From Sarah Palin’s facebook page:
FOX News’ Glenn Beck is doing an extraordinary job this week walking America behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and outlining who is actually running the White House.
Monday night he asked us to invite one friend to watch; tonight I invite all my friends to watch.
I’m beginning to think that she has a chance to be the Republican nominee in 2012. I’m also beginning to think that the 2012 Republican primary might be the most disturbing political event to happen in the western world since World War II. As an observer, I can hardly wait.
(h/t rumproast)
Update. This is a pretty good summary of the Republican 2012 primary:
I do think the most likely scenario, though, as said before, is that Romney will win because the Whackadoodle vote will be split. Romney will be the new McCain. And of course, nobody actually likes Romney and his vast hollow wasteland he calls a soul, just like people don’t like McCain, but he’ll win a plurality on the basis of being somehow less batshit insane than the other guys. Which is not to say that Republican primary voters are not batshit insane, it’s just that their votes are split on the precise form the insanity takes. If you could consolidate the batshit insane candidates and pool their votes, that monstrosity would win instead.
Hunter Gathers
She will be the nominee. She’ll run as George Wallace in a skirt.
JimPortlandOR
Coming thru the checkout at the market, I noticed one of the tabloids saying Sarah has had a nervous breakdown and the divorce is real.
Her press spokesperson is prolly writing her facebooks stuff.
Mr Furious
Whether she survives the primary or not remains to be seen, but I have no doubt she’s running, and a good chunk of the GOP will support her…
Comrade Darkness
outlining who is actually running the White House.
Wait . . . Dick Cheney is still running the White House??
DougJ
Coming thru the checkout at the market, I noticed one of the tabloids saying Sarah has had a nervous breakdown and the divorce is real.
Kaus would call me irresponsible, but I prefer not to speculate about politicians’ personal lives.
Fencedude
@DougJ:
Does Palin currently qualify as a politician?
Comrade Darkness
@Mr Furious: but I have no doubt she’s running
Oh please. Oh please. If so I may have to start believing in God. Or, at least Gog.
Sloth
I’m willing to bet a chart of Obama campaign donations by day would show a fantastic correlation between “Sarah Palin Speaks” and “Money Floods In”.
Probably still true to this day.
BFR
I’m beginning to think that she has a chance to be the Republican nominee in 2012.
I wouldn’t rule out Dick Cheney either. He’d be in his early 70s by that time but it wouldn’t shock me if he enters the race (if he maintains his health). He’s been way too high-profile for me to think anything else.
ricky
Compare her views and comments on health care to these:
“Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.”
Think she cannot get the nomination?
Crashman06
I don’t know, DougJ. I was having fun watching the insanity going on right now, but it’s gotten to real and creepy for me. Not sure I will be able to withstand the distillery of insanity that the ’12 primary will wind up being.
eric
I was assuming that Obama was going to run as the GOP nominee in 2012 given how he has already failed as the democrat president /off
eric
Cat Lady
Romney will be the nominee, because if Hannity and Palin are both in, they’ll split the whackadoodles and the Wall Street oligarchs will get their guy.
KG
2012 is an interesting case study right now. If Cheney enters the race, he will win, if only because “it’s his turn.” To a great extent, this is how the GOP primary works, the voters look at the candidates and say, “yup, it’s his turn.” That’s how Nixon got the nomination in ’60 and ’68, how Reagan got it in ’80, Bush I got it in ’88, Dole in ’96 and McCain this year. The only outlier was 2000, when there wasn’t anyone who had an established enough track record for it to be deemed their turn.
If Cheney doesn’t get in (and for the good of the Republic, I hope he doesn’t), then I’m not sure who you can peg as being the person whose turn it is. I’d handicap Romney as a decent favorite if he would just decide to be himself rather than the panderbot he was in ’08. Huckabee is also a possible favorite. I just don’t see Palin being a favorite, she hasn’t put in the time yet. So unless everyone gets out of her way (a la Bush in 2000), I just don’t see it happening.
Napoleon
A Palin candidacy would be an epic train wreck that will haunt the Republican party for 20 to 40 years. As bad as some people think McGovern was, Palin being their nominee would have been like the Dems running Abbie Hoffman in 72.
KG
@Cat Lady: wait, Hannity is running? Oh, that’ll be too much fun.
SpotWeld
The GOP is turning into one of those wierd silver-age bad guy organizations.
Undead zombie Reagan… it’s only a matter of time
geg6
@Cat Lady:
How evil am I that I am cheering on the idea of a Hannity/Palin ticket to all my wingnut friends?
Karen
She may have already signed a deal with Fox and is speaking up for Beck as a colleague.
Brick Oven Bill
I agree with Sarah Palin on this one and think that Glenn Beck is doing an excellent job. Sarah is a credit to her gender.
Beck is a fighter, his ratings are increasing, and it is a mistake for the Left to try to shut him up. It only validates his point-of-view, and makes him more powerful. In this manner, Beck really is like Obi Wan Kenobi.
The Wall Street oligarchs already have their guy.
