The winger fixation with the idea of an attack on Sarah Palin is starting to creep me out. Erick Erickson (via Southern Beale):
Out there somewhere is someone who would love to kill Governor Palin. God forbid they do it. But you and I both know there is some crazy MSNBC watcher and Media Matters reader who even now is dreaming of doing so.
And should they try, we can be equally sure of something else. The left will be divided into two camps: (1) bitch deserved it and (2) not my fault.
It is unfortunate. I hope it never happens. But you and I both know the reality in which we live.
I want you to know you have my support. But please look into protection for your family. An attempt on you could bring the republic down.
It sure sounds like they’re hoping some attack will be made, whether because they fantasize about being victims or because they think it would be exciting to see if “the republic” would be brought down, I can’t say.
I would not be shocked if Palin eventually makes up some crazy story about an attempted attack on her, maybe along the lines of the Ross Perot story about how the Viet Cong tried to put a hit on him.
cleek
ee not too smrt
Ugh
HIDE THE POLISH ARMY UNIFORMS!!
TR
Sounds like it’s time to go re-watch Bob Roberts.
pseudonymous in nc
Uh, no. Though there’s clearly some puffy God-bothering cracker fantasizing about being Sarah!’s armed-and-ready defender. And surely, isn’t it enough for the wingnuts to surround Her Majesty with a citizen militia? Perhaps Glenn Reynolds will take time off his
public-sector jobidle ass-scratching to put in a few hours.aimai
Someone over at Alicublog was suggesting that, eventually, Palin would be doing slip and falls in front of cars for either the insurance or the attention. Now I’m thinking more that we’ll see her with a carved backwards “B” on her face.
aimai
beltane
Remember that movie from the 90’s, Bob Roberts? They must be remembering that movie.
It’s the right projecting their desires again. Nothing new. But yeah, it sure is creepy.
MikeJ
When he says “an attempt on you could bring the republic down” I can only read that as a call for white riot. Which you should keep in mind for future thread title.
The Dangerman
Will it be Stewie Griffin or Brian?
The Moar You Know
You give the lady too much credit. This is as inevitable as the sunrise; just a question of when, not if.
Steve
Isn’t it a blood libel to suggest that anything other than “not my fault” is the correct answer?
Jeff Spender
See, and I told my buddy Sam that it was a dumb idea to open a hot-dog stand on Mars.
But did he listen to me? Noooo.
I’ve decided that I’m going to build a reality of my own and live in it.
If they can, I can. I demand you accept my interpretation of what the Founding Fathers meant by the first amendment: “Titty day is Tuesday.”
jibeaux
It will be used as part of the “both sides do it argument”, e.g.
right-winger talking about second amendment remedies and elected officials in the same breath but both sides are guilty because Erick Erickson assured us all that somewhere out there is a deranged homicidal MSNBC viewer.
bleh
But anyone who says the Right is obsessed with violence is just a hater.
Bird
I see a backwards “B” in her future.
Mnemosyne
Or like how Eric Cantor insisted that someone had shot at his office when a spent bullet was found laying on a windowsill?
I suppose it’s not impossible that someone would try to kill Palin — after all, some asshole decided that actress Rebecca Schaffer needed to die, so it’s not like you have to be hugely famous to have people out there who want to kill you. It’s just not terribly likely.
ChrisS
What the fuck is wrong with these people?
I don’t watch cable news stations, ever, but has Rachel Maddow and Olbermann been telling the viewers that they better stock up on ammo because a war is coming. IT IS COMING AND YOU BETTER BE PREPARED. If you don’t see it, then friend, I don’t know what to tell you, but may peace be with your family in these troubling times. By the way, sales of glocks – waaaay up. Glocks are made in Austria. Know who else was made in Austria? That’s right. HITLER. Conservatives, like Sarah Palin, are buying Nazi guns and aren’t afraid to use them if … if … we don’t stop them.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Well, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out who this putative assassin is, because the overlap between Media Matters readers and crazed potential killers is probably only a couple dozen folks, tops.
Alex Milstein
And all this because some people asked the right to – horrors – tone down the rhetoric…
The idea that they have been asked to curb their all too frequent references to bullets, targets, murder, etc…is just too much for the right wing squawkers to handle…
New Yorker
This is in line with the wingnut belief that liberals are obsessed with Palin out of fear and hatred, which of course is nonsense. I think of her much the way I think of the Kardashians: “Will she please go the fuck away? Why does the media continue to give her attention?”
I imagine this is the way most of us think about her.
Chris
“Bring the republic down.” Right! “The republic” lived through a civil war, a depression massive enough to end democracy in several other countries, two world wars, a Cold War where one wrong move could literally have ended civilization, and God knows how many periods of intense polarization.
But after all that, somehow, an attempt on a failed vice-presidential candidate turned TV personality’s going to bring down the republic. Yeah. Sure. And we’re the ones with the cult of personality and the narcissistic sense of self-importance.
MattR
Semi on topic, but I saw a good comment from a reader over at CNN.com. In response to Palin’s quote that says “Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them.”, the reader asks if that is the case then why is Palin opposed to the Cordoba House.
@New Yorker: The difference is that I actually want to have sex with any of the Kardashians
Bulworth
All crimes are acts of one individual and have nothing to do with politics or the rhetorical environment. Conservatives have been telling us that all week.
pharniel
..because they can only project when attacking and they sure as hell are fantasiszing about hitting someone with ‘d’ at the end of their title.
Crazy motherfuckers, all of them.
ChrisS
@jibeaux:
“…Erick Erickson assured us all that somewhere out there is a deranged homicidal MSNBC viewer.”
Someone watching the three hours of Morning Joe? Or the two hours of Olbermann and Maddow talking about how wrong violence is?
Chyron HR
It just goes to show you that Palin is the real victim. Sure, she wasn’t killed or even shot at, but she could be, so there. Where’s her memorial service? WHERE’S HER MEMORIAL SERVICE??
Dave
@TR: Yup. That movie is scarily prescient.
trixie larue
Maybe someone will write her initials backwards with a magic marker.
TR
@MattR:
The same sentiment was expressed on Twitter here:
Huckster
Yeah, a bunch of libruls surrounded her and stoned her with hardbound copies of Atlas Shrugged
Bulworth
Remind me again….it was actually a Democratic congressperson who was shot this week, right?
Dave
And no one wants to kill Palin. What I think most people want is for her to be exposed as the two-bit cheap grifter and huckster that she really is and to have that revelation sink into the American psyche at-large so the only job she can get is shilling acai berry juice on Newsmax.
chopper
@Steve:
is it a blood libel to speculate? it would be a blood libel not to.
Comrade Dread
Part of the overall martyr’s complex of modern conservatism combined with a healthy dose of apocalyptic imaginings of bare chested conservative he-men wearing bandoleers storming the hill to take back the Republic from anyone to the left of Glenn Beck and becoming the new more modern, ass-kicking George Washington.
And possibly nailing the head cheerleader after impressing her with their valor. In this case, Palin.
Think of it all as conservative nerd porn.
Ann B. Nonymous
I would think a liberal fantasy would be along the lines of Palin being shot in a home gun accident through her own ignorance.
Bulworth
It’s too bad conservatives don’t have their own network of radio stations or their own cable TV station to counter all this librul vitriol.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Bulworth: How dare you! Saying that one of the victims is a Jewish Democrat is a blood libel!
fasteddie9318
@Bulworth:
That’s what made it such a cunning attack against the right-wing fringe.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@ChrisS:
Cuckoo Glocks?
Oh wait, I’m thinking of the Schwarzwald. Never mind, I always get those volkish places mixed up.
artem1s
also.too.who do they blame for her shooting herself in the foot?
Hunter Gathers
Perhaps Erick son of Erick can hang out on Palin’s front porch with his wife’s shotgun to ward off any stalkers, census workers or members of the lamestream media. As payment, Palin will give Erick son of Erick what he really wants : five minutes of Palin playing with his pecker. If she can find the shriveled little thing.
licensed to kill time
I guess “the republic” is what Beck calls his boner.
gnomedad
Someone actually put a bullet through a sitting Congresswoman’s head? That’s nothing! Someone might possibly be thinking about taking a shot at a half-term governor! Or if they weren’t, maybe they are now.
Mike Kay
shorter wingtopia: LEAVE SARAH ALONE!!
ChrisS
@MattR:
The Cordoba house isn’t even a good comparison, but it’s lightyears away from what Erickson and Sarah are yapping about. The directors of Cordoba are opposed to violence in both word and deed.
Erickson fantasizes an awful lot about being a tough guy for a doughy ginger that spends his days licking boots.
shortstop
@Bulworth: Yes, but we need to help people forget that as quickly as possible by starting a steady drumbeat of messaging about how threatened the right feels by potential violence from the left. Apparently when we’re not being limp-wristed, tree-hugging, feminized, do-gooder bleeding hearts, we’re pretty fucking dangerous.
Tom Levenson
@Dave: Yup. We don’t want bloodshed. We want prolonged humiliation…
…Like what I , a Pats fan, hope for those who have the misfortune to root for the dog-ass Jets.
(Gratuitous Semi-Tough references my speciality.)
Bulworth
I hate to imagine the blame-gaming outcry from conservatives if a Repub had been shot this week.
Joseph Nobles
I have never seen anyone in politics play “protect the white woman” so effectively as Sarah Palin.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@licensed to kill time: “The republic” vs. The Resistance. I’ll put my money on the one that’s cut.
shortstop
@licensed to kill time: Good one, but methinks Beck might find his store-boughten wood significantly increased, rather than “brought down,” by violence.
Spaghetti Lee
Hell yes they fantasize about being victims. It’s a simple stimuli-and-response thing. They see that people in general give more sympathy and attention to victims, and they want in some of that sweet action. But because they’re mostly wealthy white men who have never been the victim of anything, they imagine stuff.
I wish Sarah Palin a long and healthy life, if only because the resulting amount of bullshit that her assassination would create would be enough to likely drive me insane.
Elvis Elvisberg
Every side has crazy people with strange fantasies, but only on the right are there Left Behind novels and Turner Diaries fantasizing about how awesome it’ll be when the apocalypse comes and my team was proven right and all those bad people will suffer!
I’m generally inclined to believe that it’s just a happenstance, a temporary thing, rather than something innate to conservatism. But I see timelines like this, and I’m less sure…
JCT
For goodness’ sake Ewick — what is it with you and Palin? Do you think that your manly pronouncements on her behalf are going to win you some really cool favor or something? (wink, wink). Is your wife going to loan you her shotgun again to go protect your fair maiden?
