What if Sarah Palin were black?
Every now and then, I see a simple comparison or insight that I find really striking: George Carlin’s football/baseball comparison, for example. So it is with the question of how Sarah Palin would be viewed if she were black. It’s an easy question to ask, but I’d never considered just how deep it goes:
If Sarah Palin were black, her daughter’s out of wedlock, “baby daddy drama” would have been presented as an example of both pathological behavior and a dysfunctional family that is symbolic of the social problems in that community. If Sarah Palin were black, never would the poor decision making by the Palin family be marked off as challenges overcome, or deeds to be valorized.
If Sarah Palin were black, her neo-secessionist husband would have been the death knell for her political career, because as we all know you can’t trust “those people.”
If Sarah Palin were black, her lack of intellectual curiosity, willful and cultivated ignorance, and lack of grace both written and spoken, would not be taken as “folksy.” Instead, Palin would be viewed as unqualified for any public office.
And that’s before we even get into the targets on the map and the shooting of Gabby Giffords.
January 19, 2011 11:52 am
Posted in: Post-racial America, We Are All Mayans Now
131 Comments
131 Responses
eastriver - January 19, 2011 | 11:55 am · Link
And let’s not forget the typical laziness of quitting her job, the being obsessed with flashy clothing and shiny accesories, and the constant slipping into sloppy, error-filled language.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Those people.
DougJ DougJson - January 19, 2011 | 11:56 am · Link
@eastriver:
You’re right, I forgot about the Niemann Marcus bling.
Libby - January 19, 2011 | 11:56 am · Link
I’m tired of talking about Palin but taking the opportunity of coming in early on the thread to mention how much I love your new nym DougJ DougJson. It’s just so full of win.
KRK - January 19, 2011 | 11:56 am · Link
How about quitting the governorship? No chance that would have been viewed differently, surely.
morzer - January 19, 2011 | 11:57 am · Link
Presumably Don Imus would have called MommaTrollop and her various female offspring “nappy-headed hos” as well.
MikeJ - January 19, 2011 | 11:58 am · Link
We shouldn’t teach Palin-speak in the schools. These people need to learn that if they want to get ahead they need to speak standard English.
beltane - January 19, 2011 | 11:58 am · Link
If Sarah Palin were black she’d be Cynthia McKinney but with less credibility and gravitas.
fouro - January 19, 2011 | 12:02 pm · Link
But she’s not. She’s Sarah Trailer Park “who made good despite all the same mistakes I make.” She’s hope-n-change for dimwits and that’s a powerful thing when a snuggie and a 12 pack are your Club Med.
David Fud - January 19, 2011 | 12:02 pm · Link
The whole “mama bear” thing would have been some cultural equivalent that would have fallen quite flat with the rest of America. Successful black politicians cannot be seen as favoring black culture – and “mama bear” is a dog whistle to the Christian [white] right.
Let’s make an example up, just for the sake of comparison. Let’s say she called herself a “Kwanzaa mama”. Who thinks that would not have been her last day on the national stage?
Dennis SGMM - January 19, 2011 | 12:04 pm · Link
I’m completely confident that a black Sarah Palin would suffer no adverse consequences from her gun-laden rhetoric also.
JFitz - January 19, 2011 | 12:05 pm · Link
It’s GIFFORDS with an S. I bit my tongue for almost 2 weeks but I can’t anymore.
morzer - January 19, 2011 | 12:05 pm · Link
Would a black Sarah Palin be Stokeley Carmichael in Naughty Monkey pumps?
MikeJ - January 19, 2011 | 12:05 pm · Link
@David Fud: I think we as society should do more to promote the virtues of hunting to minorities who haven’t completely accepted white culture.
I’d like nothing more than to see thousands of black men with rifles prowling through the woods every deer season.
BGinCHI - January 19, 2011 | 12:06 pm · Link
The answer to the question is, in her mind, that she’d be a power forward in the WNBA.
Jim, Foolish Literalist - January 19, 2011 | 12:06 pm · Link
@beltane: and Cynthia McKinney didn’t use guns as props. She also, to my recollection, spoke in complete, coherent sentences. Watching those clips on the Daily Show, I was astounded all over again at Palin’s Word Salad Shooter speaking style. Even in a friendly interview, she can’t stammer out a syntactically correct sentence.
Chris - January 19, 2011 | 12:07 pm · Link
I always love those memes. Mine, right after the Giffords shooting, was “what if the shooter was Muslim?” He could easily have been a disturbed psycho who just happened to be a Muslim, but it would never have been left at that and you know it.
