The very serious so-called papers of record failed to staunch my curiosity, but Wonkette’s “Northern Terrortories Warblogger” Bill Scannell has a trio of hilarious (yet depressing) posts on the Nine-Eleven Grifters Gala in Anchorage. The pics in the “Palin-Beck 9/11 DeathFest Crowd Haunted By Weird Protesters” dispatch add a special surreality — why is the guy wearing a bunny costume and a ‘Scream’ mask being patted down by security guards? — but the event itself seems to have been underwhelming:
It was a classic case of bait and switch. The Palin/Beck NineEleven™ Porno Deathfest was a LIE. They promised masturbatory delights beyond the wildest dreams of even the most ardent exurban WTC pr0n junkie. Instead, the close to 4,000 attendees were served up something far more profitable in the long term to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin: a Messiah myth…
__
For the next 20 minutes, Beck and Palin did their shtick, chastely fondling the aura of one another’s genitals and bantering on about Alaska and how Grifter Girl has caribou blood under her salon fingernails and the Spirit of Alaska must renew A’murka until finally, FINALLY they got to The Point. Glenn Beck announced that he will not run for public office while Sarah Palin thrice refused (hear that Christian dog whistle?) to say whether or not she would run for President in 2012…
__
Glenn Beck may have made seventeen separate references to his own insanity during the course of the evening, but he is no nut job. This wily huckster, this greasy purveyor of shallow dreams and crocodile tears, set the pick tonight on what will be his biggest score yet: a years-long never-consummated and congenitally impotent dry hump on a ghost candidate. For at least another several years, we will all have to watch these two grifters roll.
I do love a nicely-turned phrase, and little gems like “a years-long never-consummated and congenitally impotent dry hump on a ghost candidate” may have to serve as my only consolation during the next couple of political months. As Wonkette commentor MiniMencken summarizes:
Wow! This really is good old-fashioned American revival tent grifting. Beck announces he is going to be in Alaska on 9/11 for a big announcement. Palin tweets out to her fans that she will be there for this really, really huge announcement. They fill a drab meeting room with far fewer people than what I would imagine the word stadium implies, collect a pile of cash and don’t actually do anything apart from show up. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I give you — the Hope and Crosby team of the wingnuts.
geg6
I hear the big DC 9/12 rally was a bust, too. Finally running out of steam? One can only hope.
BGinCHI
Francis Bacon:
“human reason in its present condition is just a farrago and mass made up of a good deal of faith, a lot of accident, and a fair few infantile notions which we swallowed when young.”
(Novum organum, 1620)
cleek
could it be, the baggers have peaked too early ? the wave crested far from shore ? the souffle fell on its way to the table ? the turnip truck overturned on its way to market ?
how sweet that would be
PaminBB
Well, at least Bing could sing. I don’t think Glenn or Sarah have any actual talent, apart from the grifting.
cathyx
I know this is politically incorrect, but I don’t get memorializing bad events. Why would anyone want to rehash negatives? Like the Pearl Harbor attack, every year is there is the anniversary party of these events, and something to really look forward to next year will be the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Maybe we can have an entire week of pre-9/11 attack parties and programs of remembrance on TV.
freelancer
@cleek:
It’s certainly a possibility. I know of one person who follows the movement, and I’ve spoken of my aunt’s batshit antics here several times, but no one takes her seriously, and no one else I know takes the tea party seriously. It’s not exactly data, but it is encouraging.
“The Tea Party: what happens when your crazy aunts and uncles who embarrass themselves at Thanksgiving and Christmas every year figure out that they’re not alone, and as a result, consider themselves to be in the majority.”
BGinCHI
@cathyx: Because in late capitalism our lives are increasingly empty.
Ten minutes of daytime TV makes this case incontrovertably.
Davis X. Machina
Sounded like the political version of Spinal Tap’s Air Force base gig….
Davis X. Machina
@efgoldman: A little younger, a little faster, and he has a future in Italian soccer….