I’m with everyone else — my only wish regarding Palin is that she will go away soon because she is sucking up the collective IQ of this country (and no, I know it’s not like she’s using those IQ points herself).
Just pathetic.
James K. Polk, Esq
Liberals want a Sarah Palin martyr?
That’s some INDUSTRIAL grade smack those two are using.
Bulworth
Yeah, it’s pretty funny how that works out. For the record, I don’t own a gun. And I have five cats. Pretty girly man of me.
soonergrunt
You have to remember that this really is how they fantasize the world to be. They really do see themselves standing on a bridge and protecting the wimmin folk and children behind them on the sacred ground from the evil hordes.
This is how they rationalize running around armed all the time and how they rationalize the demonization of “the other.”
On some very visceral level, SonofErickkk SonofErickkk SonofErickkk wants for this to happen.
He really wants for it to happen to him, so that he can pull out that gun he hasn’t fired or cleaned since a week after he bought it, and cut loose. But it makes better copy to write about being worried about Sarah Palin because A) she’s a woman and needs defending, and B) she’s a woman, and SonofErickkk SonofErickkk SonofErickkk’s targets in this little diatribe (us) are just the kind of people to attack a woman (in their minds.)
shortstop
@Tom Levenson:
Tragically, Professors Dunning and Kruger explain to us why we will never enjoy the satisfaction of seeing Palin truly understand how epic is her fail.
New Yorker
Also, I should add that the only thing I fantasize about with regards to Palin is her giving up her endless media grifer tours and actually trying to raise her children right, especially the one with Down Syndrome.
asiangrrlMN
I watched Bob Roberts because it had Alan Rickman in it. I couldn’t laugh, though, because the movie seemed too apt, even then. Now, it’s even more apt.
@Tom Levenson: Personally, I just want her to become a non-public person again. I want to be able to flip on NPR and not hear, “Sarah Palin says the liberals have blood libel on their hands” as if it’s actually news.
ETA: Erick son of Erick, on the other hand, I want to see humiliated in the worst possible way.
ETA II: And, it wouldn’t be our fault according to Sarah herself. Each criminal act is restricted only to the criminal him/herself. So speaketh Sarah.
licensed to kill time
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Resistance is futile, the Republic must stand!
GregB
Remember the restraint the Republicans showed when Drudge headlined the false story about the McCain worker who was mutilated by an enraged African-American man?
They certainly waited for all the facts to come in.
Also, never forget that brandishing weapons at rallies and speeches is free speech but speaking out against violent speech is suppression of free speech.
MikeJ
@James K. Polk, Esq:
How would we ever manage to pull her off the cross she’s nailed herself to?
Dave S.
@Huckster: Now that would leave a mark. Hell, the paperback version packs a pretty good wallop on its own. Add the leaden prose within and you’re up to armor-piercing quality.
Bulworth
I’m amazed Faux hasn’t resorted to its usual tactic of label-switching in this case; that is, assigning an (R) to the name of a Democrat who is the object of affection or changing a congressperson’s identity from an (R) to a (D) when a Republican has done something bad (like Rep. Foley a few years ago).
Jules
hahahahaha
Matt Glesias just had a fun back and forth with McMegan which ended with:
@asymmetricinfo Megan McArdle
Sadly now off to inspect FL real estate and unable to continue argument
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@ChrisS:
Agree, but – OT – can anyone explain to me the origin of this pervasive hostility toward/putdown of redheads? It seems so random, like disliking people for having mid-digit hair.
Villago Delenda Est
Wanting Palin to go away is not the same as wanting her dead.
These guys are projecting. AGAIN. For the umpteenth time.
Alexandra
They’re already claiming this:
An aide close to Sarah Palin says death threats and security threats have increased to an unprecedented level since the shooting in Arizona, and the former Alaska governor’s team has been talking to security professionals.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blood-libel-sarah-palins-controversial-reference-riled-emotions/story?id=12601352
An aide. That’ll be Rebecca Mansour, probably.
Bulworth
How true.
Cat Lady
The point has been made here on this very blog that conservatism in its current manifestation is a mental disorder and should be in the DSM. Beck is Exhibit A, and SonofErick is Exhibit A.1. They’re all so classically clinical from engaging in projection to narcissism to delusional, lacking empathy with no self-awareness that the question really only should be how on earth do they get gigs on TV? On second thought…
wazmo
Now that’s funny…. I was saying something along those lines here…
Tsulagi
Nah, doesn’t matter. Palin is already the victim in reality creationism world. An actual attack would be redundant. You can’t get up early enough to get the pre-victim jump on EE or any true bagger. Their bevictimization runs 24/7.
In EE’s brain he knows beyond all doubt an evildoer out there moved by liberal MSM teabagger hate speech is certainly plotting to shoot their snowmobile Joantard of Arc. So therefore it’s already the same thing as a congresswoman and federal judge who offended teabagger feelings actually being shot and killed.
Bender
So here’s where you pretend you can divine hidden, heinous mindthoughts and soulfeelings in the Enemy [Hey, Doug, I’ll bet Palin really wishes an attack on herself! — woaaaah, blew your mind there, eh?].
Then, you predict, as “inevitable,” an unlikely scenario that the Enemy might undertake if they really are as evil in reality as you like to pretend they are.
When the silly prediction is proved baseless, no apology need be tendered, nor any personal assessment made as to why you were so willing to float a delusional fantasy as “inevitable.”
Meh. Ted Rall does it better.
JCT
@MikeJ:
Kind of hard for her to read the notes off her hand in that circumstance.
DonkeyKong
It’s a wingnut variant of the stations of the cross.
Sarah in the Garden of Wasilla,
Sarah is betrayed by Tim Pawleny and arrested,
Sarah is condemned by the lamestream media,
Sarah is denied by John McCain,
Sarah is judged by Nancy Pelosi,
Sarah is scourged and crowned with thorns that don’t match her outfit.
Sarah takes up His cross,
Sarah is helped by Glenn Beck to carry His cross and both fight over it.
Sarah meets the grizzly moms of Wasilla,
Sarah is crucified by the lamestream media,
Sarah promises His kingdom to the repentant thief/Goldman Sachs,
Sarah entrusts Bristol and Joe the Plumber to each other,
Sarah dies half way on the cross, then resigns because it hurts
Sarah is laid in the tomb of Rich Lowrey’s mind, if you know what I mean.
dj spellchecka
i bet i know a lot more folks that watch msnbc and read media matters that erick son of eric knows…and i for a fact don’t know “there is some crazy MSNBC watcher and Media Matters reader who even now is dreaming of doing so.”
how does he know? does he read minds??
David Hunt
Personally, I think the Right has decided that Palin is now more of a negative than a positive for the Republican Brand. She’s just not smart, eloquent or media savvy enough to be an asset for them. So they’d be better off with her as a martyr onto whom they an cast in metaphorical marble and project whatever conservative “virtues” is convenient at any particular moment. Also, if she were dead, she couldn’t keep embarrassing herself and them by extension. I’ve read that JFK wasn’t even as fraction as popular alive as he became when he was dead. I think Erikson’s fantasy here to to turn Bible Spice into JFK with tits.
Lord. What and image…
freelancer
OT- Hi TRMS staffers! We love you too!
Draylon Hogg
Idiots.
Of course it will be a left winger who either kills or attempts to kill Sarah.
It will be a highly trained KGB assassin in an Ushanka with a red star on the front who swims the bering sea
shortstop
@Alexandra: “Security professionals” who are not in a position to publicly cast doubt on her claims, but not the police, who are.
Redshift
@ChrisS:
Okay, that I could understand driving someone to commit violence…
cyntax
@MikeJ:
Wait… Glenn Beck likes the Clash? Who knew?
PurpleGirl
@ChrisS: But they used the word violence,
JoJo
I wouldn’t put it past her to fake an incident, especially now that her show was cancelled.
MattR
@Alexandra:
Translating that from wingnut to English I am gonna guess that Sarah just got her first threat.
shortstop
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Pure jealousy. They know 97 percent of us are phenomenal in the sack. Erick, of course, is a persistent 3 percenter.
geg6
@aimai:
FTW.
This is exactly what will happen.
MikeJ
If something happens to Sarah Palin look for a caribou with better aim than she has. Or a wolf with a helicopter.
ChrisS
And here we go! Palin Targeted in Violence-Tinged Tweets Following Arizona Massacre
Following the real word assassination attempt of a democrat, following years of violent rhetoric from the right, FoxNews is here to nutpick electronic threats from random anonymous users on twitter.
Bulworth
Her alaskan moosehunting show was canceled? Well, there’s the lib persecution right thar.
Admiral_Komack
Isn’t there a song entitled “Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me?”
If so, it could be Sarah Palin’s theme song.
gnomedad
See, people fantasize about shooting Republicans, too!
danimal
I wouldn’t cry if her vocal cords stopped functioning, but there’s no reason to want Sarah Palin dead. Really, there would just be another behind her to capture her market share (Bachmann 2012!). This one feels a lot like projection to me.
Another thought experiment. What if another person on Palin’s ‘crosshairs’ poster were to get shot? Would the republic survive? (Of course, but there would be pushback).
The GOP is understandably nervous these days because they know they’ve been threading a fine line. Their rhetoric is provocative and they know it. The acts of one crazy person weren’t enough to seriously damage their brand, but if a copycat emerges, they are in real, real trouble.
Ash Can
So if Palin’s standing in her kitchen eating cottage cheese out of the carton and some beater truck drives past and backfires, and she panics thinking that we’ve finally come to get her, and chokes on her cottage cheese, it’ll be ALL OUR FAULT.
Loneoak
What do we call the boner that rheichtards get over a hypothetical Palin assassination? Something about starbursts …
MikeJ
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I think it was on a cartoon or something.
MattR
@ChrisS: According to Tea Party rules those tweets are obviously coming from conservative infiltrators determined to bring Democrats down.
ChrisS
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
I dunno, but I think it has to do with red-headed kids being picked on in elementary school.
Gravenstone
@Ann B. Nonymous: Having seen the way she handles firearms (well, one case), I find that entirely plausible.
