Really, though, this is all a partisan witch-hunt:
An informal adviser who has counseled Gov. Sarah Palin on ethics issues urged her in July to apologize for her handling of the dismissal of the state’s public safety commissioner and warned that the matter could snowball into a bigger scandal.
He also said, in a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, that she should fire any aides who had raised concerns with the chief over a state trooper who was involved in a bitter divorce with the governor’s sister.
In the letter, written before Sen. John McCain picked the Alaska governor as his running mate, former U.S. Attorney Wevley Shea warned Gov. Palin that “the situation is now grave” and recommended that she and her husband, Todd Palin, apologize for “overreaching or perceived overreaching” for using her position to try to get Trooper Mike Wooten fired from the force.
The only thing missing from the McCain/Palin farce to date is a promise to bring the most ethical administration ever to Washington. As a side note, I remain absolutely shocked that no one on the right is appalled by the Palin pick (the most they can muster is painful silence). None of the people who at least pretended to be thinkers is calling foul. No one. It is all about how average and just like us she is.
I remember a few years back when I really was under the impression that the Democrats were filled with radical liberals who were not serious, and that we needed to bring Republicans in to replace the Clinton/Albright era of incompetence. How the hell did I get it so damned wrong?
I know people in the PTA who hunt. I don’t want them in the White House. This is just absolutely crazy, and I am sorry if I keep repeating myself, but I just can not seem to believe this is really happening.
*** Update ***
The most depressing thing is that I have friends who have been friends of the family forever, their son is my age and was the honor grad at Annapolis a few years ago, and they are just good folks. I remember in 2000 when they wanted McCain because Bush was too religious (I was with Bush because I saw a winner in him), and then we were all soothed by the addition of Cheney to the ticket. Today, I am afraid to even talk to them because they are all in the bag for that odious pile of shit John McCain. They have learned NOTHING from the last eight years. Nothing.
gbear
I realize that Joe Klein isn’t (nominally) a conservative commentator, but he seems to have decided that it’s time to start throwing spike strips out in front of McCain’s bus.
amorphous
Modern Republicanism (not really Conservatism any more):
Leadership says “Jump,” base says “Off a bridge how high?”
georgia pig
Go to AmericaBlog, Aravosis has a tape of a local Maine reporter eviscerating McCain about Palin’s total lack of credentials, e.g., why would you pick her over Olympia Snowe? McCain even calls her “the most popular governor in America” — yeah, right, no one even knew who she was three weeks ago. If only the national media dorks were this competent.
Bedlam UK
What you need is some new journalists to make a show to question the current ‘journalists’.
Ask THEM some hard hitting questions.
Whats YOUR opinion of Sarah Palin as VP?
Whats YOUR opinion of the Rovian tactics used by McCain?
Whats YOUR opinion of the complete fabrications your reporting?
Oh, its all shit, but your bosses write the scripts??
Your just smiling faces and empty heads?
Ah, thank you for clearing that up.
Now we have a 10yo real reporter for the local Middle School going to ask some real damn questions that the adults cant, since its the childrens future your flushing down the drain.
mellowjohn
” How the hell did I get it so damned wrong?”
ego absolvo te.
cleek
elections are more important than principles.
tribes are more important than policy.
GOP uber alles.
lutton
Someone said a while back (Molly Ivins, maybe?) “They don’t want to govern, they want to rule.”
And now some are arguing that a lack of foreign policy experience makes one MORE qualified to ‘govern!’ – http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/09/knowledge_power.html
Greg VA
I’m constantly amazed by the number of seemingly intelligent people I know who continue to “get it so damned wrong.”
I’d be curious to learn more about your metamorphosis so maybe I could understand them.
Brachiator
Palin’s handling of Troopergate and even the firing of the librarian when she was mayor brings to mind the sacking of US Attorneys in the Bush Administration, or Dubya’s strong preference for appointing loyaliists and cronies over anyone remotely competent to do the job.
Diehard Republican supporters have to fall back on either silence or the lame principle that the president has the legal authority to hire and fire Executive Branch staff.
Just watch the same excuse be used to rationalize Palin’s actions.