SiubhanDuinne - January 19, 2011 | 12:08 pm · Link
@JFitz:
You mean the Congresswoman from TUSCON?
beltane - January 19, 2011 | 12:08 pm · Link
@morzer: And we’d be treated to endless sermonizing by the media on the crisis of values and morality in the African-American community. We never seem to hear a similar discussion on the fact that the rate of out-of-wedlock births among the rural white underclass is extraordinarily high. Even when this information is mentioned, it is always in the context of the superiority of red state America ala Ross Douthat.
low-tech cyclist - January 19, 2011 | 12:08 pm · Link
And if Palin had been a tree-hugging librul, the wingnut blogs would never get tired of ridiculing the names of her kids.
JFitz - January 19, 2011 | 12:09 pm · Link
@SiubhanDuinne: Um yes, the same one. Geez.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen - January 19, 2011 | 12:09 pm · Link
Please. If Sarah Palin were black we would have never heard of her.
Although it is amusing to imagine the looks on the GOPers’ faces when McCain introduced an African-American woman as his pick for Veep:
If Sarah Palin were black, the 2008 GOP Convention would have been the scene of massive head explosions.
shortstop - January 19, 2011 | 12:10 pm · Link
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Well played, Garkle.
beltane - January 19, 2011 | 12:11 pm · Link
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agreed. Sarah needs to enroll in an English as a second language course. Everything that pours forth from her mouth sounds like it was run through Google Translator. Perhaps she was recruited from a Russian escort service.
schrodinger's cat - January 19, 2011 | 12:11 pm · Link
If Sarah Palin were black would she have even been elected the Governor of Alaska?
hueyplong - January 19, 2011 | 12:13 pm · Link
I don’t think the wingnut blogs would have ridiculed the names of Librul Palin’s kids. Instead, they would have ridiculed them as unattractive sluts.
Stillwater - January 19, 2011 | 12:13 pm · Link
@BGinCHI: The answer to the question is, in her mind, that she’d be a power forward in the WNBA.
Or, you know, President. She wouldn’t have to overcome all the reverse racism and Kenyaneering that Democrats have used to keep her down.
El Tiburon - January 19, 2011 | 12:14 pm · Link
Sarah Palins only qualifications were, in no particular order:
1. White
2. Attractive
3. Wingnut
That is all it takes to become a superstar in the Republican party.
david mizner - January 19, 2011 | 12:14 pm · Link
tim wise did a similar post: “If the tea party was black.”
http://ephphatha-poetry.blogsp.....-wise.html
superking - January 19, 2011 | 12:15 pm · Link
This is just a comment to try to get the mobile page to load. Nothing to add right now
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen - January 19, 2011 | 12:15 pm · Link
@El Tiburon: I must disagree with #2.
gnomedad - January 19, 2011 | 12:15 pm · Link
Not so sure. If Palin were Republican and saying the things she’s saying AND Black, they’d wet themselves over her even more than now.
New Yorker - January 19, 2011 | 12:16 pm · Link
I’d say this reflects a more disturbing trend in general: the willingness to sweep under the rug all the social dysfunction among lower-class whites. At least with minority communities, problems such as drug abuse, breakdown of the family, and educational failures are acknowledged as problems. There may not be the political will to do much about the problems, but few “serious” people would be willing to dismiss the idea that the problems exist.
But it seems that the same issues, when afflicting rural and lower-class whites get ignored, or worse, celebrated. The Palin situation, in which ignorance, sloth, and single motherhood are openly celebrated as “authentic” makes me think that a large portion of lower-class white America is going to see its social problems get worse because allegedly serious politicians see it as a badge of honor.
Sat what you want about Jesse Jackson, but I don’t think he’d ever see unemployment, lack of educational attainment, or rampant single motherhood in the African-American community as something to be celebrated.
Elie - January 19, 2011 | 12:17 pm · Link
That said, I believe that Sarah fully knows that she is being “played” by “the Man”—just like the black folks she so derides. She knows she also can’t do anything much about it, just like black folks. No one group can do it alone… it would take all of us working together. An the Man couldnt let that happen, hence they find tools like her.
I think it adds to her anger. She and her white working class cronies and fans also know that their powerlessness is built into the system, and that the powerful white people who mouth praises for her and her efforts for public consumption, behind the scenes laugh at her.
She really WOULD become a heroine to call it out. But they know and she knows that the money and perks are too good and too easily won keeping up the Sarah myth…
morzer - January 19, 2011 | 12:18 pm · Link
Incidentally, it seems that Bristol has been reviving the Wasilla Hillybilly feud with Mercede Johnston:
http://mercedejohnston.blogspo.....ebook.html
Oozes class that Bristol, don’t she?