Patrix
But…but….we were told a thousand times this week that rhetoric does not lead to violence.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Ash Can: What’s wrong with eating cottage cheese out of the carton?
wazmo
Scott Adams of Dilbert fame, opined once upon a time:
Also, a very renowned master of the age once said:
It’s time we started to practice what we preach.
srv
I for one would take a bullet for Sarah, as if she was gone then we’d only have the humor of Dennis Miller.
shortstop
The Anita Bryant late-life schedule of solely trailer park venues — reached by second-hand bus rather than private plane — is what I’m hoping comes Sarah’s way, and soon. I give her five years before her mug is indistinguishable from a drag queen’s. Several bouts of poorly rendered and overreaching cosmetic surgery will make the whole thing worse. Live by the starburst, die* by the starburst.
*is metaphor
georgia pig
@soonergrunt: Erickson and Beck are simply taking their clues from Sarah and testing the water for grabbing the red-meat audience share. They know that victimhood plays to their audience. They’re all in for Sarah. The Republican primaries may be somewhat a replay of Rockefeller/Goldwater, albeit shifted horribly further right. Any good recap of wingnut reaction to Obama? The Villagers appeared to love him, and “moderate” guys like Frum and Gerson are looking pretty disconsolate cause he’s drinking their centrist milkshake. He was like President Morgan Freeman up there last night, if not better. Even Nooners was comparing him to Saint Ronnie.
Tom Levenson
@Admiral_Komack: Seek and ye shall receive.
Warren Zevon in concert.
srv
@wazmo: Scott Adams is a libertarian.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@MattR:
Hilarious. Looks like you nailed it. Is this Twitterfail or a fiendishly clever plot(z)?
Jay in Oregon
I wouldn’t say they are wishing that Sarah Palin gets attacked, but I would say that they are getting turned on by the revenge fantasy.
The only thing that gets them hotter than the idea of sex is the idea of righteous vengeance.
scav
@srv: mew! pause. Luckily you’re not a front-pager.
Mattminus
“I would not be shocked if Palin eventually makes up some crazy story about an attempted attack on her”
I could see this happening. I doubt that she’d actually give any details, but something more like ” I don’t know why people keep saying I incite violence. My great security detail, so american, so strong, has asked me not to talk about it so as no to give any details of our great countermeasures, so brave, so countery, but I myself have been the victim of numerous attempted attacks.”
Then, when you call BS on it and press for details she’ll say that you’re trying to put her in danger
Draylon Hogg
And if it isn’t some crazy Ivan then it will be…
The Elite Republican Guard of Saddam Hussein!
or
Grenadan special forces.
shortstop
@Mattminus:
Seltzer through the nose again.
stuckinred
@Draylon Hogg: Baghdad Bob!
Snarki, child of Loki
@Ann B. Nonymous:
No, it would go something like this:
Palin accidentally steps on a loose floorboard, that moves with a sudden, loud CRACK! and causes her to stumble.
The heavily armed FreepTard bodyguard that surrounds her immediately hauls out their shootin’ irons and blazes away in all directions.
And they all go down in a hail of bullets, and sadly miss out on the Darwin Award ceremony. The. End.
Scott
Okay, every time the teabaggers do something that makes them look bad, they immediately start fantasizing that it’s librul agitators. Guns being waved around at rallies? Librul agitators! Racist signs? Librul agitators! Gunfire at the Holocaust Museum? Librul agitators?
By the Republican Projection Principle (Whenever the Republicans accuse their enemies of doing something, they are planning to do the same thing themselves), that may mean that Palin is actually in danger from the teabaggers themselves…
Culture of Truth
“George… there’s no such thing as The Human Fund”
“There… could be.”
But… there isn’t.”
TR
@James K. Polk, Esq:
Only in the sense that I’m praying that she becomes the Republican presidential nominee in 2012 and is metaphorically martyred for her batshit politics when Obama beats her in a landslide.
Right wingers really have internalized this idea that we’re all afraid of Palin. 70% of the country thinks she’s unqualified to be president, and her disapproval ratings — even before this week — were astronomically high. Why would we fear her?
sidhra
@Draylon Hogg: The Illuminati and the Swiss Guard.
Admiral_Komack
@Tom Levenson:
Thank you, thank you very much.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
@Mattminus:
FTW
theturtlemoves
@Tom Levenson: Warren is a good choice for this thread. Brilliant musician and songwriter, but based on his biography, a raging narcissistic nutcase. Wore nothing but gray for years because it was “lucky”.
gnomedad
@Snarki, child of Loki:
I thought I was too high-minded to amused by a Palin shooting scenario. Damn you.
licensed to kill time
So, if something happened to Sarah! would it be because of the violent rhetoric that has no effect or because of the calling it out that totally does?
(I do not wish to see ANYONE hurt, not even a spider. I always carry spiders outside and set them free, because I’m a squishy liberal.)
fucen tarmal
wow, they don’t get that sarah palin was mccain’s gift to democrats? or the left and what used to be the center 20 years ago?
if anyone at “media matters” or “msnbc” those bastions of the institutional left that they know them to be, or any other for that matter, is day dreaming about sarah palin getting attacked, i hope its because they would take a bullet to keep her speaking.
stuckinred
@theturtlemoves: Nasty fucker. How he didn’t get hurt worse by someone is beyond me. He could jam though.
And he loved him some guns.
Allan
They are letting Sarah know that her only remaining value to the Right is as a martyr.
stuckinred
@Allan:
Accidentally like a martyr
The hurt gets worse and the heart gets harder
hueyplong
Those ineffectual yet strangely omnipotent libruls are keeping Sarah alive to split the Huckabee vote and thereby promote the homosexual agenda of our Kenyan overlords.
The last thing they want is for Sarah to have an accident in the wild, and that’s why they (1) rigged the cancellation of her teevee show while (2) exerting some kind of fiendish mind control to force her to release embarrassing videos every week or so.
ChrisS
@sidhra:
Nah, Venezuelans. They’re the boogyman country now. Chavez is just itching to create a conservative martyr, dontcha now, what with his nationalization of resources.
Tractarian
I’m sorry, but the idea of some shaggy-haired, twitching lunatic sitting in his basement watching MSNBC and cackling maniacally….. it’s just too funny.
Draylon Hogg
I appreciate that a dry drunk like Beck needs a crutch but could someone just get him a piece of driftwood please?
Perhaps he means the Old Republic from Star Wars. She’ll be struck down like Sir Alec Guinness, becoming more powerful than you can possibly imagine, her twinset will fall to the floor empty. And Glenn Skywalker will single handedly restore the black robed regiment of the Jedi his midi-chlorpromazine-ian blood pumping and his cock humming like a well oiled light sabre.
Tom Levenson
@theturtlemoves: It’s the music, not the musician.
Zevon was just f**king brilliant with the words and notes.
Movin’ on anyway as I try to crank through two talks for Sunday — listening now to this, which is just bizarrely fabulous.
stuckinred
@Tom Levenson: Yea, if he had treated you like he did his family you’d sing a different tune.
Tom Levenson
@stuckinred: Not news that great art does not a great human being make. Doesn’t make the art go away, though.
cmorenc
Um…why would any even modest-progressive leaning person want to see Sarah Palin harmed, when she’s perversely becoming our new best friend, albeit one we can’t stand much to be around?
That doesn’t necessarily mean, however that she would perversely prove to be our best friend if she DOES run for the GOP nomination, because if she fails to win the nomination she’ll make some of the rest of the GOP field look so prudent, competent, and sane by comparison. It might actually be better is she doesn’t actually run, but instead keeps the ongoing Sarah-circus distraction going to suck away some of the oxygen that the actual nominee would better benefit from having.
Poopyman
@Mnemosyne: Interesting that you chose Rebecca Schaeffer. Her killer was some nut from Tucson.
soonergrunt
@georgia pig: Of that, I’ve no doubt, but do not discount the wingtard need for validation. Most of these people would never, in their own lives ever put themselves in harm’s way (the VAST majority of them would never enlist in wars they support) but they do really see themselves as standing on a bridge.
That idiot Jason Mattera telling Chris Matthews a few years ago that while he supported the Iraq war, his place was at home fighting the ideological battle comes immediately to mind.
But that doesn’t change the fact that they really do see this stuff as the precursor to a physical attack and they fantasize about it.
The fantasy typically includes several wingnut beliefs:
1.) Some Liberal will attack me because I am such an effective enemy of liberalism.
2.) Said Liberal attacker will be incompetent because Liberals are pussies/afraid of guns/unable to rationalize violence even when pushed to it.
3.) I’ll kill the Liberal because I am usually or always armed and I’m not afraid to kill someone because this (somehow) correlates with manliness.
If you ever spend time on Free Republic or other winger sites like World News Daily, you see this shit all the time, and they bask in the approval of the other wingnuts for the stories they tell about how one day they’ll defend themselves, and there’s frequently an angle about protecting the helpless, and this will lead finally at long last to society finally coming to its’ collective senses and initiating a pogrom against Liberals, Illegal Aliens (all hispanics except Cubans, that is) and other criminal elements from the inner cities (black people).
I’m telling you, if they deleted every post that has the above content, they could run their sites on desktop computers instead of servers.
Ash Can
50 bucks sez Beck’s bawling on camera by the end of the week, blubbering to his fans that the librulz are coming for him and the end is near, please pray for him and keep his widow and kids from starving by phoning the number at the bottom of the screen and being as generous as possible…
FeFiFo
I honestly think they’re trying to give her a way to pretend to herself and her followers that the reason she has to suddenly retreat from the public eye isn’t because she’s destroyed her attempt at mainstream branding and revealed her sociopathy via home video missive, its because she now lives in such fear for her life that she’s been forced to retreat for the safety of her family. For most situations its follow the money, in Palin’s case its follow the path of victimization.
different church-lady
I’m a bit confused: an actual, real life attack on a sitting congreswoman did NOT bring the republic down, but a theoretical attack on an ex-governor WOULD bring it down?
I must admit I’ve been a bit confused quite a lot lately…
twiffer
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: i always thought it was a british thing, and possibly thus a smack at the scots (who have have the highest percentage of red-heads) and probably the irish too (2nd, if memory serves). but it baffles me too. cause red-heads are hot.
jl
I won’t even try to figure out what is going on in their heads, other than signs point more and more to many of these extremist leaders being seriously disturbed.
Everything that happens is projected through a distorted mental lens, and all that comes out is either fear of victimization, or violent fantasies.
The only idea I find half way convincing mentioned above is that they are preemptively trying to immunize themselves from accusations of fomenting violence by preemptively worrying about one of their leaders being attacked. If that is intentional strategy, then these people have gone far over the edge into dementia.
Only thing is clear is that they are fixated on violence and pain.
