Taylor Marsh, still not understanding politics:
Lefties get infuriated when I parse the traditional and new media spin against Sarah Palin. I can hear the caterwauling already, but don’t care much about it, as I’m more interested in following the story, not the negative Hillaryesque stereotyping, the latest of which comes compliments of the latest CBS poll, which I’ll get to in a minute.
The fact remains that there is a “Hillary hole,” with women wanting their turn, while people hunger for something radically different, which is currently being filled by the Tea Party, a star named Sarah and her fans. Not surprisingly, as poll after poll on her rolls out, the narrative on Sarah Palin continues to be filled out unfairly. I know, you’re shocked. But love her or hate her, whether she runs in 2012 or not, when you look at the left, the reality is there’s no anti-Palin progressive who matches what Palin’s got.
Yeah, Taylor. It’s a real shame that there is no lefty Sarah Palin, because what the party could really use is a know-nothing empty suit who is wildly unpopular with the majority of Americans, extremely divisive to the folks you need to reach out to, completely unversed in anything regarding policy, and leading the party into a ditch. It really sucks there is no left-wing Palin.
That ain’t star power you’re seeing- it’s starbursts, and Rich Lowry is going to get jealous if you go after his woman.
Xantar
What is “negative Hillaryesque stereotyping”? Is that like negative Palinesque spewing?
The Grand Panjandrum
Very good John! Star power minus any policy knowledge whatsoever = star bursts. Boy, if I were a former HRC supporter I would be very upset at this comparison. That is just plain old fashioned bull shit. One thing Clinton is not, is she is NOT an empty suit. She’s forgotten more policy than Palin will ever know.
some other guy
Aside from having chestacles and a vajayjay, what’s “radically different” about Palin vs. any other rumored Republican presidential candidate? She spouts exactly the same generic GOP talking points as everyone else in her party.
Kevin K.
Damnit, John, you beat us again. We were just discussing Mushy over at Rumproast.
Nutella
“Hillary hole” ?!?!?! I think what he is so crudely saying is that anybody in a skirt will do.
JGabriel
Taylor Marsh:
Tits? Not sure what Marsh is getting at here. There are plenty of progressive women with nice breasts, but that’s not really a relevant measure for political competence.
.
Gravenstone
And we should be eternally grateful that no one on the left has what Sarah’s got. First, there’s no known cure and second, I’m afraid it just might be contagious.
Jon H
So Taylor Marsh is now calling herself a political analyst with a foreign policy focus?
No wonder she thinks Palin is credible.
SB Jules
It is truly a shame we don’t have a female idiot on the left. Right.
We do have Hillary who is a really marvelous Secretary of State. I never would have thought she would be, but she’s great.
Can you imagine anyone on the right appointing Palin to their cabinet?
kommrade reproductive vigor
Bwahahaaaaa! [cough, gasp]
BethanyAnne
O/T, but as someone currently stuck in
HellTexas, I found this segment on the Daily Show righteous.http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-april-8-2010/virginia-s-confederate-history-month—griffin-mascot
MikeJ
@SB Jules:
Sadly yes.
Captain Goto
LOLwhut!?
There’s actually a good bit that is positive that you can say about Hillary, but “radically different!?”
If they were ever in the same room, Hillary and “radically different” haven’t been there since at least 1994. MAYbe.
John Cole
@Nutella: Taylor Marsh is a she.
parksideq
That literally made me facepalm. Why don’t wingers understand that we’re not bothering to challenge Palin because she’s not really worth the effort to refute? See: Obama’s response to George Snuffleupagus when he asked for a response to Palin’s shrieking about START II.
How’s that losey, quitty thing working out for ya, Sarah?
burnspbesq
“Rich Lowry is going to get jealous if you go after his woman.”
Good Lord, what an epic cat-fight that would be. I can haz popcorn concession, prettypleeze? Kthxbai.
Cat Lady
As a woman “of a certain age” who cannot be outflanked on my left by anyone, I can say this to other women who are stuck in their dead ended bitterness….. SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. Sarah Palin is an ignorant, shameless, dangerous, malignant
carnival barkercancer on the body politic that should be treated like the infection she is. Fucking PUMAs can all DIAF.J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Sarah Palin debate answer to a question on the use of nuclear weapons.
This woman is a sick joke.
