even funnier than Steele, *plus* it would take her out of consideration for President. (Don’t even lie, you know your centrist neighbors would vote for her…)
God, I fear for this country…
jwb
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: Yes, she’s not interested in policy because she’s fundamentally not interested in power. (Her flirtations with power are all in the service of access to money.) If she had the inclination to learn the basics of policy, she wouldn’t have had to be brilliant, just willing to following the instructions of the right handler, who would have easily been able to get the teabaggers lined up for her. But if she had gone for the power, she would not have been able to go for the money, at least not to the same extent, and she would have had to give herself over to a handler.
gbear
@jwb:
I guess I should have provided a link in my earlier comment.
Phoenix Woman
TBogg is over the moon at the prospect thereof.
In other Republican news, watch as the Moonie Times fails to understand the whole idea behind the stimulus package. But then, who needs the Moonie Times when we have the Sunday Talks?
jwb
@Chad S: She was simply uninterested in such things before the election and did not have long to learn the facts and the spin the McCain campaign wanted her to put on them. I would say she is still uninterested in such things, which is another sign that she is not interested in political power. She is interested in money, however, and notice how adept she is at learning what she needs to keep herself in the places where that political money flows.
jwb
@Midnight Marauder: Do you think Palin would prefer to be president or have money? I’m certain she would prefer the money—that’s what I mean when I say that she is more interested in money than power.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@jwb: fully agree
Midnight Marauder
@stinkwrinkle:
Surely, you are not talking about the population that increasingly views her as unqualified for the presidency of the United States of America.
jwb
@gbear: Missed the reference. My bad.
Midnight Marauder
@jwb:
Or just that she is a fucking moron.
@jwb:
Is this a serious question?
Allison W.
Sarah Palin would never go for RNC. It would actually require going on other news channels and stations that are NOT FOX News. Michael Steele doesn’t just go on FOX. And what about the RNC’s hip hop urban suburban outreach program?
jwb
@Midnight Marauder: Not quite sure why you are so invested in the figure of Sarah the village idiot, but if it floats your boat that’s fine by me. For me, thinking of her as stupid doesn’t really help me understand her place in American politics or what she might be trying to accomplish (or others might be trying to accomplish in her name).
@Midnight Marauder: “Is this a serious question?” Not really, since I think it’s pretty clear that she’d take the money, but that just supports my contention that her politics are in service of gaining access to money not vice versa.
The Dangerman
She WOULD raise lots of money (and more than a few erections). I’d happily trade the “cow on the tracks” for the “salmon swimming out of the fire and into the frying pan”.
Chad N Freude
I think money is not her only motivation. See Ssism, Narci.
Frants
If the salary for RNC Chairman is bumped up a bit, to around $14 million, she might just take it.
Chad N Freude
@jwb: Any woman who went to no fewer than five colleges before graduating must be really smart. And her ability to string sentence fragments into indecipherable paragraphs shows amazing linguistic skills.
Cunning maybe, but not smart.
Midnight Marauder
@jwb:
I’m not really vested in the idea of Sarah Palin: Village Idiot, as I am just acknowledging the reality that the woman is not smart at all, and has demonstrated her vacuous intelligence at every opportunity she has received thus far. For me, recognizing that she is a moron perfectly helps me understand her place in American politics and what she might be trying to accomplish. She’s a conspicuously unintelligent grifter who is trying to accumulate as much money and power as possible, while trying to exert as little effort as possible.
And I think you’re deluding yourself if you don’t think Sarah Palin has aspirations to reach the Oval Office.
robertdsc
As starbursty as I am for her, the idea of her “leading” anything gives me the willies. Bleh.
jwb
@Chad N Freude: “not stupid” and “really smart” are not at all the same thing. I’m not claiming she’s a genius, just that she’s not so stupid that she couldn’t have potentially succeeded if she had decided to pursue power rather than money. I happen to think her major political liabilities fall in places other than intelligence, and imho her desire for money has made it nearly impossible for her to address those other political liabilities. I would agree with you that the particular way her narcissism expresses itself is a major liability.
The Dangerman
@Chad N Freude:
Cunning Linguist? Shame on you!
kommrade reproductive vigor
Even though the RNC isn’t crazy enough for that, yet, the very thought necessitates a change of shorts. And a cigarette.