Mnemosyne
I’m pretty sure that Sarah Palin is going to end exactly the way I want her to: in a Fairbanks retirement home muttering about how she used to be somebody while the nurses pat her hand soothingly.
handy
@Ash Can:
What’s sadder, that such behavior is predictable if not completely obvious, or that several people actually would buy into such a con? I’m not for doom and gloom but these are not good signs for the health of our republic.
JCT
@cmorenc:
Damn, could you just *imagine* her seething on the sideline as the real GOP nominees get all of the attention? She’ll be sending out weekly videos giving them “support” and advice.
This is beginning to sound like fun as they turn themselves into pretzels to pay proper homage to her as she keeps asking for more….
jl
@soonergrunt: Most normal people get past that emotional stage sometime in Middle School.
trollhattan
@Mattminus:
Well, there was the fierce teacher with the big fence sign, but Sarah managed to fend her off after a big scare.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/40821.html
Whew, that was close!
Violet
Freaking media. Aide: Uptick in Death Threats Against Palin:
They just believe anything Moosolini tells them.
Culture of Truth
That boy ain’t right
MikeJ
@Violet:
Unless it totally doesn’t like when Sarah does it.
morzer
@Mnemosyne:
My money is on Alaska’s version of matoko-chan being caught trying to break into a meth lab, while screaming about how she can see liberals from her house. They’ll cart her off to the funny farm and she’ll be a punchline on Letterman’s 100th birthday show.
soonergrunt
@jl: Yes, but then again we are talking about the %27 crew. These are NOT normal people, or they wouldn’t be wingnuts.
Tonal Crow
Teh stupid, it burns with the heat of 10,000 supernovas.
Makewi
Just so we’re clear, when a threat is made on a left leaning politician it is an example of how right wing rhetoric is ruining the safety of good people, but when threats are made to Sarah Palin then the bitch is lying to bump her victim creds.
I say again, truly you are all love.
Draylon Hogg
@sidhra
Hans Kolvenbach the Black Pope of the Jesuit Order in an unholy alliance with fuggin’ Prince Phillip and the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. From an underwater volcano off the coast of Cuba.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Tractarian:
He could be watching for the prison shows and stumbles across Countdown purely by accident. It.could.happen.
the farmer
Re: @#39
fixed.
*
artem1s
@cmorenc:
because if she fails to win the nomination she’ll make some of the rest of the GOP field look so prudent, competent, and sane by comparison.
yea, but srsly, would you want to be the presumptive nominee waiting for St. Sarah of Wasilla to approve you as the GOP choice? Egads! imagine the hand wringing in 2012 over what night she gets to speak at the convention. Man that is going to be one crazyass circus.
jl
@Violet:
Does the self contradictory nature of their position occur to them? Apart from the counterfactual, or at the very least strained, nature of the premise?
The complaints from public figures have been that inappropriately violent rhetoric in politics, especially election campaigns, can influence unbalanced people to do unpredictable and irrational things. And how is that argument inconsistent with some nut attacking Palin. I read there may already be a Palin stalker who either has been, or will have to be, dealt with.
Maybe they have translated what people like Dupnik said (with no initial reference to the GOP, or Palin, or the Tea Peoples) into their own maladjusted pre adolescent worldview, and are aping what they see as the ‘Democrat’ criticism, hoping that it work work at doing something or other.
Ash Can
@Violet:
That’s your money quote right there.
Draylon Hogg
@154
Yes, a bullet in the head is a particularly effective kind of threat innit?
hueyplong
The “Palin’s aide says…” story indicates that she’s going to continue to double down as long as she has the credibility chips with which to bet.
I guess our sport is trying to figure out how long that game can go on.
jl
@Ash Can: Could be a tell. But I did read she has some nutcase stalker of some kind (but was that report from her staff too, or the police, or actual reporting?)
Davis X. Machina
Some people — most of us, actually — have ordinary lives.
These folks need to be part of a Great Crusade, instead they’re part of the slow line in the supermarket. They need to have near-omnipotent nemises, like superheroes, instead they’ve got asshole bosses like the rest of us.
Somehow the rest of us adjust. They don’t. It’s rather sad actually. Ils doivent cultiver leurs jardins.
Draylon Hogg
@154
Don’t worry your pretty little head and beautiful mind about it.
She’ll be well used to dealing with threats.
Possibly if Todd’s bacon ain’t cooked just so.
Cris
@Makewi: Just so we’re clear, (1) the attempt on Gabrielle Giffords’ life was an actual attack, not merely a threat, and (2) the threat on Sarah Palin’s life is at this point a fantasy, not a reality.
/troll-feed
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Isn’t that a major theme in Catcher in the Rye?
Blackfrancis
I have nothing to add
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9kfcEga0lk
Svensker
@Tom Levenson:
And I used to like you.
Draylon Hogg
Ted Stevens in the library with the bridge to nowhere.
Violet
@Ash Can:
Exactly. At least the media is reporting there’s nothing to report. That’s a step up from the past where they’d omit that bit of information and just report the Palin statements as fact.
Shock Trooper in the War on Christmas
@twiffer:
Red-headed women are hot, men not so much…
gbear
How about if we just burn Palin’s books instead? Nobody actually reads them. At least we could make smoors while acting out our Palin hate-lust.
morzer
@Tom Levenson:
Fighting talk from the depths of Harvard Tech.
Cris
I’ll be in the “oh fuck, now we’ll never hear the end of them playing victim” camp.
Draylon Hogg
@167
Only if you comprehend it right.
Unlike Mark Chapman or John Hinckley Jr.
Ash Can
@jl: In all seriousness, since she’s a fairly attractive female celebrity, I would imagine that, unfortunately, she does have to deal with her share of creeps and stalkers, an unpleasant situation that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone, including her. But the timing of this particular story combined with its lack of specifics gives it a ring of me-too-ism.
Violet
@Blackfrancis:
That’s just creepy.
Punchy
I can’t wait until Paylin’s aides up it a notch and not only claim an increase in death threats, but that Sarah has suffered an increase in assissination attempts. Like the 4 she had yesterday. Only to have John Roberts offer her an exclusive to talk about it.
asiangrrlMN
@Cris: That’s my camp as well.
Zifnab
My god. Less than a week after the near-fatal shooting of a Democratic US Congresswoman, and it’s already all about Sarah Palin all the time.
The first mistake was giving that crazy attention whore five more seconds of camera time.
Draylon Hogg
Look.
Sarah Palin is still remarkable.
Like everyone else on the planet her DNA is made from the materials of a recycled star.
And even though it may be missing a chromosome or two,
if you stretched all the DNA in Sarah Palin’s body out into a single length it would extend half a light year
Heard this fact on QI last week, how fucking mad is that.
Tom Levenson
@Svensker: Before and after Sunday, I like you just fine.
4:30-7:30 1/16/2011 — different matter.
Davis X. Machina
@morzer: I spent a summer working with the Harvard history-of-science people about 15 years ago, and the preferred nomenclature for the other end of Mass Ave. then was “The Voke”.
Violet
Okay, I just read the end of that CBS News article I linked above. This is kind of funny:
Oh noes! Teh keyboard mafia! Dozens of them!
Okay, seriously, any kind of death threat is wrong and should be condemned (which I do, just for the record), but this is still kind of funny. Dozens of Twitterers? That’s not exactly a fatwa.
jibeaux
How does someone with no damn job require multiple aides and the retention of the title Governor?
Yup. You know, when you refer death threats to authorities, they usually check them out, find the people, determine the credibility. If there’s something there, the bad person’s name often makes its way into the press in connection with an arrest, or a recording of the phone message, etc. If anyone did this, I don’t condone it in the slightest, but I’m going to go ahead and guess we will not be reading about any details of any death threat investigations by the authori-TIES.
Tom Levenson
@morzer: Go Beavers!
(There are other cheers, but this is a family blog.)
georgia pig
@soonergrunt: That’s no doubt true of most of the audience and bulk of the contributors, but guys like Erickson and Beck seem to be more professional manipulators of a suggestible audience. The money and attention is like cocaine for those guys, thanks to the example established by Rush.
Beck’s resurrection of that psycho Skausen (sp?) is a case in point. Take someone completely obscure to the wingnut masses, invest him with the power of prophecy – even though conservatives in the 50’s expelled him as a racist crank – and build a narrative of a decades long conspiracy to steal the throne. He knows the sources are too obscure, most of the wingnuts won’t bother to check anyway and the narrative fits nicely with their victimhood confirmation bias. Erickson is more of an amateur, but he’s trying to make the best of that gig at CNN to move into Beck’s league. Sarah is their best hope for building up a Restoration of the White Queen myth that they can market to the emo conservatives (particularly evangelicals, who are still there in great numbers). They can’t champion someone like Romney or Pawlenty because they’re not pure enough, and gushing over Huckabee would be too icky gay-like. Guys like Rush, O’Reilly, Savage, Levin and Imus already divide up the nasty, bitter asshole demographic. Beck goes for the fantasizers. Wonder if they’ll ever slip up and call her “My Queen.”
suzanne
I want to know how, exactly, Beck thinks that an attack on Caribou Barbie would “bring the republic down”. This country has survived the assassinations of presidents. Not to mention the incarceration of Lindsay Lohan. And still the sun rises in the east every damn morning. If something were ever to happen to Palin (not that I actively WANT it to, of course, other than she happens to discover that she loves Greenland and wants to move there and take a vow of silence), I have all manner of confidence that we’d all somehow make it through.
jl
OK, dammitall, I will say it if no one else has the guts:
“Oh dear Lord, please protect Sarah Palin, and keep her safe, especially from violent nutcases. Let no harm fall upon her. For her sake and ours. Amen.”
I’ll try to remember to pray every night, so I will have something to add that to.
Culture of Truth
The left will be divided into two camps: (1) bitch deserved it and (2) not my fault.
“This one time, at Not My Fault Camp . . .”
gmknobl
Every time the wingnuts are guilty of doing something horrible, such as Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Shrub and his brothers and father/mom, etc. are, and something horrible happens because of it, they squeal like stuck pigs because that’s the only way they can defend themselves, by making a louder noise than reason makes. And since they have the corporate media as their wholly owned subsidiary, they CAN out shout reason.