Sentient Puddle
Oh for Jesus Crust…
In just about every national popularity/approval poll taken on Sarah Palin where there’s a male/female breakdown, Palin has scored worse with women. Women may “want their turn,” but that’s not short-circuiting their common sense.
drew42
editing my comment — I think I misread what Marsh means by “Hillary hole”
jl
Not sure what Marsh is trying to say.
We should de-emphasize what the current administration is doing (which, by the way, includes the real Hillary in a really critical role)?
And focus on creating a Dem Palin-Hillary goofball to help the Democrats get a few disgruntled Hillary dead enders and increase the risks of losing elections?
As for her focus on undecideds, I believe that people who still do not know enough about Palin can safely considered to be very low information voters.
Seems to me that for them, if the Dems can create a real record of accomplishment that helps very low info voters in their everyday lives, and improves the national welfare in an easily demonstrable way, that would be more effective.
I do not see Palin, or McCain, or any of the current GOP leadership, as remotely feasible opportunities for more loser ‘me-too, wann-be GOP’ Dem triangulation.
Unless Marsh is saying something else. But not sure what that could be. Unless she is just not over it yet and vening. Which is ‘OK’ in a Stuart Smalley sort of way.
PeakVT
The fact remains that there is a “Hillary hole,” with women wanting their turn
Whether or not this is true, why whine about it (other than to whine about something)? It will be six years before a Hillary substitute will have a shot at the top job. Why aren’t the PUMAs out finding or making the next Hillary?
Cacti
Palin would be George W. Bush from an intellectual and policy standpoint, but with a set of ovaries.
How would that be radically different?
Linda Featheringill
Hillary always was very intelligent. And even when I disagreed with her, it was never because she did not know what the heck she was talking about. She did know. We just disagreed on what would be the best actions in the face of facts that we agreed on.
[And no – I never had these discussions with Hillary Clinton in person.]
Chat Noir
LilyDog would be a more credible presidential candidate in 2012 than Palin. Certainly smarter.
cleek
a black guy isn’t radically different ?
what’s Palin got – a Hillary Hole ?
sheesh. are you trying to make women sound like shallow sexists who vote identity over all else?
Mike Kay
That’s what Bill said!
Ba da bump!
ts
No part of that sentence makes sense.
Dave C
If one were to calculate the ratio of double entendres to sensible statements in that column on a calculator, the answer would either approach infinity or generate an error message.
Butch
She responded to Obama’s remarks today during her, um, “speech” at the Repub convention in New Orleans. I never liked John McCain to begin with but I really resent him for forcing this halfwit on us.
Chat Noir
@Cat Lady:
/stands up and applauds in agreement
TuiMel
BOOM!
Lowered by John Cole and justifiably so. The only “Hillary Hole” I can discern is the one in Taylor Marsh’s head.
Kevin K.
That explains the source.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@The Grand Panjandrum: Uh yeah. The Palin is the new Clinton meme is loaded with a shit ton of sexist stereotypes and slurs.
I mean, to pick just one thing at random, how does deciding to run for PotUS and going through all of that noise compare to saying yes when someone asks if you’d like to be his running mate at the last possible second? It doesn’t unless you think all female pols are interchangeable.
Smack in the face, anyone?
And, I hereby move that Hillary Hole become the tag for any post about Palin.
Paris
anti-Palin progressive
The obvious one is the black, male, intelligent person in the White House. That’s about as opposite a white, female, imbecile as you could find.
Cheryl from Maryland
The poll for Republicans has 29% undecided and 27% haven’t heard enough about her. So over 50% of Republicans are totally clueless.
Mike Kay
What the party needs now, more than ever, is Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild!
gwangung
@PeakVT:
That’s what annoys me in debates with people nominally on my side. There’s a big streak of authoritarianism that they’re ignoring in themselves; if there really is a “Hillary hole”, they have to work to find someone who can fill it (similarly, if progressives are being marginalized, you need to gather enough power so you CAN’T be marginalized).
@Linda Featheringill:
That’s the sort of disagreement I don’t mind having (no matter where people stood).