The RNC still has some people in charge who realize that they’d be stuck with her, forever. Das Base would cheer if they gave Steele the heave-ho. Criticism of the Abominable Shebeast would prompt rebel yells of outrage.
Anyhoo. I think Bristol’s cameo on The Secret Life of Teenagers Who Didn’t Use a Condom will cause Mama Palin to turn her attention to acting.
jwb
@Midnight Marauder: “And I think you’re deluding yourself if you don’t think Sarah Palin has aspirations to reach the Oval Office.”
Aspirations, perhaps, but we may as well be talking pie in the sky. Her other liabilities—her desire for money but also the fact that she is unwilling to do the hard work to get elected (a far greater flaw than any native lack of intelligence)—will easily trump those aspirations. I just don’t see her as a serious contender for the Gooper nomination, which doesn’t mean that she won’t be a serious player in the nomination process.
Midnight Marauder
@jwb:
I would love to see you elaborate on this. Even the remnants of the McCain campaign have come out to say she is a lazy know nothing. Let’s not forget these statements from McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt over the past year and a half:
Of course, I am sure the fact he said those things is completely unrelated to her nonexistent intellect, her limited political ceiling, and her wide ranging appeal to people of all kinds temperaments and convictions.
srv
With the SCOTUS ruling and all, I’m not sure the RNC really should be worried about money – except for Steele screwing it up.
Midnight Marauder
@jwb:
Has it ever occurred to you that part of the reason she is unwilling to do the “hard work to get elected” is because she is literally incapable of doing so? That she does not possess the mental wherewithal to actually make herself a competent, knowledgable political figure?
Yes, the woman is money hungry. But you don’t say yes to the Vice Presidency of the United States (especially with Methusala as the POTUS) if you don’t have your eyes on the grand prize.
Just because she is mentally incapable of reaching such heights does not mean she will continue to aimlessly strive towards them.
Uloborus
Personally, I think she’s an idiot, just the kind of idiot who has devoted all of the brains she does have into short-term con artist skills. Intelligence is not a simple scale, and if she’s too lazy to think, that too is a kind of stupidity.
But I think a crucial point is being missed here. Sarah is only popular BECAUSE she’s an idiot. Sarah is the Fringe Right’s starburst pixie because she is humiliated again and again on a national stage by anyone with any brains, and her ‘positions’ are simply a regurgitated soup of buzzwords that mean nothing.
The people who love her are exactly the people who have no interest in policy or logic. They want to lazily cling to incredibly simplistic ideals instead of thinking through any issue, and they want to view themselves as bravely persecuted for their virtue by The Elite. She is what they want to see in themselves. Plus, by not having any actual positions and being largely incomprehensible, she very, very rarely offends her zealots by holding some view they don’t agree with.
jwb
@Midnight Marauder: Not sure what you want me to defend, since I happen to agree with Schmidt that having Palin as the Gooper nominee would be a disaster for the party. I just don’t happen to think that intelligence is her primary liability. And, in any case, it’s not going to happen, because first of all she’d have to work too hard at things she doesn’t like doing to be successful, and, second, if push comes to shove and she starts getting traction despite herself, someone in conservative circles will buy her off.
jwb
@Uloborus: But in case you haven’t noticed, she’s an absolute virtuoso on the dog whistle.
I do mostly agree with this: “The people who love her are exactly the people who have no interest in policy or logic. They want to lazily cling to incredibly simplistic ideals instead of thinking through any issue, and they want to view themselves as bravely persecuted for their virtue by The Elite. She is what they want to see in themselves.”
I would say that the people do have an interest in policy of a sort, it’s just a policy that as a whole makes little sense because it is “incredibly simplistic” and so ends up being self-contradictory. I suspect Palin’s incoherence is often a result playing the dog whistle in order to aid her supporters in gliding over these contradictions.
Chad N Freude
@The Dangerman: Good catch!
Midnight Marauder
@jwb:
I mean, that’s kind of exactly what I want you defend. I think I’ve been pretty clear about that. Most people don’t think she’s qualified for any political office, let alone the office of President of the United States of America, because she is a conspicuous moron.