It reminds me of the bullies in school who when caught doing something wrong yell and scream about some made up horror that the victim caused. Thus, the real victims, those in Arizona, are ignored in a very short time and reason, which demands better gun control and the blocking of the wingnuts from any public political life, gets drowned out too.
gmknobl
Every time the wingnuts are guilty of doing something horrible, such as Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Shrub and his brothers and father/mom, etc. are, and something horrible happens because of it, they squeal like stuck pigs because that’s the only way they can defend themselves, by making a louder noise than reason makes. And since they have the corporate media as their wholly owned subsidiary, they CAN out shout reason.
It reminds me of the bullies in school who when caught doing something wrong yell and scream about some made up horror that the victim caused. Thus, the real victims, those in Arizona, are ignored in a very short time and reason, which demands better gun control and the blocking of the wingnuts from any public political life, gets drowned out too.
Mnemosyne
@Poopyman:
Yikes, that’s a weird coincidence.
Makewi
@Cris:
As I said, you are content to assume that any threat on this woman is in the realm of fantasy. Because of the love you have for your fellow man.
scav
@hueyplong: I can’t decide whether she’s eating her credibility chips with sour cream dip or putting them in cookies. In a fair world, she’d be down to the crumbs by now.
Tom Levenson
@Davis X. Machina: Yeah, well ours for them is “Cambridge Community College…”
Unless, of course, we channel our inner Hogwarts, and it becomes the University That Must Not Be Named.
(None of this is true…but it’s on the interwebs, so it must be real in some universe, right?)
Comrade Javamanphil
The left points and laughs. The right points and dreams of pulling the trigger.
morzer
@Tom Levenson:
Fuck your beavers.. er.. well, you know what I mean!
Svensker, for once, I shall be compelled to cheer-vomit for the Snotgreen and Fireman Orc.
twiffer
@Shock Trooper in the War on Christmas: yeah, should have clarified. i assumed that was understood. [grin]
morzer
@Tom Levenson:
Nice little technical drawing school you’ve got there.. be a shame if anything happened to it….
Villago Delenda Est
@Allan:
Alas, this does seem to be the trend.
She’s becoming too much of an embarrassment to them at this point.
But if she were to die at the hands of some nutcase who can be connected, some way, any way, to the hated liberals, then she can live on as a martyr for the cause.
These people are just crazy enough to formulate such a scenario…and act on it.
Tom Levenson
@morzer: I just knew someone would go there.
Does that make me an accessory before the fact?
Trust me, though: You may not wish to root for the Patriots (though why not, I cannot fathom), but no good at all will come of putting yourself in the same camp as the Dog-Ass Jets.
You will hate yourself in the morning.
Svensker
@gbear:
LOL
jibeaux
@Makewi:
I’m going to say it has more to do with this:
Let me know when they answer the question as to whether they have referred any threats to authorities.
asiangrrlMN
@Tom Levenson: Wait, you’re seriously a Pats fan? Oh, Tom. ::shakes head in sorrow:: I never would have imagined that about you.
And, let’s all put on our fighting trousers (h/t, morzer).
ETA: Tom L. has a beaver? (This is how internet memes start).
IU1995
She already has …
Sko Hayes
@soonergrunt:
Spot on analysis of those two sites. I’ve never seen so much dick waving in my life.
I have noticed the absolute silence on the subject of armed citizens from that crowd (“If someone had been armed, they could have stopped this attack!”) like the crap we heard after the Virginia Tech shootings.
Draylon Hogg
Daily Caller? Tucker Carlson? Twitter? Dancing with the Stars? Bristol Palin? Conspiracy!
Len Goodman is going to put SEVVVEEEEEN bullets in her back in the shape of an inverted crucifix.
Like in the Omen.
patrick
Basically for the same reasons as the Kardashians. they want to see her jugs….
Davis X. Machina
@Tom Levenson: I was was driving up Oxford St. this summer with my family in the car and my son — home from Carnegie Mellon on vacation — saw the sign for Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, and burst out laughing…
It’s that bad.
Zifnab
@Makewi:
That’s cool. But how do you feel about pie?
morzer
@Tom Levenson:
It’s the classic dilemma.. Mordor versus Isengard. I prefer Isengard because they have less staying power in the end.
Joking aside, I rather liked MIT on the occasions when I visited friends there, and some of the hacks against Harvard were a true delight.
jwb
@Makewi: Whinier than usual—you’ve really taken your game up a notch.
Southern Beale
WOOT!
I got a front page mention!
Thanks, DougJ!
My first!
Svensker
@morzer:
Dear Sir, the green fellows are not Orcs. Yours sincerely, Galadriensker
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Did you see the latest disaster for Old Grey Badger? Sis and the meth lab?
scav
@jibeaux:
Nursing
But remember, in their eyes, government is the problem so of course the sainted Sarah and apostles aren’t reporting the threats to Herod’s PD. Or something like that. I don’t speak fluent nutcase or at least this dialect.
Blackfrancis
@Violet: That is going to give me nightmares.
Tom Levenson
@asiangrrlMN: Father born at Boston Lying In Hospital, lived more or less midway between Fenway and Braves Field. Me, CA raised, but MA educated and living here since 1985 — now about eight blocks from where Dad grew up?
Yup, I still have a soft spots in my heart for childhood Bay Area teams — but what do you expect?
Go Pats — I’m hoping for a repeat of 45-3, myself. Don’t expect it, but would love it. (And sadly, I’ll be at ScienceOnline11 all weekend, and in the air at kickoff. Might catch the last quarter.)
morzer
@Svensker:
Well, technically they are Uruk-hai… so I shall have to agree with you. Anyway, all that I expect is that you crush the Patsies and then crumple in a heap.
Overall, I am for Green Bay or the Falcons.
asiangrrlMN
@Sko Hayes: Maybe that’s in part because people were packing. And, the guy who ran over from next door almost shot the wrong guy. Who knows? I’m just glad there hasn’t been too much of that bullshit.
@morzer: Oh hell no. I’m not going to Google it. I’m not going to Google it. I’m not going to….What a hot mess that is. I will have to say, though, that as much as I dislike the Gray Badger, the fact that ESPN brought in his own…issues bothers me. They are not related in any way.
@Tom Levenson: Oh, sure. Playing the father and childhood card. How like a liberal. And, Bay Area? You mean like the Giants of baseball?
Southern Beale
I’m sure her appearance on Hannity on Monday will be the perfect opportunity.
Not joking, either.
shortstop
@jibeaux: They were going to refer this plethora of threats to the authorities, but she’s having a little trouble getting the state troopers to take her calls these days. So, like so many things, this matter is better handled through private enterprise, which unfortunately has a “no public statements” clause in its security contract.
Violet
@Blackfrancis:
Yeah, it’s creepy as hell. I couldn’t watch it to the end. The close up and the teleprompter reflection add a certain feeling that she’s possessed. Definitely the stuff of nightmares.
Tom Levenson
@Svensker: Naah. Just goblins.
piratedan
@srv: that poor poor kitten
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
I didn’t realize that a bullet to the head has now been officially downgraded to a mere “threat.”
I’m sure that Rep. Giffords will take comfort in that as she faces her long rehabilitation — it wasn’t really an attempt to kill her, it was only at threat!
jinxtigr
@jl:
They are fomenting violence. As directly as possible.
They are trying desperately to goad more Laughners into action, by making the situation seem utterly desperate. The target is liberals- hell, non Tea Partiers- in general. “blood” libel, like “blood feud”. It’s ALL of them against ALL of us and no bystanders- or at least that’s what they’re trying to make happen, anybody’s guess whether it’s working.
Tom Levenson
@morzer: There has to be a joke about rings there, but I’m just procrastinating when I should be writing one or the other of my talks for Sunday…
so over and out.
And yeah — the hacks are sweet.
David
I’d like to see her clubbed by a baby harp seal and made into a coat.
morzer
@Tom Levenson:
Give them an inch and they’ll take a foot?
Ooops, shouldn’t have mentioned feet, should I?
Draylon Hogg
@208
You’ve never been to party at mine, now put your car keys in the bowl and get em off.
jwb
@Makewi: Get back to us when a concerted group of leftists starts putting out posters with gun sights trained on Palin and snarking about second amendment solutions. Until then, this is just the usual whackadoodle that goes along with the life of being a public personality. It’s regrettable but magnitudes of order different.
Mark S.
@Mnemosyne:
It still pales to what Sarah’s been through this week.
stuckinred
@Sko Hayes: Absolute silence?
Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) said Wednesday that he wishes one additional person had possessed a firearm in Tucson on Saturday, presumably to use on Jared Lee Loughner.
“I wish there had been one more gun there that day in the hands of a responsible person, that’s all I have to say,” Franks said at a briefing, according to Politico.
jl
@asiangrrlMN:
“ETA: Tom L. has a beaver? (This is how internet memes start).”
I will look forward to Tom L.’s informative thoughtful post on that topic. I admit I will read it for the pictures, which are always art, never anything salacious.
Svensker
@Ash Can:
Ditto. It’s also entirely possible that’s she’s had death threats — there are some serious whackos out there. But where the hell does she get off… I mean, the unmitigated gall..,. can’t they see that…mumble mrlrlpphh
Oh fuck it, never mind. Go home, Sarah. Stay safe. Pay some attention to your children. They could use it.
Makewi
@jibeaux:
Next you’ll move the bar to indicate that – yeah, well they were reported but how many were deemed credible? Huh wingnut?
Face it, you have a double standard.
freelancer
233 posts and no one has linked to this great Driftglass photoshop.
Villago Delenda Est
The thing about Palin is, she’s got such an amazing, documented track record of telling whoppers that would make Tommy Flanagan blush, why does anyone in media report, raw, any of her assertions, or those of her staff?
Of course, I forget…their credibility is not important, only their ratings. Crediblity does not attract advertiser dollars. Viewers do, and they will corral viewers by any means possible, by hook or crook.
jl
@jinxtigr:
In view of
@stuckinred (@ something or other above, I blew editing the hypertext)
looks like either what you say, or they all share a certain vicious lack of decency and commonsense.
Davis X. Machina
These people aren’t right:
Chyron HR
Guys, you ought to take Sarah Palin’s claim that she received death threats more seriously. I mean, remember how nobody believed her when she said that Obama was planning to send his Death Panel death squads to kill Trig? Look how that turned out.
Makewi
@jwb:
Sarah Palin was not the first politician to use targets or targeting metaphors. I won’t get back to you, because you believe what you want to believe because it suits you to do so.
You are among that rare and dangerous species of individual who needs others to be the villian so you can fit the role of the hero. Also, you may be kind of dick, but I don’t really know you.
jwb
@Makewi: You’ve really lost your touch. Today you have no bite and are just sounding like a whiny two-year old.