Martin
Shorter Marsh: “Women are so hungry to reach full parity with men that we’ll embrace any lying opportunist we can find with the jugs to get there.”
jl
@drew42:
But the Secretary of State is just the real Hillary. The Dems need a pretend Hillary, but one that is different because the pretend one would not know anything, make no sense when she talks, and focus ridiculous media splashes with no substance, and use politics to rake in the dough for herself, and generally be as flashy and sensationalistic as possible.
That would be the ticket!
The real Hillary was such a loser in politics anyway, just winning a Senatorial seat and doing a good job at it, and almost whupping the current President in the primaries. What a loser!
Cacti
I think understand how Palin would be “radically different”.
-Palin is radically different from an intelligent person
-Palin is radically different from a competent executive
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@drew42:
Not to mention that there’s been nothing like the usual sniping and backstabbing between State and DOD that just about every other administration has featured. Normally those two get along about as well as English and Irish soccer fans at a World Cup qualifying match. But under Hillary and Gates we’ve heard nothing of the sort. If they don’t see eye to eye, then it sure isn’t making it out into the press.
ETA: halp! we need a dash cleanup on aisle 41!
jl
Lets see if we can end the madness
What happened?
TuiMel
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Second
RSA
I’m infuriated by the description of reports against Sarah Palin as “spin”. Almost all the major stories to come out about Palin that put her in a bad light have been pretty much straight reporting. Sure, there have been exceptions, but what does Marsh want?
licensed to kill time
Oh god, ‘Hillary hole’ is just too funny for words. Any hole in a storm, I guess. The fact that Palin is uniquely unqualified for any job with real responsibilities just does not register with these folks, does it? They persist in believing that she somehow threatens those of us who are pointing and laughing. The woman Is.A.Joke.
It’s sad, really.
jl
The strike out is appropriate for my last comment, since I tried to close the tag but it didn’t work.
Any markup mavens around here can help?
Joel
@drew42: I think she’s comparing Palin to Clinton’s anus, which is apt.
gwangung
The strikethrough code is broken.
FYWP.
ellaesther
I’m sorry – a fucking “Hillary hole”?!
I have a Hillary — she’s my Secretary of State!
Furthermore, I have a Nancy — she’s the most powerful person on the Hill!
I also have a Kathleen, and a Sonia, and a Janet, and a Hilda, and a Lisa, and a Susan, and a Christina. All thanks to Hussein Obama!
Holy Moses in the fucking bulrushes, if I have to hear one more fucking conservative patronizingly telling me that the only thing that will appease my poor widdle wounded feminine heart is the placement of a woman in the Oval Office, I may just hurl.
Or, on second thought (since that’s bound to happen), I’ll just hurl that conservative into the next county.
james low
Um… Taylor? We’ve got Pelosi.
Comrade Mary
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford: God DAMN it, I had managed to forget that dog-ate-my-book-report ramble. May my suffering be on your conscience forevermore.
scav
Well, if their cunning plan is becoming the party of shrieking self-serving token media-hungry otherwise unpopular narcissists, well, they’re doing pretty well. Give ’em credit. Explains why the Steelester still has a job.
cleek
this is yet another example of why i don’t read Huffinglue Post. too many abject morons.
Mike Kay
This is great news for Governor Lindsey Lohan!
Bubblegum Tate
Wait, I think I get it: She’s saying that there is no woman on the left side of the aisle who has Palin’s combination of lunacy and horrific stupidity. Right?
kommrade reproductive vigor
This is what happens when you mock the Hillary Hole.
Splitting Image
The sad thing is that these people actually have a lot in common with the teabaggers in one repect. The defining feature of the ‘baggers is their persistent sense of victimization, which was just as bad when their people controlled every part of the government as it is now.
Between Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, women control two of the three or four most important jobs in the U.S. government. I can understand wanting to see a female bum warming the chair in the Oval Office, and being disappointed that it didn’t happen, but overall women are doing fine. These people are acting like Obama purged women from elected office and put them into burqas. Or worse, raised their taxes and started interfering with their Medicare.
If anything, there needs to be more effort getting women into state and local offices, and the House of Representatives. Do enough of that and the higher jobs will take care of themselves eventually. Or they could just throw their lot in with a TV host and former half-term governor her political views be damned. Same difference.