Or, they’ll pull out the acutely sharpened knives they’ve been sitting on all this time, and expose her for the fraudulent know-nothing she actually is.
Why would you need to pay her off when you could obliterate her reputation and “credibility” for the rest of her “political career”?
Midnight Marauder
@jwb:
I think you continue to be far too generous in your assessments of this woman.
Elizabelle
I think she’s got some kind of whacking cognitive defect that no one will admit. A processing error, combined with a serious lack of curiosity (even worse than W’s, which was disturbing).
She’s not unintelligent, but incredibly unfocused unless the laser beam of seeking $$$$ clicks on.
Agree with comment 40 on her role as the Grievance Princess, crucified by “the Elites” as a sacrificial lamb on behalf of the true patriot souls who are her base.
It’s awful she’s in public life at all, or given a forum by the MSM (to gain $$$, ratings and eyeballs).
Chad N Freude
@jwb: I don’t think that she’s really deliberately whistling at the dogs. Her Pavlovian vocabulary is really hers and is shared her starburst-entranced adoring public. I think she really believes what she thinks she’s talking about, and her fans hear the cues and keywords and have no problem with consistency, coherence, or thought.
Chad S
@jwb: I’m sorry, but it takes more than disinterest not to know basic US history. I understand boning up a candidate on complicated policy issues and nuanced policy choices, but only a moron doesn’t know the basics. I can only imagine the emails that bounced around the McCain campaign after they found this out.
El Cid
I hope you people realize you’re insulting the former Commander in Chief of the Alaska National Guard.
Chad N Freude
@Elizabelle: @Elizabelle:
Somewhere upthread I pointed out that she attended no fewer than FIVE colleges before getting her degree. Going to five colleges shows that she’s five times as smart as people who only go to one. And infinitely times as smart as those who don’t go even to one.
I’d really like to see some evidence (you know, like scientists and judges like to see evidence) that she’s not unintelligent.
Chad N Freude
@Chad S:
There’s a best-selling political satire in there somewhere. Although the actual e-mails in a journalistic non-fiction book might be even better.
Chad N Freude
@El Cid: We are all McChrystal now.
Midnight Marauder
@Elizabelle:
Do you mean like this:
Right. She’s not an idiot, she just doesn’t try to sound intelligent or behave in a competent fashion unless money is involved.
That certainly explains her performance in the Vice Presidential debates, her absolute political failure as governor of Alaska, and statements like this:
Of course, we all know here that there is no Department of Law in the executive branch. And it certainly shouldn’t be held against her that the following statement came while she was attempting to explain why as president she wouldn’t be subjected to the same ethics investigations that compelled her to resign as governor of Alaska.
On July 7, 2009.
jwb
@Midnight Marauder: “Why would you need to pay her off when you could obliterate her reputation and “credibility” for the rest of her “political career”?”
Because she plays a mean conservative dog whistle and she is the only current Gooper pol with any sort of reliable charisma?
Seriously, Palin is useful to conservative politics; she would not still be around raking in all this money on the wingnut welfare circuit if that were not the case. Personally, I think she understands her current role very well and understands that serious pursuit of the presidency will require her to learn a different skill set. I also think she knows that she has no desire to learn that skill set or to submit to the discipline of the handlers that running for president would entail, so I just don’t see her going there intentionally. Now it’s conceivable that she might end up in the presidential campaign almost by accident, do well in the early races, and then she and the Goopers have a problem on their hands; but I really don’t think that scenario is likely.
Uloborus
@jwb:
I put to you that playing the dog whistle requires no *skill*. All she has to do is parrot whatever talking point she likes and make a mush of it so that people can read what they want into it. In fact, it is easier for an idiot to do than an intelligent person. She really only has to think like the morons who support her and spout some piece of gibberish that sounds good to her without thinking through its meaning. They’re probably not thinking it through, either.