El Cid
He surrounds us.
arguingwithsignposts
I am just bowing in the awesomeness of the post title.
freelancer
@efgoldman:
Idiot. It was the Germans that bombed Pearl Harbor.
calipygian
@geg6:
Holiest day of the year to teatard and norm alike: First day of NFL Season (PBUNFL).
jayboat
@freelancer:
So many tshirts, so little time.
licensed to kill time
@efgoldman:
He gets a little help from his friend Vick, I hear.
eta: Great post by Wonkette and great title by AL :)
c u n d gulag
My God, PLEASE DON’T EVER, EVER compare this rodeo clown and his grifter pal ‘Cruella De Palin’ with the GREAT “Hope & Crosby.” These two are on the “Road to Farce (or Madness).
At the height of Vaudeville, these two might barely qualify as the opening act on the 3rd-rate Cirquit in a town with less people than Wasilla, to a half-assed dog act, a blind card magician, a guy playing Mozart on water-filled glasses, and a woman who could swallow car tires.
And when they proved they weren’t talented enough for even that, they’d be in Havana or Tijuana for a mule sex act. The question on every night every night, which one would take the poor mule in their mouth and swallow his load (can a mule even have one?) Who cares, it’d be the ‘climax’ of the act)..
I would pity the poor mule first, and the patrons next. Either way, it’s a better use of their mouth’s than what they’re doing now…
licensed to kill time
@efgoldman:
That’s because your mom probably rubbed it on your chest, not right under/in your eye. At least I hope so!
Linda Featheringill
The people that Glenn and Sarah are exploiting may figure it out after a while. They have my sympathy.
I do understand one reason why it is taking so long for them to figure out that they are being used.
You can take me as an example, and how long I supported John Edwards. I liked what he said, liked the “two Americas” stuff, liked his soft and down-home voice. When I finally fell out with him and realized how wrong I had been, it was quite a blow.
The hardest part was facing the possibility that the only politicians that agreed with me fully were either nuts or liars or both. Most politicians probably think my point of view is waaaaay out there. [Dennis Kucinich is the exception.] I had to face the possibility that my political stance is not even inside the bell curve. Disturbing.
Some of the Teabag people are probably going through the same thing. It is difficult to admit that you are really really different. It’s hard to realize that you are in a small minority. And it is very hard to give up the notion that Finally! Somebody looks at things the way you do!
It took me quite a while and we all know that I’m smarter than the average bear. :-)
It will probably take a little longer for people to realize that they have been duped by Glen and Sarah. It will hurt when they do.
Again, I extend my sympathy.
Violet
@efgoldman:
This is true, but Sarah Palin can only go on for so long. A large part of her appeal is the starbursts factor. She’s got by on her attractiveness and sex appeal for her whole life. But looks fade, and hers have already started to go. The change in her looks in the two years since McCain destroyed the nation by plucking her out of obscurity is dramatic. And not for the better.
And she’s got precious little to fall back on. She’s always got by on her looks. She doesn’t know what to do without them. And her sell-by date is rapidly approaching.
freelancer
@efgoldman:
“
Daniel Simpson DayBeck and Palin …have no grade point average.”arguingwithsignposts
@Violet:
Her sell-by date can’t approach quickly enough. And I’m somewhat doubtful anyway. She’s already got a shitload of money for doing nothing. She can coast on that for years. I know there *is* a starburst factor, but Phyllis Schlaefly is still peddling bullshit (also, Ann Coulter, etc.) and they are long past starburst sell-by date.
freelancer
@freelancer:
also, to paraphrase, “crying, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life.”
Citizen_X
@efgoldman: I have a friend who can puke on command. That, at least, is an entertaining skill!
licensed to kill time
I personally cannot understand the Palin-Beck thing. I think I have a pretty good B.S. detector (it went off like a 10 alarm fire the first time I saw and heard candidate Bush) and it is just incomprehensible to me that anyone can take these clowns seriously.
I feel sorry for the people they dupe but more in a “poor dumb fuckers” kind of way, like you’d feel for someone betting the ranch on his next go at the carnival shooting booth, the one where the sights on all the rifles are off-kilter.