Josie
I think that all female anti-Palin progressives should send Taylor Marsh a very sincere thank-you note for noting that they are nothing like Sarah Palin. Ms. Marsh seems to miss the point that, if they were anything like her, they wouldn’t be progressive. Duh!
geg6
Taylor Marsh is the quintessential PUMA. Fuck her and fuck all PUMAs. They are idiots. They don’t speak for women. They don’t speak for progressive or liberal women. And they certainly don’t speak to women like me or anyone I know. They are bitter old bitches who are completely self-centered and who are perfectly happy to sabotage any and all liberal policy to keep cashing in on their bitter, old, bitchy victim act.
Stooleo
@Butch:
Couldn’t agree more. He brought her into the world, he should take her out.
I was thinking about it and their whole relationship is kind of like a weird mash up of the movies, “A Star is Born” and “Frankenstein”
Citizen_X
Pardon my French, but sweet Christ inna whorehouse, what the fuck kind of PUMA horseshit is this?
Lots of concern-trolling about how Obama’s throwing it all away–yeah, all he’s done is gotten healthcare done after sixty years of failure, prevented a second great depression, and gotten the first arms reduction agreement since the fall of the Soviet Union–what a loser, huh? And all Marsh can ask is
Liz Cheney? You want a lefty answer to Lynn Fucking Cheney? Hillary should kick her ass all the way to TMZ or wherever she belongs.
Fine. Go there. See ya!
BombIranForChrist
This is an example of how identity politics makes people stupid.
jibeaux
@ellaesther:
Word. Me and my Hillary hole are behind you.
kay
Oh, can we just stop with the whole idea of “turns”? It’s ridiculous and embarrassing.
You get a “turn” at jump rope.
Hillary’s WHOLE PROBLEM was the people who were supposedly “supporting” her kept talking in these terms. Her “supporters” turned her into a 4th grader, and she couldn’t seem to demand they stop helping .
General Egali Tarian Stuck
Marsh is like many of the dim bulbs that occupy the nutroots, deluded that anyone outside of their little world actually cares about identity politics. She is unhappy that all the empty spaces in the left wing ideological marquee aren’t filled to suit her image of the democratic party, of what it should be.
This is the thinking that has largely led to dems continuing for so long losing elections, but gaining moral victories. Competence is always trumped by dem variety wedge issues that nobody cares about other than at libtard dinner parties.
The wingnuts are experts at politics of this type, and trying to match them, or bemoan that it appears wingers have bested dems by having a popular woman totally misreads the opponent. Wingers don’t care about identity politics, they want cold hearted lizard cortex purity, and the fact that Sarah Palin has nice tits and legs only registers as a plus in Lowry’s et al adolescent libido.
So yea, Taylor has no clue about politics, electoral or otherwise.
media browski
John, you buried the lede: People are still reading Taylor Marsh?!
Mike Kay
@geg6: This!
MikeJ
@Citizen_X: While discussing what Obama’s done, don’t forget what the soçialst rag BusinessWeek says: (Why) the Obama Plan Is Working.
Micah616
I used to read Taylor Marsh daily, up until March or April of 2008. IIRC, she’s the one who really popularized that PUMA nonsense during the never-ending Dem primary. She came down off the ledge when Hillary conceded. Somebody needs to tell her that the election is over, and has been for quite some time.
Ajay
Lack of Lefty Palin is good news for John McCain.
jl
@Mike Kay:
Lindsay Lohan is a Democrat?
Make her run, put her in charge of the DNC, we’re home free!
Forget Pelosi and HRC, those two-bit losers.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The problem is with a DEL tag in comment 41, the closing slash-DEL tag is in the middle of the reply to address for that comment so it is not being parsed correctly.
Emma
Maybe she should consider that there is no equivalent on the left because the media hasn’t annointed her yet! Sarah Palin is a media creation — yes, I know McCain chose her, but it was the media who lifted her to her current level. There are very intelligent, competent Democratic women out there who aren’t “stars” because people basically don’t know they exist.
And why do I see everything crossed out?
Bob L
My brain just refuses to believe someone seriously compared Palin to Hillary Clinton.
Yes, Palin is just like Hillary would be if the stereo type of blondes being empty headed bimbos were true and not a male fantasy. Pretty soon we’re going to hear how Mrs Todd Palin the beauty queen is a feminist icon because she got the courage to stand up to sexism and use her ass to pander to the boys to get head.
Mark S.