She has basic con artist skills, and they’re not sophisticated because she keeps pulling dumb crap like stealing from a green room that would have been given to her as a gift. Really, all signs point that she’s an Axis II narcissist who’s only semi-functional. She can’t hold down a job, and spends her life running ahead of horrible messes that accumulate behind her. Bear in mind she’s accomplished nothing in her life. Getting elected to governor of Alaska is deceptive. It’s electorally as challenging as becoming mayor of a large town that’s otherwise way out in the sticks. It’s something you can do on crude charm and luck. Everything else – the VP pick, the wingnut welfare – that’s all been done *for* her.
jwb
@Elizabelle: “She’s not unintelligent, but incredibly unfocused unless the laser beam of seeking $$$$ clicks on.”
I can accept this formulation.
Chad N Freude
@jwb: I hate to disagree with you, but please see @Chad N Freude.
jwb
@Uloborus: If what you say is true, then why can no one else play the dog whistle the way she can? I submit that there is an intelligence there, whether she comes by it intuitively or through calculation.
Mark S.
@Chad S:
You’d think she’d at least have seen a few episodes of MASH.
Chad N Freude
@jwb: Don’t confuse intelligence with primal instinct.
Uloborus
@jwb:
Because they’re too smart. She *is* what they want, rather than faking it. It’s not like they want something demanding. They want someone who speaks in gibberish so that they can read whatever the Hell they want into it. They want it done by a half-pretty face that dresses kind of like a hooker, because that’s their idea of a strong woman. And again, she would be absolutely no one and absolutely ignored if she hadn’t gotten the biggest windfall in American political history.
And let me point out that anyone smart enough and cynical enough to fake what she does naturally is going to be smart enough and cynical enough to realize that a 20% approval rating does not make for long-term political success.
jwb
@Chad N Freude: Schooling and intelligence are not the same thing (I, the educator, say). Palin certainly has difficulty when the going gets tough; and she doesn’t accept responsibility for anything negative (and so has difficulty learning from her mistakes): these are further flaws that are far more damaging to her potential run for the presidency than her actual intelligence. Then, too, as Elizabelle noted, Palin only becomes focused in the presence of $$$$. It’s more than likely that the added money from a college degree was too abstract to give her focus.
Uloborus
@jwb:
But the money is being given to her. She really doesn’t have to do anything but smile and wave. This is the entire essence of Wingnut Welfare. It’s a reverse meritocracy.
Midnight Marauder
@jwb:
I would not dispute her usefulness; she’s a Grand Puba of idiocy leading a pack of bigger idiots into political irrelevancy. But again, this is another case of you being far too generous in your assessment of Palin. She’s also giving speeches at bowling conventions, wine and spirits conferences, and even real estate conferences. She’s progressed far beyond the wingnut welfare circuit, partially because she continues to bleed support from her already dwindling base by endorsing mainstream conservative politicians…because she has grand ambitions of running for president (I’m looking at you, Nikki Haley). Regardless, you are fucking kidding yourself if you don’t think she’s going to get ripped to shreds and exposed as a fraud in the 2012 Republican presidential primary.
You are adorable.
@jwb:
LOLWUT?
Chad N Freude
@jwb: I can’t argue against your point. Intelligence and floundering in academia are not necessarily related. But I think what you consider to be possible intelligence is really a kind of low, self-interested cunning (characterized by wiliness and trickery — Merriam-Webster online). I really believe that she is incapable of connecting any dots that are not printed on the pages of a children’s book.
Chad N Freude
@Uloborus:
But she talks anyway, and they don’t seem to be trying to shut her up. (Maybe they can’t — She’s a Media STAR.)
jwb
@Uloborus: “She really doesn’t have to do anything but smile and wave.” She has to remain useful. The minute she stops being useful she will be dropped.
jwb
@Midnight Marauder: “But again, this is another case of you being far too generous in your assessment of Palin.” Possibly, but as I said above I don’t find that thinking of Palin as stupid helps me think her place and meaning in current politics. Whether we call it cunning or intelligence or something else I don’t really care, but I do know that if I think of her as fundamentally stupid then I’m not going to get to an adequate explanation of how she affects politics the way that she does. If I think of her as stupid I might also underestimate her-a far greater danger, I think, than overestimating her.
Kobie
@Midnight Marauder: I’m just basing my thought on the premise that, from the Republicans’ standpoint, it probably can’t get worse than Michael Steele. At least Palin can throw some red meat out there on which the hardcores can nosh.
From our standpoint, Steele provides high comedy.