Face - January 19, 2011 | 12:18 pm · Link
Similarly, I’d LOVE to be a pyschologist that executes the following experimental procedure:
1) In step 1, a white male walks in to starbucks with a openly concealed Glock-9 and tries to order a drink
2) In step 2, repeat step 1 with a young black male
3) Broadcast on Youtube just how fucked up the second scene would devolve. Likely police would be there in 30 seconds. Show the country just how racist the nation is.
aimai - January 19, 2011 | 12:19 pm · Link
The piece “If Sarah Palin were Black” came out at the start of 2010 and the comment thread is really horrifying. It is stalked by a right wing white guy named “scruffy” who insists that it is President Obama who has no accomplishments and that its racist to even discuss the question of race. I can’t tell you how disheartening it was to read the thread and the embattled posters. Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
The sadder thing, however, is that if Sarah Palin were black she’d have had to be an absolute fucking superstar to have been catapulted into the VP slot by McCain—she’d have had to be a brain surgeon, baptist minister with an all white congregation, fourteen mixed race adopted children, two self help books and her own TV show before she’d have gotten a look in.
aimai
david mizner - January 19, 2011 | 12:21 pm · Link
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Well, yes. It’s not a perfect thought experiment. It’s like saying, Imagine if Palin were headless. Whiteness is central to the woman, and to her popularity.
Chris - January 19, 2011 | 12:21 pm · Link
@Elie:
I don’t think she cares. “The Man” is paying her bills and making her famous and popular and an icon. She doesn’t seem to care enough about anything else to give a rip.
BGinCHI - January 19, 2011 | 12:22 pm · Link
@aimai: You’re assuming McCain didn’t ask Oprah first.
david mizner - January 19, 2011 | 12:23 pm · Link
@schrodinger’s cat:
If she were black she wouldn’t have even lived in Alaska, but your point is well-taken. Only white can continue to fail upward. For that matter, Imagine if Larry Summers were black.
cmorenc - January 19, 2011 | 12:24 pm · Link
@DougJ:
If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his ass when he hopped. Sarah Palin is a frog who does have wings, and hence doesn’t bump her ass when she hops.
jrg - January 19, 2011 | 12:24 pm · Link
I’ve often found the anti-intellectualism of the right to be very, very similar to the sort of thing I saw in high school in the early ‘90s, where black kids that did well were accused of “acting white”... Rednecks who make it out of podunkville in order to go to college are accused of being elitists.
wobblybits - January 19, 2011 | 12:27 pm · Link
@david mizner: Why would that be the case? There are black people that live in Alaska or well, what are you saying?
Chris - January 19, 2011 | 12:28 pm · Link
@New Yorker:
This and
@jrg:
this times a thousand. I suppose it’s no surprise that the traits wingnuts hold in such contempt would also happen to show up among themselves.
RossInDetroit - January 19, 2011 | 12:28 pm · Link
If SP were black she’d be Condi without the brains, education, ambition and accomplishments. In other words, nowhere.
Tonybrown74 - January 19, 2011 | 12:28 pm · Link
If Sarah Palin werte black, we would be talking about Tim Pawlenty as the de-facto GOP nominee for the Presidency in 2012, since he would have most likely been the VP nominee in 2008.
Sarah Palin would not have even been elected mayor.
trollhattan - January 19, 2011 | 12:28 pm · Link
I (thankfully) know very few Palinistas, but they all share this belief: “She’s one of us.” They received the holy starbursts during the ‘08 election and have effectively shut off any further information that might re-form their opinions. It’s kinda brilliant, even if accidental, how she’s managed to capitalize on this trait in her acolytes.
Also, too, Colbert and Stewart both shredded Palin yesterday. Colbert in particular kicked the boundaries further than I’ve seen before by channeling Mika Brzezinski. Yeowzers.
shortstop - January 19, 2011 | 12:28 pm · Link
@beltane: I can see a hooker from my house!
Mike in NC - January 19, 2011 | 12:31 pm · Link
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Also, too, hundreds of people would have been trampled to death in the mad rush for the exits.
freelancer - January 19, 2011 | 12:32 pm · Link
No more young Tracks buying t-bones.
Barb (formerly Gex) - January 19, 2011 | 12:33 pm · Link
@MikeJ: Teabonics? You’re just racist against REAL Americans.
shortstop - January 19, 2011 | 12:33 pm · Link
@Face: Remember the two wire service photos of people helping themselves to food supplies from bashed-up grocery stores after Katrina?
Caption on photo of white people: “A couple gathers supplies.”
Caption on photo of black people: “New Orleanians loot a grocery store.”
I’m paraphrasing, but not by much.
schrodinger's cat - January 19, 2011 | 12:34 pm · Link
Another thought experiment : What would have happened if Sarah Palin was not considered pretty?
hueyplong - January 19, 2011 | 12:34 pm · Link
Elie’s description of Palin’s role in this mess seems accurate, and it describes what would be going through our own minds if we were in her place.
But it’s very nearly impossible to watch 2 minutes of her (my own personal limit) and speculate that she could be that self-aware or introspective.