PurpleGirl
@arguingwithsignposts: Phyllis Schaefly never depended on her looks or the starburst factor. She was solely the good Republican woman, mother, wife who was against the ERA. Different ballgame. Coulter depended a bit on starbursts but she hasn’t aged well either.
quaint irene
Man, I forgot about all of that. Was it even covered on Fox news?
Violet
@arguingwithsignposts:
I think the difference between Schlafley, Coulter, etc. and Palin is that the former women didn’t sell themselves via their sex appeal alone. Palin always has. She’s got by on her looks and her Mean Girl personality got the rest done.
Schlafley graduated from a prestigious college and is an attorney. Coulter, despite her horrible beliefs, is quick-witted and can deal with actual questions (whether or not she answers them).
Palin is one of those women who has always used her looks to get what she wants. It’s worked great for her and she simply doesn’t have a Plan B. The minute there are comments or jokes made about her jaw implants or Botox or lip plumping, or a man who used to do her bidding suddenly isn’t swayed by her winking and high-pitched voice, or someone takes her off the GILF list, she’s going to lose her shit. She simply doesn’t know how to BE without her looks.
Maybe she can get by on her looks for longer than I think. But I really believe her day of reckoning is coming. And when it does, it will be painful for her. And her reaction won’t be pretty for the rest of us.
Yutsano
@freelancer: All of this, of course, was predicted by smarter men than me. Okay maybe that’s hyperbolic, but I wish he’d just fucking come out already.
Cliff
See, this is why I love Wonkette.
They get right to the heart of the issue, and they see that it is best expressed in terms of dick jokes and jokes about tranny porn.
They reflect the complete absurdity and vulgarity of our present day politics, while the Serious People are busy trying to cover these qualities up.
asiangrrlMN
@Linda Featheringill: Yes, but did you ever threaten to kill people if the elections didn’t go the way you wanted them to go?
I have very little sympathy for the Teadiots because they are dangerous. If they were only being duped themselves, then, yes, I could afford to be sympathetic.
asiangrrlMN
@Linda Featheringill: Yes, but did you ever threaten to kill people if the elections didn’t go the way you wanted them to go?
I have very little sympathy for the Teadiots because they are dangerous. If they were only being duped themselves, then, yes, I could afford to be sympathetic.
jl
This stuff reminds me of a couple of old Burt Lancaster movies. I’ll go watch them again to see how it all comes out.
Thank goodness that Beck is no Burt Lancaster, except that he has experience in a certain variety of circus act.
Query: Beck didn’t flack for that gold scam for 9/11? If not, that is mighty gracious of him.
Cliff
@Violet:
Of course Coulter didn’t get by on her looks alone. Anyone with eyes can see that she’s a wolverine wearing a blond wig.
jl
@Linda Featheringill:
Edwards said things that made sense. In his personal life he was an ultra jerk, and maybe wrt to what he would really do in office. But he didn’t say crazy things on the stump.
I may disagree with Kucinich much more than I agree with him, but he is not nuts and what he says is usually reality based.
That is different from Beck, Palin, Gingrich, that cheap two bit hood Johnny ‘Bones’ Boehner, Ryan, the whole sick crew that has become the leadership of the GOP.
I sincerely wish Meghan McCain would start running for something and rise in the GOP ranks. She would be like Solomon compared these vicious fruitcakes. It has gotten that bad.
jl
@asiangrrlMN: Hi.
Edit: Either Tunch or Cole himself is the trash bandit, IMVHO. Thought I would clue you in first. He is trying to frame Rosie, and it will be a huge blogger ethics scandal when the truth comes out. It will wipe out the Beck/Palin circus in the public mind. Mark my words.
arguingwithsignposts
@Violet:
I don’t think so. Her whole Momma Grizzly thing is predicated on the momma part. We may think she’s getting by on looks alone, but the 5 kids and the christianist dog whistle thing are just as important.
you make some good points, however. Coulter is a twit and a liar and worse than evil, imho.
BGinCHI
Hannity jerks it how often with Palin’s picture?
BGinCHI
@jl:
I think it’s Cole too. Why is whitey always trying to keep the animals down?
It’s just like that dalmation movie.