New Yorker
Jesus, we’re actually having a debate here about Caribou Barbie’s intellect? On what planet would she not be judged “dumb as a post”? She really is that stupid, people. It’s not an act. She really does see herself as a persecuted victim, and she really thinks herself entitled to glamorous celebrity.
I think this is why Andrew Sullivan should take a valium and stop pissing his pants over the 2012 election. The fact that the woman is a dumb, delusional, petty, vindictive, nutcase makes her unqualified to be president, but its her utter lack of any work ethic and her sense of entitlement that guarantees she won’t put the grueling effort that is required to win the presidency.
Uloborus
@jwb:
I agree that she’s useful. But she doesn’t have to be smart to be useful. The conservative movement has any number of useful morons. Palin is the most controllable person who has influence over the Teabag animal mob that they really, really want to get control over again.
There’s nothing she has done that requires more than the intelligence of a low-level con artist, and plenty she could have done if she were smarter.
She’s lucky. The things she has accomplished could not have been accomplished through intelligence. She didn’t scheme her way into being McCain’s VP, she was chosen as a useful idiot by people too stupid to know the decision would bite them back immediately.
fucen tarmal
palin is smart enough to lay off the pitches she can’t hit, she is a career minor leaguer. think crash davis, she would never make it in the show because everyone can throw pitches she can’t hit, and throw them for strikes. but when she faces a slow curve or an 88mph fastball with no movement, she doesn’t miss it.
she can make her money, she can raise cash for others and get her cut, but if you take your time and throw your best pitches at her, she is useless. unfortunately who can actually do that in the media, for fuck sakes katie couric took her down, and if it had been in her interests to do so, couric could have finished the job. a real primary season against serious competition? no chance.
jwb
@New Yorker” but its her utter lack of any work ethic and her sense of entitlement that guarantees she won’t put the grueling effort that is required to win the presidency.”. Yup, even if she was brilliant-and no one is claiming she’s a great intellect-these qualities would doom her.
@Uloborus: “she was chosen as a useful idiot by people too stupid to know the decision would bite them back immediately.” Yes, I do believe these people were stupid, far stupider than is Palin.
asiangrrlMN
@Uloborus: I agree. She is stupid, from an objective stand point. She has the thing that makes people get all starbursty, but when that fades (as it will in about five years), she’s toast. SHE doesn’t have to do anything because it’s all projected on her. It’s not really her; it’s what she represents. And, unfortunately, I think you hit the nail on the head earlier when you said that people want stupid (her supporters, I mean). That’s what they got. It’s similar to how W. was received. He wasn’t all high-falutin’ smart and elitist and all that shit. You could have a beer with him and hell he was just a regular guy (yeah, right). For some reason, a portion of our society wants a leader who is as stupid if not more so than they are (The Daily Show did a great bit on that), and Palin fits the bill perfectly.
I have no desire to see her as head of the RNC because it makes me profoundly disgusted that she matters at all, and the less I see/hear of her the better. Besides, the GOP is not gonna fire Steele. They don’t have the balls to do it.
Brachiator
@jwb:
I agree with you that Palin isn’t totally stupid, but she certainly lacks the intellect, vision and political savvy to make it as a national level politician. I wonder if she even had enough smarts to fulfill her term as governor.
She reminds me of someone who foolishly believes that just because she knows how to drive a car, she could also pilot a fighter jet if she just put her mind to it.
Bush was a different kind of stupid. He knew that however limited he was in brainpower, he was still part of the elite.
But I don’t buy the argument that she decided not to pursue power because she is interested in money. There is not much evidence that she used her positions as mayor or governor to rack up a huge amount of goodies.
And what if McCain had won? Do you think that Palin would have resigned to pursue the money track? She certainly would not have been able to remain VP and enrich herself without causing a huge scandal.
On the other hand, I don’t think that she would have magically found some focus to study up on foreign or domestic policy.
Paradoxically, it might be a cagey move to make her head of the RNC. Both the media and the party will forgive any mistake that she makes, and she would not only appeal to many conservative Republicans, but also might keep the bulk of the tea party people in the GOP fold.
FlipYrWhig
My take on Palin’s brainpower is that she’s very sure that she has “common sense,” and because she has common sense she doesn’t need to be informed about anything, because being informed just makes you overanalyze and hesitate.