What makes me squirm at the sight of her on TV isn’t the fact that I find her positions politically and socially repulsive, it’s how stupid and contemptuous of intelligent thought she is. It just can’t be an act, because she never has a moment in which she is out of character.
She’s got ambition and a certain cunning going for her. But I don’t see much else. She’s sort of a dumbed down Agnew with a window of physical attractiveness to her target audience. When the end comes for her, she’ll still hate all the people she hates now. She will merely hate 3 or 4 additional people from her own side that she will pick out as her betrayers when she is no longer on TV.
We’ll say good riddance, but a different (and maybe more competent) grifter will already be in her place.
shortstop - January 19, 2011 | 12:36 pm · Link
@Mike in NC: On the other hand, they could’ve expanded the number of black faces shown in continual closeups from two to three.
RossInDetroit - January 19, 2011 | 12:37 pm · Link
I used to think that the GOP would be the first party to run a black POTUS or VPOTUS candidate, angling to peel minority votes off of the Dems. I thought Colin P. was a likely choice at one time. Now that seems laughable. Maybe it was always there but now the GOP’s blatant racism makes a black candidate impossible for the foreseeable future.
Chris - January 19, 2011 | 12:39 pm · Link
@trollhattan:
Yes.
Read every comment about her in the right-wing blogosphere and you’ll see wingnut writers having (probably literal) orgasmic moments about what an ordinary, regular, normal American she is – e.g, one of them. The problem is, that really is all they have to say for her.
Personally, I’d have to say if I were part of the category of Americans she “represents,” all I’d feel would be embarrassment. She is certainly acting out a stereotype, but the stereotype of the ignorant country boob is hardly one to be proud of. It’s like if all college graduates rallied around a coked-out hippie in a Che Guevara shirt whose one-note platform came down to marilizing legajuana and was permanently too high to form a coherent sentence. There are some stereotypes you’re not supposed to be proud of.
schrodinger's cat - January 19, 2011 | 12:40 pm · Link
@RossInDetroit: May be an Indian American who has converted to Christianity, is a more likely candidate, for the GOP, Jindal or Haley, fit the bill.
Barb (formerly Gex) - January 19, 2011 | 12:41 pm · Link
@Chris: In fact, I think what you see in the tea party is people who are angry about being victimized by the “man” but would rather be where they are, subservient to the man if they can feel superior to blacks, Hispanics, and gays. Any one of them could be a modern day courtesan, so they aren’t too scared of the new aristocracy.
Chris - January 19, 2011 | 12:43 pm · Link
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
And if Sarah Palin were black, her incessant winking at the audience would have been slutty, disgusting, and a symbol of the decay of our morality and the repugnant sexualization of our culture (think of the children!) Actually, that would’ve been true even if she was a white liberal.
But it’s all good; she’s a conservative, so it’s just sexy and confident.
shortstop - January 19, 2011 | 12:43 pm · Link
@schrodinger’s cat: See, I don’t think this could have happened any other way than it did. That is to say: the GOP would never elevate a woman who wasn’t pretty and nicely sculpted to VP nominee, just as it would never let a really bright and qualified woman take a powerful role. (Their tokens like Cathy Morris-Rogers are never tapped to say a single word. She may even be a bona fide mute; I’m not sure.) McCain, that horrible old misogynist, was the instigator here, but his viewpoint is pretty much the norm in that party.
Even as they’re pretending to be down with the chicas, these guys’ insecurities, ignorance and requirement that all powerful women also be sexually desirable are coming across loud and clear. Sarah is who she is and that is exactly what they want their female politicians to be.
Omnes Omnibus - January 19, 2011 | 12:43 pm · Link
If SP were black, people would notice the discrepancy between her rhetoric (such as it is) and her lifestyle. The salmon fishing, folksy stuff is fake. The Palins are well off and have been for years. It is just that their tastes and choices do not match those of the traditional elites. Snowmachines aren’t cheap; one could probably race a small sailboat for what it costs to race them. And so on. . . .
Emily L. Hauser/ellaesther - January 19, 2011 | 12:44 pm · Link
Wow. Wow wow wow wow.
So much truth in such a small space.
hueyplong - January 19, 2011 | 12:44 pm · Link
We should probably remember that Palin will best serve the GOP when she flames out. The very few Palinistas I know have only one thing they say about her in my presence, and that is to lament the shrill, hating Left’s vicious attacks on her.
That will be played up big time when the end comes.
The Grand Panjandrum - January 19, 2011 | 12:45 pm · Link
Shorter REAL America: Having a grandchild and a child of the some age is a traditional American value.
shortstop - January 19, 2011 | 12:48 pm · Link
@Omnes Omnibus:
Somebody explain to me why they had to become “snowmachines.” Does “snowmobile” sound horribly unbutch to some ears or something?
trollhattan - January 19, 2011 | 12:48 pm · Link
Also, also too:
http://newadventuresofqueenvictoria.com/Scum8.jpg
Heh, indeedy.