Meanwhile, some British pundits are not reticent at all in slamming McCain’s choice. For example, Minette Marrin in the Times of London (This cynical choice has left McCain’s honour in shreds):
As an aside, I can’t help but notice how elements of themes of The Dark Knight keep creeping into the political conversation about the GOP. Marrin’s description of the Republican choice of Palin reminds me of Alfred’s assessment of Gotham’s criminals turning to the Joker:
McCain and the GOP aren’t going down without a fight. And they are just as desperate as Gotham City’s criminal goons.
carsick
I have a friend who is skeptical of even the most innocuous democratic proposal yet got on board with Palin within 12 hours of her speech. No research needed.
I don’t see how McCain is rising in the polls until I remember him.
FiveThirtyEight is completely depressing these days, by the way.
cyntax
After all, we’ve got tape of Peggy Noonan and Mike Murphy telling us what they really think.
The Republican Party: where the Emperor’s-new-clothes is core doctrine.
Mark from St Paul
John, you of all people should understand what happens when someone on the right decides to break with the herd. Their world falls apart. Either you believe it all, or none of it makes any sense.
The leadership of the Republican party are largely members of an ongoing criminal conspiracy, and the rank and file are unthinking good Germans who will march off a cliff if that is demanded of them.
I figured that out. You figured that out. More people will figure it out, but still more will go to their graves with their heads stuffed with nonsense.
dt
John:
I remember when you were still a wingnut, and how hardcore you were. Yet you came over from the dark side, so obviously it’s a curable condition. My question is, what caused you to see the light? Is it something that can be applied on a mass scale? You know how the wingnut brain works. That’s valuable knowledge, and you could really help your country if you could use it constructively.
SGEW
You didn’t listen to your liberal trolls ;)
I feel like I’ve been living in an alternate universe since Al Gore made his concession speech.
res ipsa loquitur
How the hell did I get it so damned wrong?
Blinded by the Right. An unfortunately common affliction.
Glad you’re recovered now.
Mike Toreno
“How the hell did I get it so damned wrong?”
Group identification. Republicans and conservatives were “like you” in your mind, so you excused everything they did and ascribed characteristics to them based not on observation but on your own identification with them. You didn’t use people’s behavior and the morality of their actions to decide whether to identify with them, you identified with them and then, motivated by a need to justify your identification, saw everything they did as worthy and honorable. Similarly, you ascribed characteristics to people with whom you didn’t identify based on the need to justify your lack of identification. You saw liberals and Democrats as “other”, and viewed what was done or advocated by the “other” as wrong.
Go back and take a look at your behavior during the Swift Boat episode. You twisted yourself into a pretzel trying to avoid the simple truth, which was that Kerry’s service in Vietnam was exemplary, the people disparaging his service were lying, and using lies to smear Kerry was part of the Bush campaign strategy. You didn’t evaluate Kerry based on what he actually did and you didn’t evaluate the Swift Boat liars based on indices of credibility (whether their claims matched with contemporary records, whether they contradicted statements of others, whether they falsely claimed to witness events at which they were not present, etc). You evaluated their credibility based on your desire to believe them, with that desire being in turn motivated by your desire to ascribe undesirable characteristics to the “other.”
Now, you evaluate people based on their actions and view your previous behavior as making no sense, as indeed it did not. I don’t wonder that observation of your own past behavior from your present perspective boggles your imagination.
Laura W
Palindrome anyone?
Distraction
No it carts id
I came up with that one night watching the crawl (DISTRACTION?) on a cable un-news show. It was in reference to something Hillary was doing, or not doing. I find it even more un-delicious today.
Delia
It’s important to remember that once upon a time the Republican Part was actually a normal political party and its leaders were by and large normal people. The transformation has been a gradual process, and the refugees (people like Kevin Phillips, among many others) litter the highway. One useful website for how the whole thing happened is Theocracy Watch. I haven’t visited it in a while, but it’s got some up to date material. One of its most useful articles is on how the religious right took over the republican party, state by state and precinct by precinct. This didn’t happen by accident. I also noticed that they have a new article on Palin on their front page.
Mrs. Peel
Palin stump speech:
Moose!
Yaaaaaaay!
Bridge to Nowhere!
Yaaaaaaaay!
Teenage Pregnancy!