17 women in the Senate:
13 Democrats
4 Republicans
74 women in the House:
57 Democrats
17 Republicans
(source)
I guess none of these count because they don’t give Rich Lowry a tingling sensation.
David in NY
via TPM
Nobody mentioned Hurricane Katrina either, apparently. Might as well have been at Disneyworld.
Edit: All right, it’s off a topic that’s pretty well paid out.
ts
Marsh keeps referring to Palin as Sarah. Why does she presume to be on a first-name basis? Are they pals? Did they go to college(s) together?
Maybe so, in the same way that Marsh is a radio talk show host, a foreign policy analyst, and a real redhead.
Polish the Guillotines
Here’s a prediction:
Joe Biden ain’t running for president in 2016. Vice President Hillary Clinton will.
The only uncertainty in my mind is when is the best time for Biden to retire or move to another cabinet position/portfolio — before or after the 2012 election?
Hillary will be the VP either as the outright candidate in 2012 or by appointment after the 2012 election, depending on the Biden scenario.
By the time 2016 rolls around, she’ll have well-established executive branch and foreign policy cred, and two ginormous pieces of baggage from the Bill Clinton presidency — health care and DADT — will be off the table.
So Taylor Marsh can just suck this.
kay
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
They’re looking behind them an wondering why no one’s following them, and shit like this is why.
They admire Sarah Palin, because she draws a crowd. Pelosi just busted ass for 16 months but that doesn’t matter, because Palin attracts an angry mob.
Mike Kay
@General Egali Tarian Stuck:
Now you done it. GOS just fainted.
Warren Terra
@ James Low
Yes, exactly. If only the Democrats had some powerful women in positions of national authority, perhaps racking up historic achievements in the field of Arms Control as Secretary Of State or accomplishing even more historic achievements in Health Care as Speaker Of The House (arguably the second-most powerful individual in our system of government), then Marsh would be full of crap.
Or maybe the institutional Left could have a female whip-smart widely-respected television host and pundit with her own show in prime time on a national cable news network, someone who like Palin weighs in on the issues, but unlike Palin does so honestly and after learning about them? Then maybe Marsh would STFU.
Maybe Marsh just likes Palin because Palin offers her a role model, a “heroine” who has shown it’s possible to earn money and fame by successfully exploiting resentments, prejudices, and sound-bites in the face of mountains of contradictory evidence?
james low
Is Hilary Hole Courtney Love’s new band?
Polish the Guillotines
@james low: Win.
Ed in NJ
He’s not a woman, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Alan Grayson was to leave office at some point and take up the role of Democratic gadfly, the guy who goes around infuriating Republicans with every word.
Of course, he’s the anti-Palin, because Republicans hate him for his combativeness in speaking the truth.
Mark S.
17 women in the Senate:
13 Democrats
4 Republicans
74 women in the House:
57 Democrats
17 Republicans
(source)
(If this is the third time I’ve posted this, let me just get this out in front: FYWP)
Mnemosyne
@Citizen_X:
OMFG. Dr. Condoleezza Rice, the woman whose Ph.D. in Political Science focused on Eastern Europe and the Soviet bloc who couldn’t figure out what the US response should be when Russia and Georgia got into a border war? That Condoleezza Rice?
I’m sorry, but when you fuck up the response to a crisis that you’re supposed to be an expert in, you should be laughed out of Washington. Instead, you’re touted as a presidential candidate, presumably because there a lot more areas in which you can claim expertise without actually having any skills.
ETA: It’s clear that this is directed at Marsh and not Citizen_X, right? Right.
Citizen_X
Think of the real Hillary reading this crap. I doubt her reaction would be printable.
ETA: Mnemosyne: got it.
Realize, though, that Dr. Incompetent is the least objectionable of Marsh’s examples.
bemused
A friend driving through Minneapolis when Tweedledum Sarah & Tweedledee Michele had their fundraiser. She was tuned into local MPR & they were interviewing some teapartiers. They were so disappointed that it wasn’t more of a teaparty & complained that it was too much about republicans & the party. Brilliant. I guess they didn’t hear that it was a fundraiser to re-elect Bachmann to a republican seat. Very funny.
Linda Featheringill
@Cheryl from Maryland:
So 27% of Republicans actually have positive feelings about Palin. Republicans make up about, what, 40% of the voting public? And that 27% would translate into how many of the votes in a general election?