Violet
@arguingwithsignposts:
The Mama Grizzly thing is a good point, too. I think it could be her undoing, as it’s obvious to anyone that is paying attention that she’s not a good mother. Her kids have/had all sorts of problems and she takes Piper out of school all the time to follow her around the country on her grifter junkets. If her bad mothering ever gets exposed to the the country in general, it could easily be her downfall.
The other thing is, who is she selling the Mama Grizzly thing to? According to polls, women don’t like her. She’s way less popular with women than she should be. My guess is that women see through her and know she’s a Mean Girl and don’t like her because of it. So she can pretend to be all “we mamas have to stick together” but women aren’t buying what she’s selling.
So if the Mama Grizzly thing isn’t working on anyone except the most evangelical of the fundamentalists, who’s it working for? Men? How will it get her anywhere once her looks are gone? Men don’t want to sleep with a mother. Then want a hottie. That’s what she’s been selling.
Women don’t like Mean Girls. And women who had to deal with Mean Girls in high school will not do much to help a former Mean Girl once the thing she relied on for her power (in Palin’s case, her looks and its effect on men) is gone.
Jamey
@PaminBB:
No talent? I give you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc7LBtRGCd8
It’s no “boom goes the dynamite,” but there are starbursts nonetheless.
Corner Stone
@jl: There are some really awful puns in there.
Nicely done.
Jamey
@Linda Featheringill:
These folks were socially retrograde bigots and outrage junkies before Becks and Palin came along. Fuck them all. I only hope Glenn and Sarah take ALL their money before the truth catches up and spoils the plot.
Zuzu's Petals
@Cliff:
Or as Darrell Hammond/Chris Mattews would say: a kneecap with hair.
BGinCHI
@Jamey: do you think it’s salutary that the folks giving their money for the Beck/Palin personal fortunes have less money to contribute to teabagger political campaigns and causes?
Maybe their hoarding will stall their political momentum.
Oh, wait, I forgot about the Kochs. Never mind.
debbie
@ jl:
She was on Letterman recently and declared herself for Team Romney. So much for hope.
eemom
@cleek:
premature teabagulation
Uloborus
@Violet:
I wish to add something to this: She’s got no self control and the vast amounts of money she’s making will go through her fingers like water.
Jamey
@BGinCHI: That depends on whether you’re a Friedmanian–wealth creation is limitless—or subscribe to the Thurow model. To throw in some Latin a la McMegan to give my response some additional intellectual heft, I’d say, either way, the fact that Palin and Becks get rich is res ipsa loquitor. Also.
Zuzu's Petals
Good coverage (first of two parts) from The Mudflats here. Encouraging to see such a nice turnout of protesters with witty signs.
aimai
@Uloborus:
That’s an excellent point. She’s been very efficient and focused on the gift bags and the goodies (from the free RNC clothes to actual gift bags at various hollywood type events). She reminds me of those women who used to win the “30 seconds in the grocery store/fill up your cart” promotions. The original plan was that some virtuous housewife would fill up her cart, as fast as she could, with her family’s grocery needs. But people pretty soon figured out, especially when meat prices were out of sight, that you should run to the meat/cheese and high end grocery section and just fill up the cart with porterhouses which you could either freeze or resell. If you ever watched one it became a pretty sick exercise in grabbiness. That’s Palin. She’s a hunter/gatherer of goodies. She’s not going to invest, or have the brains to hire someone to handle her money successfully. We can but hope she winds up in the hands of some plausible new Bernie Madoff. She’ll be crying on the late night circuit for cash before god takes her home in no time.
aimai
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Hi, you. Was wondering where you’ve been. I think it’s Lily. It’s always the quiet one. And, I like what you said re: John Edwards/Beck much better than what I said.
Porlock Junior
Yeah, but “thrice refused” isn’t Christian, it’s Julius Caesar. Or rather, Mark Antony.
Y’all did see that on the Lupercal,
Ah thrahce did offer him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrahce re-fewze”
As I put it when I found myself in Tennessee for one summer.
Older
@efgoldman: Actually, he rubs Vicks under his eyes. There’s video of him doing it and checking the resulting tears in a mirror. That’s not a talent, it’s technology.