Draylon Hogg
@236
There’s some twisted logic for you.
There were quite a lot of responsible people with firearms on Dealey Plaza in 1963 weren’t there?
And in that parking garage a bit later as well.
And that worked out just dandy.
Mnemosyne
@Sko Hayes:
That’s probably because, thanks to the current law, in Arizona anyone can carry a concealed weapon with them, and it still didn’t stop the shooting or save any lives. The guys who took the shooter down did it the old-fashioned way: they tackled him and wrestled him to the ground.
The meme they’ve been pushing for years that citizens with guns will prevent killing sprees has been pretty much disproven, so they’re trying to keep it as quiet as possible.
jwb
@Makewi: The anger’s showing now. I see the tantrum is on its way. Poor little soul. Why don’t you go back to mommy.
lovable liberal
@pseudonymous in nc: Yes! That’s it. These wingnuts, whose emotional age – and rage – is about 13, are romancing her in their fantasy lives with rescue fantasies. To make the plot work, they have to project on us their own immature impulse to kill their adversary so that they get to kill us. In their wet dreams…
Makewi
@Chyron HR:
Still acting like a human being I see.
The Populist
Wow, Fox commentator Michelle Malkin, CNN contributor Erick Erickson and Fox talking heads Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and even Sarah Palin LOVE to talk about the “harm” being inflicted on America by Obama and dems. They can’t tell you WHAT the harm is, just that it’s there because they have too much power.
Over on MSNBC, Sarah Palin is ridiculed in a very snarky, yet factual, fashion by Keith, Rachel lays out her b.s. in very objective fashion (no hyperbole, no screaming, no false equivalency). Maybe Schultz takes it a bit up in terms of volume but last I checked he never called her a traitor NOR has he ever advocated any harm come her way.
Contrast that with radio hosts such as Levin, Savage and Limbo and it appears they are completely trying to pass their garbage off on us.
Show me ONE instance of an MSNBC host ever advocating that the GOP being a party out to harm America? What MSNBC hosts DO is point out the reasons why the GOP can’t be trusted to run things. Facts win everytime…too bad the right can’t back their hate speech up with anything but ginned outrage.
asiangrrlMN
@jl: Oh my god. I’m cracking up. That’s awesome. I would pay mad monies to see a post from Tom L. about this, including the appropriate paintings.
@Svensker: That’s almost exactly what went through my mind. Scary.
Draylon Hogg
All I’m saying is I hope and pray no-one gets Aslan the blasphemous allegorical magic lion. Because that would be a real tragedy.
Mnemosyne
@Makewi:
Because people tweeting mean things about Sarah Palin is just like shooting her in the head!
AnotherBruce
These people really do live within a movie in their heads.
Red Dawn!
The Populist
Daily KOS used something of a bullseye chart as well. Difference is they aren’t talking about locking and loading, the aren’t commenting that people should reload, they aren’t saying that if the left lose more elections time to find a “second amendment remedy” nor are they demanding people “man up”. Fighting words are the problem when it comes to the right.
Sly
@JoJo:
Molly Ivins used to tell this great story about Mike Martin, a member of the Texas legislature, who paid his cousin to shoot him so that he could use the incident as a PR ploy to get elected to the state senate. He told everyone that the shooting was a warning from a “satanic and communist cult” who hated Martin for being such a patriotic Christian.
@Ash Can:
I have family who live in New Canaan, CT, where Beck lives. There was an incident where he wanted to build a wall around his property for “security reasons,” but the town rejected his request for a permit, probably for two reasons: He already began construction prior to getting a permit, which tends to be a big no-no in Fairfield County, and rich neighborhoods tend to not want their residents to erect eyesores in public view so that their abnormally high property values can be maintained and thus protect the town from… “heterogeneity”.
Anyway, the man doesn’t merely play a paranoid lunatic on TV. He is one.
The Populist
@Mnemosyne:
Yet Michelle Malkin, Palin’s partner in crime posts addresses of innocent people just because they don’t agree with them.
So I can’t call out Malkin on her lack of evidence to anything she says but if I DO make my points, she digs up where I live and demands her followers find me?
Seems to me the right doth protesteth too fucking much.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I find it a bit over the top that Palin’s aide had to tell about her increase in death threats. I don’t remember Pelosi’s or Obama’s aides needing to come out to tell of their increase in death threats. Sadly, it’s part of being a known person in this country, especially in a country so full of people willing to use the weapons they have.
Southern Beale
@Davis X. Machina:
Yes, you know, if everyone were all exactly the same then the world certainly would be a lot different. But news flash: WE’RE NOT ALL THE SAME douchewad! THAT IS THE FUCKING POINT.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
The Populist
@Bulworth:
NO, she quit the show. It was not canceled.
What I am guessing she did was quit so as to not force the network she’s on to air opposing viewpoints OR cancel her and cause controversy.
She quit simply because she knows it will make people ask what she is planning in the future.
asiangrrlMN
@Draylon Hogg: Aw, why you have to put a damper on the mood like that? That was sad when Aslan got killed.
@Mnemosyne: I would also add that the right seems to be having the double standard problem. They’re the one saying violent rhetoric doesn’t matter–except as imagined against the right.
And to reiterate a point upthread, a DEMOCRATIC congresswoman got shot point-blank in the head this weekend. SHE and the people who were also shot are the real victims. Sheesh.
The Populist
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Further example of why it’s all about Sarah. The woman is so fucking disingenuine.
jinxtigr
@suzanne:
Code for “If there’s an attack on Caribou Barbie, it’s open season on liberals and we should all ignore civilized laws and begin hunting people we don’t like, as if society had ended”
Which is not to say that this would work on everybody, but you don’t need everybody in the Tea Party doing that to create a very ugly situation.
It’s like suicides- they’re contagious. People start doing it, there’s lots of copycat behavior. Beck’s hope is that deadly violence against liberals is contagious as well, and reaches a tipping point where there are more killers than could possibly be defended against, and then the Republic would fall and the rightwingers could take over, insisting they have saved the day against the liberals who were trying to stage a coup and wipe them out.
What would really happen is plain civil war, and rightwing violence would NOT be magically effective any more than religious violence in Ireland or Palestine is magically effective.
Wile E. Quixote
@Glenn Beck
Wow, drama queen much? I guess this shows that Republicans now consider Snowbilly Snooki to be more important than
Republican JesusRonald Reagan. I mean when Reagan was the actual president of the United States he was shot and damn nearly died yet surprisingly enough the republic survived. The republic also managed to survive the assassinations of James A. Garfield (Republican, 1881) and William McKinley (Republican, 1901). The republic also managed to survive the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln, but those don’t count because Lincoln freed the slaves and Kennedy was a Democrat.Southern Beale
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Again, this is why gun control advocates are saying we need stronger gun laws. If people are walking around making death threats against other people then maybe we shouldn’t make it so fucking easy for every mental case to get their hands on deadly weapons.
Thanks for making our point for us, idiots.
shortstop
@The Populist: What!? She quit that too? Has she ever finished so much as a Klondike bar?
The Populist
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/blogs/palin-watch/8218-producer-of-sarah-palins-alaska-not-planning-season-2
Palin Watch
Producer of ‘Sarah Palin’s Alaska’ not planning season 2?
Alaska Dispatch | Jan 10, 2011
An inside source tells Entertainment Weekly that reality-show guru Mark Burnett isn’t planning on going “back to Wasilla” to produce a second season of the TLC cable show “Sarah Palin’s Alaska.” The Friday report goes on to speculate that if former Gov. Palin and her family did sign on for another edition of the show, it would put to rest questions of whether or not Palin will declare a run for the White House because the network would have to offer equal air time for any of her opponents. Read more from Entertainment Weekly, here.
The news that there probably won’t be a second season of the reality show prompted Vanity Fair’s Juli Weiner to publish her now-irrelevant, ultra-early “pre-recap” of the potential second season, which she had created already “in a fit of diligence.” Read what the world may have lost, here.
scav
‘course, it could just be she got some fliers suggesting end of life counseling. Implied Death (Panel) Threats. Sheesh, went to church over the holidays (family) and you’d be astonished how much I was badgered into considering my own death and what I might have to do about it. Forget solid-oak panelling, it was Death Choirs. And then they wanted me to get into a small dark little wooden box with a guy in black and discuss similar issues.
The Populist
@shortstop:
I am guessing part of the problem with it is she wants to keep people guessing if she will run or not. Renewing the show means she puts any idea of running to rest.
Sarah’s celebrity is based on keeping all of us guessing, will she or won’t she, so it makes sense she’d quit. Hard to say if Mark Burnett had something to do with this decision but I will say Sarah has full control and decided to not come back.
Wile E. Quixote
Oh, and speaking of the assassinations of of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley, and the attempt on Reagan’s life, how long before some wingnut brings them up and argues that this shows that Republicans are the real victims of political violence in America?
Draylon Hogg
@263
Fear not.
Unlike that unreliable hippie Jesus of Nazareth, mighty Aslan will return.
The Populist
@Wile E. Quixote:
The GOP of today is nothing like the one of those folks. The southern dems that hated what was being done with civil rights moved over to the GOP to protest Johnson signing the bill.
morzer
@Draylon Hogg:
And the Stoner Table will crack and Debt itself will start working backwards…
lovable liberal
@Davis X. Machina: Knew a fellow Harvard once who was in EAS. He complained that Harvard was teaching him to manage engineers, not to be an engineer. My suspicion, even though I later worked in EAS alongside real engineers, is that Harvard administrators would have replied, “Why is that a problem?”
The Populist
@Wile E. Quixote:
This shows the world that Reagan would never fit in to the modern GOP. They’d find reasons to disown him had he lived to see these people take over his party.
Goldwater would be an independent or a dem as he was heading in that direction in his last years.
lovable liberal
@asiangrrlMN: I happen to know that Tom’s an A’s fan.
Violet
@The Populist:
The ratings for her show dropped every week except the week Kate Gosselin was on. She was roundly criticized by hunting enthusiasts, people who should be her supporters, for her clear ignorance of proper gun handling and hunting techniques. The show exposed her ignorance, cruelty and narcissism in a way other things hadn’t and it didn’t do her any favors. I think part of the reason she didn’t renew it is that she knew it wouldn’t do her any favors.
handy
@Wile E. Quixote:
I’m frankly surprised that hasn’t been done already.
morzer
@Violet:
But I thought real hunting fishing wimmins always had daddy along to reload for them?