Linda Featheringill
What did I do? Did I put lines through everything? How?
Midnight Marauder
This is one of the most intellectually empty articles I’ve seen in quite some time.
That’s how she starts the article off. Notice that the Obama Administration and Democrats “can’t resist rising to [Palin’s] bait,” even though it’s the media “pitting” Obama against Palin, “whenever the chance arises.” So, essentially, in the thesis statement of her article, she completely undermines her main assertion.
Uh…I’m sorry? Sarah Palin is rising in power? Where? In the United States of America? Surely, you jest. Her unfavorables rise every time a new poll comes out, an increasing majority of Republicans don’t even think she’s qualified to be President, and her ratings for her “Real America” Fox News show were dismal. Did she somehow manage to stop the Affordable Care Act from passing, even with all of her outlandish death panel lies? Nope. Okay, well maybe her pointed criticism of President Obama’s re-calibration of the United States’ nuclear policy caused him to immediately scrap the treaty he just signed with Russia and that fancy new Nuclear Posture Review? What’s that, she failed to stop any of that as well? I see then.
And here’s where Marsh’s argument really starts to fall apart:
Now let’s slow things down right here. We’re talking about someone who was a Vice Presidential nominee in the 2008 election; someone who has not left the public’s radar for even the slightest of moments since suffering a humiliating repudiation of her ideology at the ballot box. In the short while since losing the election, Sarahgeddon has: quit halfway through her term as governor of Alaska; engaged in an increasingly petty feud with her grandson’s father; been proven to be an even bigger liar than people initially realized; been widely ridiculed for writing notes on her hand for a highly controlled Q&A; and come under intense criticism and scrutiny for inciting violence against members of Congress.
It’s pretty simple why Marsh’s argument in favor of Palin is actually quite revealing of her limitations in ascending to political prominence any time soon. You’re trying to tell me that 29% of Republicans being undecided and 27% not hearing enough(?!) about their party’s most recent Vice Presidential candidate is a good thing?! Especially after a non-stop media blitz following the election (that she handily lost), which hasn’t seen her out of the public’s consciousness for any sustained amount of time? Especially with more and more Republican operatives holding their fire until the 2012 Republican primary heats up? You are seriously trying to tell me that 56% of Republicans being either undecided or not informed enough about Sarah Palin in April 2010 is a positive for her? And, somehow, extrapolating that trend to the country at large is also a positive? The same country that not too long ago rejected this woman and the “policies” she advocated wholesale?
Get the fuck out of my face with that bullshit. Please.
TuiMel
Is the strike-out issue the “reply arrow” gone mad again? I did not have this issue until I tried to reply to a specific comment…
liberty60
I can hear the caterwaulin’ already, but don’t care much about it, as I’m more interested in followin’ the story, doncha know, not the negative Hillaryesque stereotyping’ of Real Americans, the latest of which comes compliments of the latest CBS poll-type thingy, which I’ll get to in a minute, you betcha.
Also, too.
Fixt.
ellaesther
@jibeaux: Excellent – because I think somehow that we’re also talking about anuses, and that’s just where our holes should be!
Joey Maloney
@Bob L:
Best typo of the day. It is a typo, right?
Anya
@MikeJ: Maybe they will create a cabinet for her – how about Secretary for Uninformed and Deranged?
cfaller96
Towards the end of the 2008 Dem primaries, I wondered what the hell Taylor Marsh was going to do after Obama won. I mean, you can’t perform such epic bridge-burning and then pretend nothing happened afterward, right?
Taylor Marsh promptly disappeared for a loooooong time, but where did she go? I didn’t know, mainly because I didn’t care enough to type her name into Google. But this post explains it- she’s been huffing metallic paint in between random rants on Huffington Post.
Yeah, the Left has a “Hillary Hole.” Jesus Christ.
Mike Kay
Fill the “Hillary Hole”
David in NY
@Mike Kay:
“GOS just fainted.”
Not sure just what you meant, but I’ve never thought the GOS commentariat was tits and legs aversive, either linguistically or physically. Indeed, I’ve thought that it veered a little too far into commentary on the physical characteristics of politicians etc. for my own taste. So maybe I’m the one who should faint.
Edited for coherence and typos.