Triassic Sands - January 19, 2011 | 12:48 pm · Link
If Sarah Palin were black, she never would have been elected mayor of Wasilla, which means she never would have been governor of Alaska, and we would never have heard of her. If Palin were black, you never would have asked this question about someone you had never heard of and I wouldn’t be writing this comment answering a question that was never asked.
In short, if Sarah Palin were black this would be a much better country and all the attention that is currently being lavished on a half-wit, lame-ass white woman would be directed elsewhere. Now, given what a mindless country this has become, I have no doubt that attention would not be directed at something more worthwhile, but rather at some other equally undeserving (or almost equally, since Palin is incredibly, mindbogglingly undeserving and with a few exceptions, e.g. Beck, her Republican peers are not quite as bad as she is—but that’s only relatively the case—most are nearly as stupid, mean-spirited, and/or dishonest as Palin).
Thus ends my answer to a question that never should have been asked about a person we never should have heard of—i.e., if this were a sane country, inhabited mostly by thoughtful citizens. Sadly, it is not.
morzer - January 19, 2011 | 12:48 pm · Link
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Also too, child labor laws HURT children.
Omnes Omnibus - January 19, 2011 | 12:49 pm · Link
@shortstop: I don’t know when it happened, but it apparently did.
DKF - January 19, 2011 | 12:51 pm · Link
@MikeJ: Yes, lots of well-armed black men who deeply distrust government authority is exactly what those liberty-lovin’ Tea Partiers want to see!
Chris - January 19, 2011 | 12:51 pm · Link
@Barb (formerly Gex):
Jules Verne, in his book “North and South,” had a quote about that;
In the slave states, there were three classes. At the bottom, four million enslaved Negroes, meaning about a third of the population. At the top, the class of landowners (poorly educated, rich, and contemptuous) that reserved for itself the direction of public affairs. In between the two, the lazy and miserable class of poor whites. Against all expectations, the latter were devotedly in favor of maintaining slavery, lest a class of emancipated Negroes rise to their own level
It would be funny if it weren’t so true, how little things have changed since then.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony - January 19, 2011 | 12:54 pm · Link
@jrg:
I grew up in rural southern redneck land. When I moved to the city, I noticed that the ghetto trash were just like the white trash I grew up around. They wore different clothes, listened to different music, and there were some differences in food, but everything else was pretty much the same. Angry, anti-intellectual, irresponsible, and obsessed with macho displays of violence and substance abuse. I could commiserate somewhat when black friends would talk about how embarrassed these people made them. However, because I no longer have a southern accent, I don’t have to worry about people assuming I am like the people I grew up around. I definitely have it easier.
shortstop - January 19, 2011 | 12:54 pm · Link
@Omnes Omnibus: No, I’ve known for a long while that it happened. I just don’t know why it did.
schrodinger's cat - January 19, 2011 | 12:56 pm · Link
OT
From DougJ’s and John’s favorite blog
What the hell is Andrew Sullivan babbling about? This doesn’t make much sense.
Joseph Nobles - January 19, 2011 | 12:56 pm · Link
A black Sarah Palin would still have a seat at the GOP propaganda table. They would love to show her off as a “see, a black person thinks like we do!” mouthpiece every once in a while. But the media would never hang on every word.
shortstop - January 19, 2011 | 12:57 pm · Link
@Chris: And one of the things for which they most vehemently hate liberals is our being unsporting enough to take away “[I may not be much, but] I’m white” as an automatic indicator of social status.
schrodinger's cat - January 19, 2011 | 12:57 pm · Link
@Joseph Nobles: But only if she was considered pretty by the greater Wingnuttia.
Chris - January 19, 2011 | 1:01 pm · Link
@Barb (formerly Gex):
Also;
I think the defining view of today’s Real American population is that in the old days, there was a free market that guaranteed that everyone who deserved a job could have one, because, Invisible Hand, y’know, etc, but the point is the Free Market made everything work fine.
Then, in the 1960s, liberals messed with society in order to unfairly benefit blacks and Latinos and the rest.
That, right there, provides them with the explanation for all of their life’s problems, especially the economic ones. Why can’t I get a job? Because a liberal gave it to a (undeserving, obviously) black guy instead. Why was my home foreclosed on? Because a liberal put a gun to the bank’s head and made it give homes to black people. Etc, etc, etc. So you’ve got a situation where ironically, instead of pulling themselves up by their boostraps like they always tell everyone else to, conservatives can simply lie back and piss and moan about how life’s unfair to them, how they’re not even going to try pulling themselves up because they know the game’s rigged, and how they’re going to vote for politicians who stick it to these uppity minorities that they think are lording it over them.