Yaaaaaaay!
Community Organizer!
Boooooooo!
Delia
Oh yeah. And it just came to me this morning why being next door to Russia gives Palin such important foreign policy experience. Alaska is just the perfect place to set up a Gulag. They really need some help getting that pipeline going for starters.
Teak111
So Palin is going to sit down and in her folksy way, talk to some of the worlds toughest leaders? Oh yes, I can see her working her hockey mom charms on Putin while discussing his incursion into Georgia, or espousing her Christian view of raising kids to King al Saud of SA while asking him to increase oil production. I’m absolutely sure Hugo Chevaz would love to have the former beauty queen down to Vz for some face to face discussion.
The GOP really is shameless. Stay classy Obama, even if you it causes you to loose.
JL
John, I did try to talk to a friend of Palin and when she and her husband said she’s a breath of fresh air, I lost it. When she first appeared on scene, I told a friends that I felt like I was watching an episode of the Twilight Zone. They laughed it off, not any more.
Rick Taylor
[I thought I posted this before but I don’t see it, so hope this isn’t a double post]
I’m shocked myself, and I thought I couldn’t get more cynical about the state of the right wing in this country. Democrats are frequently and with some justification accused of being a circular firing squad, but if the pundits on the right can stay silent or nod in approval as McCain puts an unknown in a position to be President, especially after condemning Obama’s inexperience for months,then have no integrity whatsoever; none.
JL
The Republican Party has been taken over by the evangelicals and talk radio. I still like Lincoln Chafee’s description of Palin,
.
SGEW
Delia Says:
Voice from the past says:
– Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
Rich Black
McCain’s health insurance plan will tax your health benefits as income.
Palin will get rid of The US Constitution and replace it with her version of the Bible.
If McCain is elected then American Freedom and prosperity will be destroyed.
the US will become a mix of China and Iran under a McCain- Palin dictatorship.
Shygetz
I have to differ…partially. I was reading this site before John had his epiphany, and there was a reason that I read this site instead of Red State or Powerline or any of the other right-wing blogs…it’s because while John said and believed some crazy stuff, he never went all the way in for the group identification. He was willing to criticize the right for things that clearly went violated his own sense of propriety. That’s why I think John was able to turn away from the Republican party while many others cannot–he never gave up his core identity, he just viewed the Republicans in the most favorable light he could muster. When even his red-tinted glasses couldn’t hide the seething pile of poo (e.g. the Schiavo affair), John clung to his core identity instead of the Party, and thus was reborn as Democratic John.
I don’t know if most partisan conservatives are capable of such a realignment.
Stuck in the Fun House
Sarah Palin is America’s Cornflake Girl.
Brandon
Most of my Republican friends have “cultural” problems with the Democratic party.
When I actually get to the point of detailed policy discussion, pigovian taxes, policy toward Iran, etc–I generally find that they can get to sensible reality-based assessments.
But they see leftists like Code Pink on TV–and see them representative rank and file Democratic party activists. They see Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton pulling off some typical hyperbolic slam against the “pervasive racism destroying american society”–and see that as the governing philosophy of the Democratic party. They see poor, black, ill-educated voters in southern cities turning out to vote for welfare policies–and think of that as the Democratic “base”.
I used to be a centrist, and I had a fair amount of disdain for such people. My moves toward the Democratic party coincided with increasing realizations that these things are NOT the core of the democratic party.
Napoleon
A non-scientific casual observation that I would love to hear comments on. It seems to me that “liberal” sites usually have a comment section, where “conservative” sites usually do not. Even someone like Sully, who is relatively open minded and seems willing to listen to argument, does not have comments. That is not a coincidence. The fact that John was an outlier (and on top of it his moderation style is one of using the light touch) tells me his mindset to begin with is really not your typical conservative blogger. They very fact he is willing to accept challenge and defend his ideas simply is not built into the DNA of the American right.
SGEW
In Sullivan’s defense, I believe that the main reason he shut down comments was because he didn’t have time to moderate them, and there were too many trolls spewing bigoted hate speech all the time. He also recently posted a poll as to whether or not his readers wanted comments back. 60% said no.