And she’s also petty and vindictive, as the Troopergate story particularly brought to light. I don’t see much separating her from the Real Housewives franchise. She likes to have nice things, makes enemies over perceived slights, and revels in public spats.
Chad N Freude
@fucen tarmal:
At what point after the Katie Couric interview did she acquire this smartness?
asiangrrlMN
@Chad N Freude: As soon as her handlers shut her the fuck up.
El Cid
@Chad N Freude: Look, when Palin is head of the GOP, no journalist is going to ask such a horrible, mean, ‘gotcha’ question such as ‘what newspapers do you read?’
FlipYrWhig
@Chad N Freude: She bluffs A LOT. In the clip of her as a sportscaster in Alaska, she runs down the highlights adequately, and then when she’s throwing back to the anchor he tries to engage her in banter about Big East basketball. At first she asks him what’s happening. He mentions that St. John’s will be playing Pitt, seemingly trying to jog her memory. She says “they’re going to play, anyway,” and later, “We’ll see what happens”… because she has no idea what he’s talking about. Now, there’s no reason why a sportscaster in Anchorage _should_ know anything about Big East basketball, but she reacts to not knowing by bluffing. It’s just like the much better known sequence including “In what respect, Charlie?”
Elizabelle
I think everyone’s had some good insights tonight, describing well various aspects of $arah Palin (and keeping me entertained!)
Palin is multifaceted, in over her head, obviously a narcissist with probably some other type of borderline personality disorder too, and maybe an opaque vessel others project onto. (Notice how much people criticize Obama for the last, true or not.)
She would have no national significance if she looked like Barbara Mikulski, trust me there.
I do think she’s got some intelligence, although not sufficient for her station in life. She appears cagier than some of the rock dumb politicians and guests you see on C-Span.
Do you think she might be of average intelligence, but with cognitive processing problems and without the expected work ethic?
You read through her word salads (yes, with accompanying mental bongo drumming) and there are brief, brief glimmers of literacy before they’re subsumed in a torrent of incomprehensibility.
Some of her descriptions of Alaska have been fleetingly lovely. I’m serious. Although the rest of the speech becomes ugly, disjointed, and is used to polarize and dog whistle.
But hey, it’s not like we’ve spent multiple threads and hundreds of posts discussing Jim Inhofe or Virginia Foxx. (Or maybe you have…)
Tawny Jones
Gorgeous, gifted Gov. Sarah Palin is pretty, popular, powerful & prestigious. Such a daring, dauntless, dominant diva could bring discipline to the disorganized Republican Party.
Albatrossity
I think that the only RNC candidate better (in terms of comedy gold) than Michael Steele or Sarah Palin would be…
Michael Palin.
jcgrim
Interesting. The neocons at NR are still looking for a figurehead in the Republican leadership they can manipulate to enforce their foreign warmongering and domestic austerity policies.
They never learn. They couldn’t control Palin during the McCain campaign. In this case, Palin’s not the stupid one .
A Guest
@jwb:
Because she plays a mean conservative dog whistle and she is the only current Gooper pol with any sort of reliable charisma?
People keep saying this, but her positives are w/in a hair of Huckabee and MittBot.
jetan
@A Guest:
Huckabee will drive those positives into the dirt should she be foolish enough to run against him. A lot of people haven’t noticed that Ol’ Huck is as mean as a coonhound and has tons of killer instinct. I don’t think Sarah wants any part of that.
Midnight Marauder
@Elizabelle:
What a glorious description. I am definitely filing that one away for future use.
Tonal Crow
@gbear:
Oh, all of ’em!
Catsy
Palin is interested in power, though not as much as she is in money. It’s responsibility she could give a shit about. She’s like Heinlein’s laziest man story, except without a fraction of the decency or work ethic.
And as far as Palin replacing Steele at the head of the RNC, I can say only this: zombie Jesus doesn’t love us that much. I mean, I would believe in a heartbeat that Steele is a liberal ratfucker doing his best to destroy the RNC and piss off conservatives, and I hope he stays–but Palin in his place would usher in a new golden age of satire and epic fail.
jwest
I could smell the Palin-induced fear from three websites away.