Wile E. Quixote
@jinxtigr:
Here’s what cracks me up about all of the Republican civil war rhetoric, who’s going to lead it? Republicans are notorious cowards, I can’t think of a single prominent conservative under the age of 70 who served in the US military. Certainly none of the Fox crowd did, from Roger Ailes on down, nor did Limbaugh, Michael Weiner, Eric Cantor, Ewick Ewickson, Andrew Breitbart, Jim DeMint, Snowbilly Snooki, Snowbilly Snooki’s idiot husband, Tim Pawlenty, etc, etc, etc. And the young conservatives aren’t any better, Jason Mattera being a prime example. Yet somehow when the civil war starts these lazy, cowardly idiots are somehow going to become a highly disciplined and effective crack fighting force that will wipe out the scourge of liberalism. Yeah right.
Violet
@morzer:
Alaskan women who hunt and fish were appalled at how she acted. Sure some of it might have been fake reality stuff, but there’s a lot that wasn’t, such as her lack of knowledge of how to hold, load, and shoot a gun, and her use of the spinner for fishing and standing up in the boat. She clearly doesn’t know much about what she was doing and it undercut her “tough, frontier woman” persona that she’s been carefully crafting.
jl
@stuckinred: Is Franks saying that
the bystander who WAS carrying a gun at the scene
and who didn’t take out his gun right away for fear of being confused with the shooter by police,
and who thought twice before (edit: NOT) shooting someone he saw holding the shooter’s gun lest he shoot the wrong person,
and ended up helping catch the shooter by joining in the gang tackle,
was irresponsible?
Someone should ask Franks about that.
Wile E. Quixote
@The Populist:
Well I know that, and you know that, but they don’t know that, which is why they kept bringing up Robert Byrd’s Klan membership while ignoring the fact that two of the most prominent advocates of the American system of apartheid, Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond, switched parties and became Republicans.
Draylon Hogg
@141
Cheeky twat.
I’m a Yorkshireman, my fiance is a Scot and my best friend since the age of 11 is a ginger.
SiubhanDuinne
Sorry if this is O/T (it isn’t really), sorry if it’s already been mentioned (haven’t yet read through *281* comments), and sorry for the link (Sully) — but this is worth the click:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2011/01/quote-5.html
Blackfrancis
@freelancer: Snorted so loud I scared the cat at that photoshop!
morzer
@Violet:
But, to be fair, she managed to hit that luckless caribou at the 7th attempt….
nestor
@Makewi:
Instead of wasting your time here, you should go cheer up Jeff G.
He’s being a sad panda again and seems to have given up on “grappling” as a way to settle differences.
scav
@morzer: REAL Vice Presidents shoot caged quail and bystanders.
The Populist
@Wile E. Quixote:
They will egg on the villagers but they better hope those folks don’t take them out too!
Xecky Gilchrist
@Makewi: Have you renounced political violence yet?
morzer
@scav:
Caged bystanders, surely? Why else would they need man-size safes?
Matt
You forgot option three: they’re sitting at home fapping to the idea of a (more) brain-damaged Caribou Barbie as their own personal sex toy. Heck, roll her into the kitchen and she’d be the perfect wingnut wife. :)
S. cerevisiae
@Mnemosyne: Naw, I picture her as the crazy old lady in the shuttered mansion at the end of the street that all the kids are afraid of. Sometimes maniacal cackles can be heard along with cries of “libruls! libruls!” emanating from behind the darkened windows.
Man, this just writes itself.
The Populist
@Violet:
Sure, this is a valid reason. She’s also launching a clothing line. My thinking is that she A) Doesn’t have the time to do that show and run her empire B) People will write her off as a Presidential candidate possibility and C) She knows the show exposed her as a phony so it’s easier to pass the decision off as something Mark Burnett helped her decide.
scav
@morzer: sure, NOW they tell us what the free-speech zones were prototypes for.
ETA: But, that does go far in explaining how the Cheney still have friends, no?
The Populist
BTW – Show me these threats she is talking about.
I went to Youtube and watched as a gang of thugs bombarded Rep Filner after his victory was announced:
“Violence erupted at San Diego’s Golden Hall election. Bob Filner was attacked by Republican Challenger Nick Popaditch and his supporters.
Filner, a Southwestern College reporter and Filner supporters were set upon by a mob of about 100, led by Popaditch.
Filner and student journalist Monika Tuncibilek were trapped with their backs to a pillar, surrounded by Popaditch supporters.
At least one member of his entourage was punched in the face. Filner was shoved and spat at as he grabbed the arm Tuncibilek to keep her from being assaulted or injured.
Popaditch led an angry mob that called Filner a “communist” and chanted “papa-ditch” then later changed the chant to “Bob’s-a-bitch.”
Popaditch supporters followed Popaditch as he rushed at Filner and his staff as soon as he entered Golden Hall. Filner supporters were overwhelmed by people holding Popaditch signs.
Filner was surrounded with his back against a wall as he attempted to make his way to one of the news stations for an interview. Popaditch darted across the hall to get in front of Filner and confronted him.
A Popaditch supporter said the incident was only “one candidate trying to give another a handshake” and that “one ran, one followed.” Filner supporters called the Popaditch camp “childish.”
At one point a Popaditch supporter punched a member of Filner’s camp while Popaditch was seen smiling about 10 feet away. Police eventually established control over the crowd. There were no arrests.
Filner won re-election to the 51st Congressional District with 60 percent of the vote. “
bk
@The Populist:
Not true – the bullseye was photoshopped.
The Populist
So for any of the righties who say that Palin is being threatened, have her show us examples of these “threats”.
Rep Filner showed a video and it was clear that Popaditch was all about causing a commotion that could have seriously hurt somebody that day.
Sorry, keep trying to use false equivalency to sell your guilt in this overheated rhetoric that has caused a lot of harm to our society.
maus
Why is this strange? Glenn Beck has internalized Network, but would certainly prefer it if someone else died to prove his point.
The Populist
@bk:
Thanks for that…I read this on a dem blog and the guy said that KOS posted it that way but I believe you. Seems out of character for them to do such a thing.
The Populist
@maus:
Propagandists and elitists need that kind of sensationalism to show the world that their opponents are wrong. He claims the left is evil. He wishes that somebody would die to back that claim up.
handy
Of course we know the threats on Lady Sarah’s life are real, because shut up that’s why!
Gravenstone
@shortstop:
Hey, Xe has every right to make a buck, don’tchano.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Davis X. Machina: I agree. All these lumpy middle-aged dudes whose biggest achievements are all in Call of Duty on XBox can’t bear looking at their lives and what they’ve made of them.
Frank Chow
I’d like to know what reality Erickson believes he, and the rest of his lot, live?
The Populist
@Gravenstone:
Sarah thinks that anybody who took the time to write her and might have called her a bitch means they threatened her. You see if you disagree with Sister Sarah, you are a threat.
sukabi
@TR: omg, that’s sadly funny.
numbskull
@Alexandra:
Now let’s think about this. “Death threats have increased to an unprecedented level” implies that she previously got death threats. If that’s the case, they’d hardly just now be getting around to sorta mebbee talkin’ wit security professionals.
Christ, it’s not that they lie so much, it’s that their lies are so damned insulting to our intelligence.
The Populist
@Bulworth:
But Sarah can’t stand being out of the spotlight. The minute she took the bullseye map down it just showed the world she knew her critics had a point. Sister Sarah can’t have such things in her world so she does what any good GOP tard does: Obfuscate.
The Populist
@numbskull:
Interesting…isn’t Bristol MOVING to Arizona?
WereBear
Ewwwwwwwww. I now cannot help but think of it, so. Because you’re right.
Having walked among them during my formative years, I can assure everyone one that your basic Born Again is under incredible neurotic pressure. Essentially, if you are feeling pleasure, and you’re not in church, it’s the Devil.
What about getting married and finally having some lovin’? You gotta buck the odds; as a Known Sinner I was sought out by any number of Xantian about-to-be-newlyweds to get tips on enjoying their wedding night; experiencing a decade or more of “sex is evil” before finally getting permission creates a lot of conflicts. I hope I helped.
So the right winger often gets their imagination developed, but not in a good way. You don’t run the risk of your father’s friends from church catching you in a bit of sinning; but you can get caught in the basement of your own mind, needing to jolt up the ol’ adrenals with more and more juiced scenarios; not just sex, but love and family and life and even food.
My theory is this is why they are so enamored of blood and guts and wild heroic ridiculous scenarios (WOLVERINES!) this is their inner life.
Constantly under attack, constantly needing to defend themselves, constantly wishing for Jesus to come already and make all the torment stop.
sukabi
@JCT: The french philosopher on Colbert said Palin was a blackhole sucking up the oxygen.. or words to that effect.
numbskull
@MikeJ: You win the internets today!
morzer
@The Populist:
Yes, to participate in Wobbling with the Stars: Desert Storm II Elite Deluxe Platinum Ninja Power Ranger of Jeebus Edition.
kd bart
My money is on Tessio. He was always the smarter one.
The Populist
@WereBear:
Do right wingers even have imaginations? Seems to me they are color by numbers people (i.e. – they need it laid out in a drastic way in order to do something).
morzer
@The Populist:
Well, they managed to find Dubya statesmanlike, and they still believe in that ignorant old fraud Ronnie Raygun, so either they have massive imaginations, or they know where the good crack is to be found.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Violet: It was a terrific thing. There was no argument anyone could make to convince them she’s a fraud. Luckily, she did it for us!
numbskull
@danimal:
I honestly don’t know if that is true. Their sense of victimhood is so high, and their self-reflection so low, that from Bubba down at the bait shop all the way up to Weeper of the House Boner, I really don’t think they think their rhetoric unjustified.
They really are that out of touch with reality. It’s the strangest thing. People I deal with on a business level and a hobby level, people who span the spectrum of human endeavor, if they are “conservative”, they have completely, totally lost touch with reality. I guess the vast rightwing conspiracy is really paying off (though I know from direct experience it goes back to even before the Birchers).
They’re just wired differently. And not in a healthy way.
jinxtigr
Band name! “Caged Quail and the Bystanders” :)
OC
Beck needs to give his scriptwriters a bonus for that gem.
abscam
@Shock Trooper in the War on Christmas: Au contraire, I give you Damian Lewis, Martin Freeman, John Salthouse, Gordon Jackson and my personal life-long redhead crush, Terry O’Reilly.