You can say that again. Of course, the “typical conservative blogger” nowadays is kind of indistinguishable from a spoof site. I can’t even tell anymore with some of them.
JonChicago
Is it odd that the WSJ broke the story about Palin’s own “informal” advisor tells her to come clean on the Troopergate? They have the actual letters and bury the article on A8. While the NYTimes and the WPO don’t have the story today? Interesting. I wonder if it was leaked to the WSJ to try and defuse the damage from within the Palin camp?
Koz
If you think it’s bad now, just wait until the middle of October or whenever it is that the Obama campaign functionally dies. If we’re lucky we’ll have at least three weeks or so before the election when everybody knows Obama has no shot.
Tsulagi
Welcome to America, where presidential election cycles are now like a drive-thru zoo of absurdity.
Had a good call with my dad last night. He now agrees with me Bush is an idiot and a national/international joke, but it’s a virtual certainty he will vote McCain. When the conversation got to politics, he asked me what I thought of the Palin pick. Told him I thought she was pretty much Bush on a tampon, only a little tougher and possibly more competent but not in a good way. He laughed then said “I think I’m now supposed to call you sexist because I heard we (Republicans) now love Hillary.”
Yep, just when you think this shit can’t get any more absurd, step back because you just know tomorrow is always full of promise.
Koz
I think she’s great, thanks.
Koz
I think she’s great, thanks.
cleek
based on what?
Stuck in the Fun House
Koz, the blogo troll future teller. Told the future of HC and we know where that went. Now speaks of Obama campaign demise with the same assuredness.
SGEW
Koz is just stepping into the Nostradamarific shoes of the mighty predictor, Bill Kristol.
filchyboy
Yea I too would be very interested to know why you think you got it so wrong John. I’ve never been a party to either tribe and it was as obvious as the day is long to me what a complete fool Bush is/was. To this day I fail to understand how I came out so correct on this and so many otherwise smart people got so boondoggled.
Common Sense
David Frum was none too pleased with the pick:
In a follow up on NRO, Frum is even more disappointed after reflecting on Palin:
Mike Toreno
Shygetz, OK, that makes sense, but doesn’t invalidate my point, which is that his outlook was based on group identification and that caused him to draw the incorrect conclusions he drew. You say (and I believe) that he didn’t show the blind slavish advocacy we see today, but that can be taken to mean that he had enough of a moral core that group identification, while it influenced his thinking a great deal, didn’t completely subordinate his personality.
When he was wrong (and this was a lot of the time) what, other than group identification, would have caused him to hold on to his wrong positions? Sometimes he might have, and probably did, come to his positions through legitimate means, like he could have wrongly believed that Iraq had WMD, or he might have believed that invading Iraq was a good thing in order to bring democracy. I was against the invasion, but once it happened there was a period of a few weeks where I believed and hoped that we could bring the Iraqis around through providing security, doing a lot of reconstruction work, and building and being perceived to build a prosperous economy. Somebody who was in favor of the invasion could have thought some of the same things and been a lot more optimistic about the prospects for them happening than I was. But some positions John took are hard to explain other than as a product of group identification and loathing of the “other”. I mean, he was adamant in backing up the Swift Boat liars. You go to his posts before the epiphany and a lot of times you don’t see how the viewpoint or the analysis that gave rise to it could have come from the same person we see today.
I continue to believe that he was so wrong for so long because of group identification, while agreeing with you that he is enough a stand-up guy who didn’t take all his positions from group identification. And eventually, group identification became insufficient to support his outlook in the face of so much contradictory evidence and he pretty much abandoned it as a basis for making moral judgments.
John S.
Based on the conditioned Pavlovian response to ring the bell for the person with the “R” next to their name.
Duh.
wobbly
Sullivan, Friedman, Krauthammer, Frum, Noonan have all slammed Ms. Palin.
Aren’t they “on the Right”?
And for one brief shining moment, in the right?
News Reference
Neo-Republicanism has been a farce since Reagan. Even Nixon managed to pay down the debt, but UNDER THE NEO-REPUBLICANS THE US DEBT WAS RAISED BY OVER $6 TRILLION DOLLARS.