Martian Buddy
Shorter Taylor Marsh: “Where’s our know-nothing grifter beauty queen?”
El Cid
The suggestion is that accurately reporting that Sarah Palin is ignorant of anything politically significant, lazy, corrupt, mean, and dishonest to a degree beyond that of even the typical right wing jackass is “spin”?
What?
El Cid
The left clearly needs its own Urk Urksum.
jibeaux
@ellaesther:
I think men should be able to have a Hillary hole too, if they want one.
SRW1
Let me see whether I get this right. What Taylor Marsh is arguing that Sarah P may be as dumb as a brick (Hey Bob), but because Hillary isn’t going to run in 2012, women should rally behind Sarah, because Sarah’s got the lack of a penis?
Of course Taylor’s expressing it a little bit more elaborately, but that’s in essence that’s what she’s saying, isn’t it?
Warren Terra
@Linda Featheringill
A hyphen preceded by a space and immediately before a letter acts as an opening strike tag. I don’t think this is the case of a hyphen between two letters or between two spaces.
J.D. Rhoades
This is where I stopped reading.
tenkindsofgrumpy
@The Grand Panjandrum: I am and I am.
demimondian
Marsh is dead right here, though not, perhaps, in the way she thinks. Palin, like Bachmann and all the rest of the right-wing-propped up PUMA suckers, has nothing. In the long tradition of left-wing women, there really hasn’t been one who truly had nothing.
DPirate
Star is the right way to think about it, as in celebrity. I suppose that is enough to get elected these days, as ridiculous as that may be. Who can understand it?
maus
@PeakVT:
Uh, Hillary and Palin/Bachmann are the same sort of spunky capable female we need! Duh, obviously if you disagree you’re some sort of misogynist and hate America.
Kal
It’s a darn shame the Dems in 2012 won’t have anyone on their side who captivates audiences, gives great speeches, and attracts record-breaking crowds.
Nellcote
0matoko_chan
Look…..Palin is a moron.
why doesn’t anyone call her on it?
McWhorter
WTF?
what war in Iran?
….this lady is a dimbo, the posterchild for teh Stupid, intellectually impoverished and poorly educated and un-informed.
She is a bad joke.
A proud ignoramus.
cfaller96
@SRW1:
If you read the comments, Taylor actually says something like “the left doesn’t have a smart, articulate, charismatic woman with star power.” So she was able to refine her critique a bit.
Okaaay. Three points in response:
1. Sarah Palin isn’t smart, articulate, or universally charismatic. So Taylor is holding the left to a different, higher standard.
2. Hillary Clinton is smart, articulate, and has some charisma. She will be part of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2012, and Sarah Palin can’t hold a candle to her.
3. The left doesn’t need a Sarah Palin foil. The left won in 2008, and will undoubtedly win the presidential race again in 2012. Sarah Palin won’t change that.
I suppose Taylor might then argue that the left is still lacking a Sarah Palin foil in 2016, to which my response is, so? And then I remind myself that this is why I stopped caring whatever the hell Taylor Marsh/any PUMA had to say about anything, and I return to my PlayStation.
Bob L
@cfaller96:
Sarah Paline is supposed to have these qualities? WTF?
Taylor’s “its a woman thing” is just bizarre; every woman I know loathes Palin with a passion that makes snarks like “the grifter” seem affectionate. Considering Palin’s fan base is the white male Tea Party it sounds more Palin’s popularity is a guy thing.
Mnemosyne
@cfaller96:
Neither does the right, so that makes us even.
I understand why people on the left freak out a little about Palin, because she gets the same tongue bath from the media that Shrub got, but it doesn’t seem like the public is buying this time.
Batocchio
Um, what about Pelosi? A (at least somewhat) progressive woman who wields tremendous power and has actually done things? What about other polls that show that a majority of Americans, even if they like her, do not see her as presidential material? I take it Marsh is talking about “real” Americans, since it’s a small percentage of liberal women who find Palin appealing, and a majority of the best Palin criticism has come from (no surprise) liberal women.
Carol
Taylor pines for Hillary, and secretly wants her to run in 2012. Never mind that she’s said over and over again that 2008 was her last run, that she’s pretty happy in a wonk job like Secretary of State where she can have solid achievements and a little less publicity, or that’s she’s in her 60’s, pretty late for a Presidential run. Only Hillary will do, and if Hillary clearly isn’t available, Taylor pines for someone like Palin.