Liberals would be much more convincing questioning her intelligence and commitment to public service if they could just stop their lips from quivering and stem the flow of warm piss from running down their legs each time her name is mentioned.
But by all means, keep trying to marginalize the woman who can dominate the news cycles with a Facebook post. You are probably a comfort to each other.
Elie
@New Yorker:
She is not completely dumb but has a good eye for opportunity that matches her skills…
She does have charisma and that is a very powerful gift that thankfully in her case, was not matched with the intellect and ambition for power to really do some damage. Instead, it was matched to her desire for dough. While not a particularly hard worker on policy issues, she seems to be sufficiently motivated to get that dough, so she works just hard enough for what she wants. She isn’t troubled by conflicting ambitions or complex needs. She is clear as a bell about what she values: fame and money. She has both.
Wile E. Quixote
@jwest:
Dude, dominating the news cycle doesn’t take any smarts or skillls, a faked picture of Miley Cyrus’s beaver can dominate the news cycles. Face it, Sarah Palin is stupid, just like you and 99 percent of white conservative Republicans. Sarah Palin is in fact so fucking stupid that she got completely and totally pwned by Katie Couric of all people. I mean Jesus, Katie Couric humped her like a bitch, and if Couric can make Palin look stupid how well do you think she’ll do against Palin? Chavez or Ahmadinejad, all of whom came up in a school of hard knocks where the penalty for losing was a bullet in the head?
Arctos
jwest is the kind of Palin acolyte who thinks the number of “friends” she has on Facebook is evidence that her popularity is sweeping the country. (Of course I was a “friend” so I could post facts on there now and then. Think I’m banned now as it’s a fact-free zone.)
If you read comments on the pro-Palin blogs, they’re excited by HOW she says things, especially if it’s an Obama slam. They really have no idea what she’s saying any more than she does.
From seeing her operate as governor, I think her overwhelming and misplaced self-confidence is what got her this far, and it may be her downfall. Her speech at Stanislaus is a good example. What kind of person knows the press will be there, knows the speech will be streamed live on-line and get lots of attention, and yet still produces a terrible mishmash of Wikipedia quotes and incoherent thoughts delivered as if she had just scribbled down a few words in the bathroom right before going on stage? AND gets Ronald Reagan’s college so laughably wrong when she professes to be the Second Coming of RR?
I fear she truly believes she can run for office from her Facebook foxhole because, really, how much more work can it be? Things are working out great so far! (And send moar $$ plz.)
Uloborus
@Wile E. Quixote:
I really doubt an actual Palin supporter would be on this blog. Presumably it’s spoof trolling, or something. But it is fascinatingly realistic in that they’re so damned determined to think we’re scared of her. I’m certainly terrified of what she’d do to the country if she became president, but her 20% approval ratings don’t make that likely.
Catsy
@jwest:
Scent molecules are not carried by TCP/IP packets. You may want to check your shorts.
…!!!
Great bouncing cherry-flavored gummi christs.
I can only assume that this is one of those insidious schemes conservatives have hatched to diminish the political influence of liberals. A clever scheme that involves writing preposterously silly and delusional things that cause anyone with two brain cells to rub together to laugh so hard, they disrupt the workflow of their coworkers, lose their jobs, and thereby have less money to donate to liberal causes.
At least, that’s my running theory. The less charitable alternative is that you are a complete nutter who’s whistling past the graveyard loud enough to piss off the family on the far end that’s trying to conduct a funeral.
Lindsay Lohan getting jail time dominates news cycles.
Britney Spears shaving her head dominates news cycles.
When your favored metric for establishing the value of a public figure is how much media noise they can generate or how many friends they have on Facebook, it goes a long way to explaining your irrelevancy.
The fact is that both the media and politically-savvy liberals love Sarah Palin as much as her supporters do–just for very different reasons. Liberals love her because she does more damage to Republican credibility every time she opens her mouth than the combined oppo research teams of every elected Democrat. The media loves her because she’s such a rich source of drama and ignorance that the articles covering her practically write themselves, and accomplish the double whammy of both selling conflict and appealing to a fringe demographic that otherwise wouldn’t wipe their ass with the newspaper it’s written on.
We’re laughing at you, not with you.