Sorry for SCREAMING but how Orwellian is it that “fiscal conservativism” means 2+2=5 and Republicans LIKE IT? (And yes, they Neo-Reps also raised the GFD as % of GDP significantly, that math-con doesn’t fly either).
That the “social conservatives” would elevate someone who betrayed his first wife is par for the course, see: Gingrich, Giuliani, and was Reagan the first divorcee to win the Presidency?
But that the “national security conservatives” have somehow been reduced into claiming that running the national guard is somehow “military experience” (a claim that was laughed at as a farce of the far more populous state of Arkansas, see: Clinton, Governor) and that proximity to Russia’s fishing fleets somehow by osmosis gives international experience is beyond belief.
It’s more faith-based military strategy, Palin is now God’s Right Hand.
Brachiator
This is really good stuff, and sadly points out how some Republicans vote against their own interests, but also don’t see how “cultural” problems are but more and less than they seem.
Yep, some Democrats are radicals and activists. But that’s the history of this country. Republicans like to have their activists safely in the past. The parents of some republicans were anarchists and union radicals when they came over.
If the founders weren’t radical, we’d be British. Or Canadian.
Odd isn’t it how Obama has demonstrably kicked Jackson, Sharpton, Nader and old style single-issue lefties to the curb.
And yet, these same voters shun Obama because he is … solidly middle class and well-educated. A recent progressive radio talk show examining the “cultural issues” behind the Palin mystique found a number of people calling in to defend the rights of white people to vote for Palin specifically because she was not well educated compared to Obama and the supposed Washington elite.
And you just can’t shake some people from the idea that when white people get government money it’s benefits, but when black people get government money it’s welfare, even when both the white and black people are working their butts off to survive.
The irony is that both parties used to be wider ideologically. But while the Democrats, for good or ill, are still diverse, the Republicans have become narrower and more rigid. I suppose one could accept this if Republican policies worked. But we have had eight years of failure by any measure. It really makes you wonder what people think they are getting by returning these frauds to power.
J. Michael Neal
Good news! I don;t have health benefits, so my taxes won’t be going up.
TenguPhule
Fixed.
Rome Again
Imagine what your blood pressure would be like if you were fully aware of the major fuck-ups that were coming before the 2000 election, and watched it all along? Consider yourself lucky, you’re not going through this for a third time. I’m seriously considering committing myself on Nov. 6th (just have to figure out how to kick my nicotine habit first because I can’t smoke is no longer allowed).
RCH
How did you get it so wrong? Well here’s the answer: “it’s the ideas, stupid”. The fact is since Clinton the left has no ideas beyond promoting killing babies and second guessing Republicans. And this is crazy because worldwide the left has just as many good ideas as the right does. In the US however the left has ditched all the philophical ideas the left normally stand for and then they wonder why they have nothing to say.
The left has always stood for socialism, and if they renounce socialism they cease to exist as having an economic policy. As soon as someone like O’Reilly starts calling them socialists they start backtracking and hiding it. That interview with Obama was a complete joke in an economic sense, when O’Reilly started calling the Democrats Robin Hoods for redistributing wealth from the rich. The real Robin Hood was a hero for doing that because the rich were corrupt cronies of politicians like with Bush, therefore a Robin Hood is needed, not a Maid Marion meekly putting up with it. Instead Oh Bummer said to O’Reilly how they were both rich enough and they could afford a few scraps to people who were poor. How sort of left wing economic philosophy is that? The whole history of the left clawing a living from the rich from the Magna Carta, strike breaking, livable wages, antitrust, consumer protection, etc reduced to being neighbourly enough to trickle on the poor enough to maybe not be the only democracy in the world without socialised medicine? O’Reilly calls progressive taxation moving money from the wealthy 5% to the other 95% class warfare, and Oh Bummer actually agrees with him and apologises for scaring the nice billionaires.
He should have said if it’s class warfare then my class is 19 times bigger than yours, and they vote. Socialist leftists in Europe manage to take money from the rich without hurting the economy and they raise the standard of living for the poor and lower middle class (their base) by doing it. Republicans elect a president to get them lots of money from the Democratic base, the Democrats shouldn’t be shy about doing the same thing or why would anyone vote for them, if they aren’t having an abortion?
Why not starve the Republican beast with higher taxes for a change?