In other words, their already-dysfunctional society is indeed going to get more and more dysfunctional as they sit on their asses and blame their neighbors for all their problems instead of actually fixing them. Yet another case of conservatives becoming exactly what they claim to hate.
cintibud - January 19, 2011 | 1:02 pm · Link
@Barb (formerly Gex):
I actually we should start using the term “Sarabonics”
sukabi - January 19, 2011 | 1:02 pm · Link
@beltane: which would explain why she can see Russia from her porch…
ed drone - January 19, 2011 | 1:03 pm · Link
@Face:
How about “openly-carried?” If it’s concealed, no one would notice.
Ed
neil - January 19, 2011 | 1:03 pm · Link
Actually, all of this same stuff would be equally applicable if she were a Democrat.
Bulworth - January 19, 2011 | 1:04 pm · Link
If Sarah Palin were black the shooting of a (White) U.S. Congresswoman Sarah Palin’s crosshairs graph would be investigated for links to the New Black Panther Party and Faux News would be making public hearings/trials of any and all New Black Panther Party members the core of its coverage.
Chyron HR - January 19, 2011 | 1:07 pm · Link
@schrodinger’s cat:
Embracing Simpson’s bowels. You know, in the Biblical sense.
BR - January 19, 2011 | 1:10 pm · Link
@schrodinger’s cat:
Here’s a maybe stupid question on the debt that has bothered me for a while. Is there really any reason to pay down our debt? Right now the treasury is issuing more debt than we need each month (that is, we’re not spending what the treasury is borrowing as fast as they’re borrowing it), and we have the Fed buying up that debt and yet the bond markets have no problem with this and our bond rates are very low. (Granted, that’s part of the Fed’s plan, but it seems the Fed’s action is doing little either way.) Why not just keep spending into oblivion?
The global economic system probably doesn’t have a shelf life of more than a decade left anyway (due to other challenges like energy crises, food crises, etc.), so why not just run with it, and while we’re at it spend money profligately on useful things like a high-speed rail system or whatever.
Omnes Omnibus - January 19, 2011 | 1:10 pm · Link
@Chyron HR: I have never really seen the attraction of Sully’s blog. He is occasionally good, but he is often howlingly wrong. I just don’t get it.
sukabi - January 19, 2011 | 1:10 pm · Link
@trollhattan: Loved both the Colbert dismemberment and Stewart’s take… think they’ve both had quite enough of SP and the media fawning… so much for them being “civil”... lol. It was refreshing.
schrodinger's cat - January 19, 2011 | 1:11 pm · Link
@Chyron HR:Eewww. It does not make much sense, he also seems to have confused debt with the deficit.
schrodinger's cat - January 19, 2011 | 1:12 pm · Link
@Omnes Omnibus: BS sounds better when spoken with an English accent.
morzer - January 19, 2011 | 1:13 pm · Link
@Chyron HR:
“I beseech you in the Bowles of Erskine, think what you do this day, Master Simpson.”
catclub - January 19, 2011 | 1:14 pm · Link
@El Tiburon:
Of course: 4. Willing to stab anyone who gets in her way in the back.
schrodinger's cat - January 19, 2011 | 1:15 pm · Link
@Chyron HR: I just got the pun you made. I is slow today. I think even reading about Palin makes you dumber.
ruemara - January 19, 2011 | 1:16 pm · Link
I live this dichotomy everyday. I prefer not to meet the people I write for, it makes their head explode.
If Sarah Palin were black, she’d be praying more for her son; excited that he’s not back in the ‘hood getting shot at, worried that he’s out in Iraq, getting shot at.
She’d shut her bloody yap about healthcare, because she’d be so damn excited that she may get some she can afford to use soon.
She’d also not be taken seriously by anybody, except when there’s dirty work to do. Black=not a Serious Person.
In fact, there’s going to be days when she has to check in the mirror to make sure she’s alive, visible, possibly human.
The “baby daddy epithet” would be used all the time. Grandmommy Meth Dealer would be more of a story. So would Willow the destructive drinker. Bristol nearly winning Dancing with the Stars would be a laughable, incontrovertable sign that the game was being rolled by her posse. Her posse would be derided. Also, too.
And no matter what she wore, how good she actually looked, she’d be called monkey, jokes would be made about her masculinity and everything would be described as ‘ghetto’.
Dennis SGMM - January 19, 2011 | 1:19 pm · Link
@schrodinger’s cat:
It would drastically change the economic climate all right: those of us not in the top ten percent of income would go from merely being fucked to being proper fucked. The solicitude for those same international markets that got us into this situation is nothing short of nauseating.