Yes, I am that old.
sukabi
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: according to the mythology, there are stories from ancient greece that they thought when red-heads die they turn into vampires… so this is nothing new…
just shows people have been assholes for eons.
numbskull
@Violet: “Incredible!” “Incredible”
Hey, did I already say “Incredible”?
Yes, the death threats against Sarah! are incredible.
As in, not credible.
sukabi
@jinxtigr: now if you could only round up some guy named Lil DiC for the lead singer you’d have a kick-ass band.
numbskull
@soonergrunt: Sing it, bro.
Again, I suspect that, thankfully, some folks here don’t have to deal with these people daily.
They really, really are this wacko. Honestly.
And violent.
If you guys want to get a sense of what I’m whining about, rent the movie “Winter’s Bone.”
Barb (formerly Gex)
@numbskull: Insulting to *our* intelligence. But we’re not her audience.
WereBear
@The Populist: Good point: they don’t even make up their own fantasies. But that’s lack of practice.
Honestly, unless you have lived it, it’s hard to grasp just how gray and barren the landscape is. I feel that’s the main reason the Left Behind books were so popular; at last. some adventure and such they were allowed to read!
jinxtigr
@numbskull: But that’s what I’ve been saying over and over! The fact that they can’t really win a civil war doesn’t mean there’s not a danger. Call it a health hazard? Falling rocks and randomly murdering wingnuts? Again, I say watch very closely for any tipping points where large numbers of these assholes start shooting.
It would be so much more like America if we can avoid things getting to that point. If we get that, we basically have post-America to start dealing with, our own ‘Troubles’.
Nick
Oh Jesus, no one is going to kill Sarah Palin, she’s not worth the price of the bullet.
soonergrunt
@numbskull: Believe me, if there wasn’t a time when I had to read those sites, I wouldn’t go there.
Those people have a very active fantasy life, and that life usually involves people who don’t vote like them, and most especially don’t look like them, ending up dead by their hands and deserving it.
Mnemosyne
@abscam:
Martin Freeman? Are you sure? He looks blond to me.
I’m debating if Simon Pegg should take his place on that list. Hot Fuzz Simon Pegg yes, Shaun of the Dead Simon Pegg no.
soonergrunt
@WereBear: And those are absolutely horrible stories. Poorly written with wooden characters who have little to no actual relation to the people around them and no personalities.
I read the first three chapters of the first book and I watched the first movie and I came to the conclusion that the characters weren’t left behind because they weren’t righteous, they were left behind because they were boring, uninteresting people, and that what God should have done was suffocated them all with a giant trashbag.
Yurpean
We’re fascinated by Ms Palin here in Britain as well. Steve Bell, editorial cartoonist for the Guardian, produced a nice piece today:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cartoon/2011/jan/13/sarah-palin-blood-libel
WereBear
@soonergrunt: LOL! Yeah, too true. I couldn’t make it through the first one, at all.
Now I’m going to imagine a giant trash bag descending from the sky…
LanceThruster
I smell the ultimate false-flag; ditch the albatross – blame the opposition, sit back and reap the rewards (more belligerance and intimidation by wingnuts, embiggened by their new martyr, St. Sarah-Sarah).
This is what comes to mind when death comes to those I feel did grievous harm to their fellow human beings –
“I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with a lot of pleasure.” — Clarence Darrow (1857—1938), US lawyer.
Mnemosyne
@soonergrunt:
Do you read Slacktivist? He’s on a multi-year quest to dissect the Left Behind books, but they’re so chock-full of horrible theology that he’s only about halfway through the second one.
abscam
@Mnemosyne: Not positive on Martin, but with those lovely freckles? Simon’s okay by me.
Jay in Oregon
@Mnemosyne:
Slacktivist’s analysis of the LB series is the only way to truly enjoy those books.
de stijl
@Mike Kay:
I would pay elevnty billion dollars to see Gov. Palin have a Britney Spears style freak-out – shave her head and aggro out on a FOX News cameraman and start whaling away at him with an umbrella.
Wile E. Quixote
@abscam:
You should check out the BBC’s new production of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock. Freeman plays Dr. John Watson and he’s fantastic. His portrayal is very low-key, but the character is written as he was written by Arthur Conan Doyle, and not as he was played by Nigel Bruce, which is as an immensely competent man whose abilities complement those of Holmes.
Lysana
No hot male gingers? Have none of you been watching the Harry Potter movies? The Weasley family, for pity’s sake. The twins. Rupert Grint.
One petty irony about the redheaded Irish/Scotsman thing is they got a larger dose of the ginger from the Viking invaders than was already in the population.
As for Palin’s fantasies about death threats, she should be so lucky to get that level of attention.
Lysana
@jinxtigr:
So who would be invading the United States to take our land and change our religion and laws to get that process started?
Mnemosyne
@Jay in Oregon:
I think Fred Clark needs to talk to WereBear about how he can self-publish his “Left Behind” commentaries. I doubt a commercial publisher would touch them with a 10-foot pole, and no one in the Christian publishing world is going to risk pissing off LaHaye.
@Wile E. Quixote:
I actually feel like Freeman is a little better in that role than the scripts deserve. Without giving any spoilers, there was a moment in (I think) the second episode where Watson deserts someone who’s in danger for no apparent reason, and it made absolutely no sense for the character that Freeman had created to do that. But the script demanded it and apparently no one could think of a good rationale, so they did it anyway.
I was actually angry with the writers for letting Watson down and forcing him to do something that the character they had created would never do.
Southern Beale
@soonergrunt:
I couldn’t watch the movie but I did make it through the first three chapters of the first book. Then I decided life was too short to be wasted on crap like that. Truly awful. But ya know, Tim LaHaye just did the theology on these books, they were actually written by Jerry Jenkins.
What’s scary is that Tim LaHaye was (maybe still is?) so influential in conservative political circles. Co-founder of the CNP. He’s a wackjob who peddles in Illuminati conspiracy theories and took money from the Moonies.
numbskull
@Barb (formerly Gex): Point!
Liberty60
I seem to recall right after the 2008 election, someone made a videogame about Dictator Obama and the brave [white] resistance fighters.
Seems tailor made for the Erick Son Of Erick types.
Skepticat
I don’t wish any harm to Mrs. Palin, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, and their ilk. I do, however, fervently wish for their silence and departure from public view.
Rihilism
This just in –
Erik Erika Erikerikson: “You know some crazed NewsHour viewer is out there just waiting for the opportunity to bore poor Sarah to death…”
sukabi
@de stijl: best new reality show evah!
Barb (formerly Gex)
Ah, this is better in this thread than in the busted shoulder thread.
This is fucking scary.
But remember, both sides storm their opponents with an angry mob.
Barb (formerly Gex)
@Lysana: Maybe we can get Canada to adopt us. At least some of the states. I’m feeling we have a good shot here in Minnesota.
maya
Is that the same aide that came up with “survey symbols”?
abscam
@Wile E. Quixote: I watched it over and over at PBS. Am waiting in a tizzy for a new installment. Freeman and Cumberbatch together are TEH AWESOME!
PeakVT
An attempt on you could bring the republic down.
My dog that just so fucking stupid. I mean… WTF?
SFAW
What, “e to the u, du/dx ” is dirty? Who knew?
This from a guy whose (presumed) “college” only accepts legacies like
HitlerGeorge W. Bush. (Shit, now I’ll have the MoveOn Death Squads after me for trying to horn in on their action.)And a Harvard School of Engineering? What, was Poppy a model railroader? Or is it just because Harvies are experts at pulling train?
Lorna
Must really SUCK to be a progressive, especially now! It’s all coming apart…….all that work over the last 5 days and for what? Do you feel it slipping through your fingers….and you did try so hard.
SFAW
Keep whistling past that graveyard, Larry.
piratedan
@Lorna: yeah Lorna, we’re really pissed.
1) the guy who pulled the trigger is still in jail and still a disturbed young man
2) Palin’s atrocious website image with the targets is down and by that action alone, its a tacit admission that it was over the line
3) Roger Ailes told his Foxies to friggin stand down on the rhetoric and post Obama’s speech, most of them have
4) Congresswoman Giffords is making miraculous progress and her recovery and those folks and their courageous acts are being seen in an inspirational light
5) the “telegenic” leader of the Conservative movement has had her epic fail moment in attempting to justify her own outrage and implying her victimization transcends what took place on Saturday
6) Granted that Louie Gohmert is still a Congressman but you can’t have everything.
maus
@Lorna:
We do try so hard… to finance proper mental health resources that you fucking horrible monsters cut first.
SectarianSofa
It boggles my mind that anyone except a jealous Tea Bagger would want to knock off Palin. She’s a cartoon. Liberals don’t take her seriously. And, tactically speaking, she’s worth more to the cause as visible and lively as possible.
maus
@SectarianSofa:
That’s the thing, she has more to worry about from her rabid fans not seeing her as conservative enough, or a tool of the reptilians, etc.
Lorna
@SectarianSofa: Oh, but you do take her seriously or you wouldn’t devote so much time and effort to her. Look at how many posts are about her. You are all so intellectually dishonest, such hypocrites. =-)
A Humble Lurker
@Lorna:
Dude, millions of people know of, and speak of Spongebob. That don’t mean people go deep sea diving expecting to find pineapples under the sea.
bob h
It sure sounds like they’re hoping some attack will be made, whether because they fantasize about being victims or because they think it would be exciting to see if “the republic” would be brought down, I can’t say.
It would be excellent for ratings and speaking fees, we can be sure.
Draylon Hogg
@368
Hot damn that’s my scuba diving holiday ruined!
soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: I read that on and off. I couldn’t remember the site.
soonergrunt
@Lorna: what color is the sky in your world?
I suspect that engaging with you would exactly be like trying to teach a donkey to tapdance.
At the end of it, I’d just be frustrated, having wasted several hours, and you’d still be a stupid, stubborn, smelly jackass.
Draylon Hogg
@372
It’s the colour of Jesus hair.
A beautiful golden yellow.
Pongo
This is not possible, as rhetoric doesn’t lead to violence. If she is, heaven forbid, ever the target of an attack it will just be the act of a lone mad man. Right?
I’m having trouble keeping this straight.
Tonal Crow
Isn’t Beck telling us that his followers are so mentally unstable that they present a clear and present danger of violent insurrection?
goatchowder
Republican projection, again.
It is so predictable. They always, always, accuse Democrats of wanting or trying to do some outlandish thing that they, the Republicans, have been doing, successfully, with huge impact, for years or decades.