She forgets we are Democrats. Palin is inexperienced and incompetent and uneducated. We want charisma and intelligence (Obama). So getting someone with such a combination will take longer than 2016. Lot’s longer, but when we finally have the first woman President, it will be a Democrat-because of that combination of charisma and quality.
I think she feels that Hillary is the only chance to have a woman President in her lifetime. But not everyone is so impatient to want to push someone who isn’t ready, or who h as other priorities, into a Presidential race. They may feel that it’s better to get it right with the first one, rather than soon.
And it won’t be either Hillary or Palin.
Ninufar
@Cat Lady: THIS!
Although I’m younger & wouldn’t have the guts to put it that bluntly.
Throughout the last months of the primary, all I could say to these folks was to look at protecting vulnerable women, like this:
Given a choice between:
a) someone who used her power of office to (arguably) protect one single woman who’d gotten out of a (reportedly) bad marriage by stalking and harassing one man
OR
b) someone who used the power of his office to argue forcefully for and pass landmark legislation which gives greater protection to every woman in the country,
this fourth-gen feminist will vote for b (Joey B Delaware, in this case!) every time.
I’m so glad I could read all this snark-coated sanity.
Carol
BTW, shouldn’t we be looking past Hillary? Ten years ago Obama was in the Illinois State Senate, a promising author, but barely known beyond Chicago. There’s probably a female equivalent who could use the support and mentoring, someone with both the charisma and competence to evolve into a President someday. But as long as these PUMAs pine for a never-to-happen Hillary presidential re-run (with a victory this time, they think), such a person would be ignored needlessly.
I also get the feeling that is someone like that does show up, the Taylor Marshes of the world would resent her because she is smart, charismatic, and pretty, and competent to boot, or they would resent her because she’s not of their generation and doesn’t share some of their resentful attitudes.
Debbie(aussie)
@Gravenstone: Absolutely wonderful. thanks for a great laugh. Sarah Palin, the gift that keeps on giving.
tjproudamerican
Thank you for deflating Taylor Marsh.
Marsh appeared during PUMA-Mania (“Pumania”?) as a self described “Talk Show Host”. Her “Talk Show” was an internet broadcast, a vanity production with no listeners. Marsh quickly found an audience for her blog by treating the presidency as something which was owed to “Hillary”.
The crazy disjointed Cher-like branding of Mrs. Not-Bill was the starting point for the un-hinged anger of racists and very disappointed older women.
Not giving Hillary her birthright, the office of POTUS was their last straw: “did you know that then Hillary Mrs. Not-Bill was valedictorian at a pretty good college for women? And the country was seriously NOT going to proclaim her POTUS by unanimous affirmation? Really? Well let me tell you how angry all women are…”
And tell they did as Marsh crudely attacked Obama. Marsh had trouble deleting the racist and murderous comments, but what she left was pure hatred and purer resentment.
Marsh threw her support behind Obama, but she has nothing to say except “Look at me! I have a ‘radio’ show and a blog and Memeorandum links to me!”
The real question to ask is “Where are the right’s Taylor Marsh’s?” Why is it only the so-called left has Taylor Marsh, and Fire Dog Lake, and John “Shoot the innocent smokers!” Arovosis (h/t Balloon Juice).
jron
@Batocchio: Nancy Pelosi is not a quitter. Thus she must not be the left’s Palin.
Mrs. Polly
Is it just me, or does an editor seeming to be running amok?
Mrs. Polly
I’m going to try dropping in a closing strikethru tag, and should it not work, let the wrath of Tunch be visited upon me.
And….
Mrs. Polly
Well, at least I didn’t make it worse.
As if I knew any more about HTML than a sleepy wombat. But a stray italic tag of mine once caused all of Rumproast to lurch to the right. It was appalling.
kellygrrrl
Taylor and the LA NOW ladies, along with Lady de Rothschild should be shamed and scorned.
interesting read about Shelley Mandell and Elaine Lafferty over at palingates.
Firedoglake had re-posted but yanked the story upon pressure from Mandell
http://palingates.blogspot.com/2010/04/shelly-mandell-did-she-or-did-she-not.html