SenyorDave - January 19, 2011 | 1:19 pm · Link
@schrodinger’s cat:
I assume he means the concept. I embrace the concept of facing the economic problems long-term. I will be very disappointed if Obama doesn’t address the coming pain, because that wll ensure that many of the Inpendents stay away from the Dems. Because the GOP will just lie and say they have plan to fix everything, the media won’t call them on it, and by 2012 we’ll have a GOP-controlled country. There’s already little chance of retaining the Senate because of the split of Dem vs. Rep running.
I’d never vote for a Republican, but I am pretty tired of waiting until something is blows up before it is fixed.
MrCee - January 19, 2011 | 1:26 pm · Link
Geeze,
It only took folks this long to realize this? It’s another example of Privilege. No matter what you do IOKIYAW
catclub - January 19, 2011 | 1:26 pm · Link
@david mizner: I think it is a measure of progress that the head of Merrill Lynch during 2008 was black and rose through apparent incompetence – just like the white guys who do it, just like Carly Fiorina was able to do at HP.
It is true that he was fired and Larry Summers was an advisor to the president, but progress has occurred.
Malovich - January 19, 2011 | 1:26 pm · Link
Huh. Appearantly I think Sarah Palin is black.
Chris - January 19, 2011 | 1:27 pm · Link
@ruemara:
Ain’t that the truth. Obama’s certainly proving it. There was a PJTV video a while ago with the bright clean articulate white anchor concluding with a defiant message to “this president and his street-thug advisers.” I suspect if the man had ever meet real street thugs in his life, he’d be cringing and cowering like a beaten dog. OTOH, it’s nice obvious code for “nonwhite.”
Malovich - January 19, 2011 | 1:28 pm · Link
@schrodinger’s cat: Sharron Angle?
reality-based - January 19, 2011 | 1:30 pm · Link
OT - but somewhat to Bulworth’s point – so today, I went looking for more info on the bomb-in-a-backpack horror in Spokane.
The NY Times – on the front page, but just as a small headline/link – it’s since disappeared.
The Washington Post – nothing. No mention. No link.
CNN.com – nothing. No mention not even a link
So a week after an assassination attempt on a US congressman, that killed six people, a horrifyingly competent, mass-murder-type bomb that could have killed dozens is only prevented from exploding through the luck of a government employee noticing the backpack –
– and because it is RIGHT-WING violence, our newspapers of record are careful not to even INFORM their readers that it HAPPENED?
?!
Now compare this to the aborted bombing in Times square in May of 2010 – of course, then the suspect was a Muslim, so we were treated to wall-to-wall coverage of the event, for days.
Now go beat your ahead against a wall in despair That’s what I’m going to do.
Allan - January 19, 2011 | 1:32 pm · Link
Those who say Sarah Palin could never be Governor of Alaska if she were black are forgetting that the enlightened pageant voters of 1984 selected African-American Maryline Blackburn over Sarah Heath, who placed third and was Miss Congeniality (what the hell happened to her)?
Chris - January 19, 2011 | 1:34 pm · Link
@reality-based:
Thanks for pointing that out, because I hadn’t even heard of it. Oy.
ogden - January 19, 2011 | 1:40 pm · Link
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: “As the chairman of the Welcoming Committee, it is my privilege to extend a laurel, and hearty handshake to our new . . . n****r.”
Wile E. Quixote - January 19, 2011 | 1:45 pm · Link
@reality-based:
Yeah, or how about all of the coverage of the dipshit in Portland who was only caught because he was entrapped by the FBI. Of course what else could you expect from the New York Times, the paper that gave us Walter Duranty and the Post, who gave us Janet Cooke?
Nellcote - January 19, 2011 | 1:46 pm · Link
@sukabi:
Was it Colbert as Mika that said LaPalin should just shut the fuck up for 10 minutes? Just awesome though un-civil.
Elie - January 19, 2011 | 1:46 pm · Link
@Chris:
I think that I said that exact thing…
Makes her mad though, REAL mad that she is a paid for tool
BR - January 19, 2011 | 1:48 pm · Link
@reality-based:
Partly it’s just that anything that happens in the NYC-DC corridor is considered news by the MSM simply because they are all there and don’t pay attention to the rest of the country unless it’s a really big deal.
(Consider the amount of press the East coast snowstorms get every year vs. the unprecedented 110+ degree temperatures followed a few months later by torrential flooding in Southern CA.)
wasabi gasp - January 19, 2011 | 1:53 pm · Link
She’d be blaming everyone around her about the sorry state of her motherfucking iced tea.
Nellcote - January 19, 2011 | 1:53 pm · Link
@Allan:
Palin wasn’t born in Alaska so it’s not a given that her parents would have moved there.
sukabi - January 19, 2011 | 1:58 pm · Link
@wasabi gasp: lol…
Tom Hilton - January 19, 2011 | 2:00 pm · Link
Also, no wingnut would be making the risible claim that she’s more qualified for the presidency than the first-ever African-American President.