Dr. Psycho
“‘Hope and Crosby’? Slowly I turned, step by step….”
@Porlock Junior: The Biblical reference is to Peter’s thrice denying Jesus before the next day’s cockcrow.
Ruckus
@Violet:
I must be weird because she never looked good to me. I always thought she looked exactly like the girl she acts like. The mean girl in high school. The valley girl with an attitude. The woman no half self respecting man would sleep with unless he was leaving money on the nightstand. IOW a slut with a heart of bullshit.
Uloborus
@aimai:
I thought Palin’s gift bag adventures made the point perfectly. As is typical with manipulative narcissists (Oh, yeah, I know Mean Girls) she is utterly short-sighted. Nothing in the world is more important than what she wants right now. Between that and being a basically mean-spirited person she will wring every last cent out of whoever is in front of her and then run on to the next one, never realizing that eventually this means you run out of people to wring.
People like this are not good financial planners. Right now someone is buying the 150k wardrobes for her. If Wingnut Welfare dries up (and her usefulness is tied to her rapidly disintigrating looks and electoral success in November) she will have to start spending her own money to maintain the standard to which she is accustomed.
Dr. Psycho
@Violet: “[S]ince McCain destroyed the nation” by naming Palin as his running mate? Hell, I think that was the moment when he saved the nation!
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
These two are amusing, but you really can’t beat the old time grifting of people like Oral Roberts.
Sometimes you just can’t beat a straight accounting of the facts:
From Wikipedia:
Roberts’ fundraising was controversial. In January 1987, during a fundraising drive, Roberts announced to a television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would “call him home.” [27][28] Some were fearful that he was referring to suicide, given the impassioned pleas and tears that accompanied his statement. He raised $9.1 million[29]. Later that year, he announced that God had raised the dead through Roberts’ ministry.[30] Some of Roberts’ fundraising letters were written by Gene Ewing, who headed a business writing donation letters for other evangelicals such as Don Stewart and Robert Tilton.[31]
Roberts maintained his love of finery and one obituary claimed that even when times become hard, “he continued to wear his Italian silk suits, diamond rings and gold bracelets – airbrushed out by his staff on publicity pictures”.[11][19]
The CityPlex office complex, originally built as Oral Roberts’ City of Faith Medical and Research Center in Tulsa.
He stirred up controversy when Time reported in 1987 that his son Richard Roberts claimed that he had seen his father raise a child from the dead.[28] That year, the Bloom County comic strip recast its character Bill the Cat as a satirized televangelist, “Fundamentally Oral Bill.” In 1987 Time stated that he was “re-emphasizing faith healing and [is] reaching for his old-time constituency.”[28] However, his income continued to decrease (from $88 million in 1980 to $55 million in 1986, according to the Tulsa Tribune) and his largely vacant City of Faith Medical Center continued to lose money.[28]
Harry McNevin said that in 1988 the ORU Board of Regents “rubber-stamped” the “use of millions in endowment money to buy a Beverly Hills property so that Oral Roberts could have a West Coast office and house”.[32] In addition, he said a country club membership was purchased for the Roberts’ home.
—// end excerpt
The sly fuck asked for money lest God kill him, and they sent him 9 million bucks. Now that is a damned grifter.
SRW1
The solution to the Trash Bandit Case?
It’s always the gardener! Unfailingly!
Olivia
If not for her looks there is no doubt she would have faded from the public eye right after the November election and never heard from again. But the MSM continues to cover her inanity as if she were an oracle to be reckoned with instead of the twit that she is.
She is thoroughly irrelevant, intellectually challenged, unknowledgable of current events, devoid of any historical references, and wrapped in a cloak of religious sanctity that clearly identifies the dumbing down of this nation, yet she is treated as if whatever pulp she happens to spew out of her mouth is worthy of attention.
As for Beck, there is no better huckster at work these days than that crying, lying, blackboard loving demagogue with a platform for hate that is astonishing. If this is where America is heading then count me out.
I can smell b.s. from my front porch. The stench of crapfest being served up at a banquet of morons.