4jkb4ia - January 19, 2011 | 2:05 pm · Link
If Sarah Palin were black, Condoleezza Rice would have been the VP candidate or Palin would have been relentlessly compared to Rice. After 5 minutes of this the entire nation would realize that Palin was a lightweight and a token.
What if Sarah Palin were black? « The Bryan Cook - January 19, 2011 | 2:08 pm · Link
[...] a little thought experiment (hat tip to Balloon Juice). What if Sarah Palin were an African American [...]
Calouste - January 19, 2011 | 2:24 pm · Link
@reality-based :
Go local:
Spokesman-Review (Spokane)
Seattle Times
From the latter:
GeneJockey - January 19, 2011 | 2:25 pm · Link
@El Tiburon:
No, there’s really more to it than that. There are any number of attractive white wingnut women. What Palin has is Perfect Pitch for the entitled, yet oppressed feeling of victimization of the Right. She personifies their inferiority complex.
lizzy - January 19, 2011 | 2:47 pm · Link
We need “A Time to Kill” scene….
Tonybrown74 - January 19, 2011 | 2:52 pm · Link
@Allan:
Does Ms. Blackburn talk with word-salad verbiage? Does she have multiple children with funny sounding names? Did one of her DAUGHTERS have a child out of wedlock?
Being a beauty queen is not what would have disqualify her (in America’s eyes) for office.
Apples and oranges.
PurpleGirl - January 19, 2011 | 3:45 pm · Link
@Joseph Nobles: Yes, she’d be the female Michael Steele.
Svlad Jelly - January 19, 2011 | 3:59 pm · Link
Star Parker.
maus - January 19, 2011 | 4:17 pm · Link
@morzer:
Is everyone in that family a manipulative sociopath, bordering on a personality disorder?
Yes?
Oh.
@shortstop:
Maybe it’s “MOBILES ARE FOR BABIES I AM MAN”? I don’t know, they’re all idiots and their “sport” is unimpressive.
TOP123 - January 19, 2011 | 4:43 pm · Link
As we all know, the important difference between liberals and conservatives on the issue of race is that to liberals, it is always about race, whereas the true conservative believes firmly in a meritocracy, and is entirely colorblind.
Wait, Sarah Palin is black? White? A woman? Oh, I hadn’t even noticed, I was so impressed with her skills, intellect and impressive record of achievement… Or take, for example, the new cabinet in Ohio, which I’m pretty sure is entirely compsed of African-American women—though one can’t be sure, since Republicans only view potential hires and appointees strictly through the prism of who the single best candidate for the position is.
Wile E. Quixote - January 19, 2011 | 4:52 pm · Link
@Tonybrown74:
This is the one reason I love Sarah Palin, the next time some conservative fucktard starts talking about the stupid fucking names that some black people give their children I’m going to respond by repeating “Bristol, Track, Trig, Piper and Willow Palin” over and over again.
Jacel - January 19, 2011 | 5:23 pm · Link
This premise reminds me of the brilliant Dave Chappelle sketch about Black Bush. I’d like to see Wanda Sykes take on Palin this way, if she hasn’t already.
asiangrrlMN - January 19, 2011 | 5:49 pm · Link
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: Bingo. That was my first, middle, and last thought on the matter. Case closed.
Yestra - January 19, 2011 | 5:56 pm · Link
If she was black, nobody would criticize her at all, because that would be RACIST!
walizonia - January 19, 2011 | 9:50 pm · Link
I first realized things were rigged against blacks from watching Living in Color. Those black dudes were hilarious and they had a white affirmative action hire by the name of Jim Carrey who was basically the straight man. Who ends up with the high dollar headlining movies – the boring white guy. Who ends up with the cheesy blacksploitation comedies – yep, the hilarious black dudes (the Wayans).
Sarah Palin is Jim Carrey.
William Ockham - January 19, 2011 | 10:00 pm · Link
If Sarah Palin was black, she would be a liberal. Her drug abusing relatives would be in jail. She would be an unemployable single mom.
rikyrah - January 19, 2011 | 11:07 pm · Link
Ta-Nehisi Coates over at the Atlantic nailed her on her anti-intellectualism….and that it has no correspondence within the Black community.
to paraphrase…for someone Black with Palin’s anti-intellectual bent to be a politician…that would mean that Black folks would start electing gangster rappers to political office.
what happens when Sarah Palin is Black?
see Alvin Greene for your answer.
PTirebiter - January 20, 2011 | 9:46 am · Link
@Elie: It’s a fascinating point and worth exploring. I just wonder if her anger isn’t too Palin-centric to include any thought of class struggle on her part?