El Cid
If it so happens that the Senate Democratic insurance lobby gets their way and somehow Democrats decide to ruin a decent health care reform in favor of a deregulatory insurance company giveaway which screws the insured with higher expenses, bankrupting deductibles, and mandated participation — something I think is avoidable but just barely if we raise godawful amounts of hell — then, Republican lunacy be damned: you’ll see a popular anti-Democrat reaction recently undreamt of by GOP vampires.
If that happens, and we let it, then President Palin, hell, President Beck, won’t be impossible. My guess, though, would be that such a time would be ripe for the re-emergence of some slightly less unstable yet much more dangerous hard right wing Republicans.
chopper
gotta bump his ratings back up somehow. what he really needs from palin is some new sponsors.
Cat Lady
@KG:
According to WorldNutDaily, FWIW. I won’t link.
Midnight Marauder
@Fencedude:
Does Palin currently qualify as a politician?
In this day and age, she sadly does.
DonnaInMichigan
Wow, apparently Beck is so hard up for ratings to his show, that he has to have Sarah Palin, promoting his show for him?
Sad day in Beck-land.
BTW, how many advertisers have ditched his show? 36 and counting.
Fox even made him take a vaca, until things “cooled” down.
BTW the Wasilla-Quitter-Twitterer, will probably try a run, but quit about 14 months into it. That’s her pattern. When the going gets tough for her, she runs…in the other direction.
Buffalopundit
Sarah Palin’s Facebook pronouncements are to contemporary political thought as the words “shit stain” scrawled in the medium of shit on the interior wall of a bathroom stall are to great American literature.
KG
In no manner is Beck like Obi Wan Kenobi. Jar Jar Binks, possibly. But not Obi Wan Kenobi. Never, in no way, and under no circumstances. Beck allows his emotions to dominate, that is not the Jedi way.
/Star Wars nerd
Michael
A Cheney nomination is a terrifying thought for those of us concerned about Obama’s personal safety – that would unleash some genuinely spooky right wing forces.
A Palin run, on the other hand, only brings the Keystone Kops Korps, which would be laughably inept at political violence.
Joe Lisboa
In this manner, Beck really is like Obi Wan Kenobi.
If by this you mean a fictional character, then you are correct sir.
freelancer
@Midnight Marauder:
My dad, too, has a Facebook account, at 51, this makes him more than qualified to be the GOP front-runner.
JHF
Hard to argue with THAT. And we’ve only had the first round of bailouts.
Deborah
It will be especially weird if the GOP primary is carried out on twitter and facebook. I know the crazy leg of the coalition is into these things, but what about the old people leg? Those are the only groups not abandoning the GOP for independents.
Does anyone know who is secretly running the White House? I guess this is the thing for September, having run through the birther hysteria and the death panel hysteria? (My first guess is Rahm on behalf of the Jews.)
El Cid, as exasperating as I find the Dems in power the GOP has to offer something that is not terrifyingly crazy. If the Dems can point to a little progress and the Reps to the powerhouse team of Bachmann, Palin, and Beck, then enough will turn out to vote.
Calouste
@KG:
You forgot the Newt. He thinks he is the man who’s turn it is, although he is probably the only one.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@El Cid:
This.
The Blue Dogs screwing around with HRC in the Senate are playing with the future of their party and the direction of the nation over the next decade like a bunch of 14 yr old boys tossing around cherry bombs on the 4th of July. Only those aren’t cherry bombs – and it’s all fun-n-games until somebody has a limb blown clean off.
Mike G
I’m beginning to think that she has a chance to be the Republican nominee in 2012.
And if elected, to quit in July 2014.
Dreggas
so in other words the Glen beck show was replaced with an episode from the simpsons?
Maus
“Sarah is a credit to her gender.”
I refuse to believe BOB is a real person. People don’t really think this way, do they?
freelancer
@Maus:
Yes, but the giveaway is that BOB can type.
Andrei
@Brick Oven Bill:
It’s been a long time coming, but I think if Cole started making t-shirts with the slogans of its commenters, he make a enough money for retirement within six months.
Kyle
What about the old people leg? Those are the only groups not abandoning the GOP for independents.
The GOP is relying on the mentally-sclerotic old whose conception of the GOP hasn’t kept up as it has descended into batshit.
They remind me of the old people in the 1970s who kept buying Cadillacs thinking they were the ‘Standard of the World’ (as they arguably used to be in the 1950s), even as the product turned into overpriced junky rebadged Chevys.
Old Mayfly
Is Newt’s third wife pretty enough to be first lady? Newt told his first wife that she wasn’t.
Cat Lady
Palin would only appeal to the dumbest of the base. Cheney appeals to the authoritarians, of which there are a much greater number. A lot more people would like having Big Daddy in charge than Dumb Bunny in charge. A lot. The Dems need to deliver, and they need to do it in this Obama term, or Cheney is a real possibility, as is Romney. Imagine the MSM covering an Obama/Cheney race. Just fucking kill me now.
Sue
Gotta get through the midterms first, folks. If, in 2010, a conservative backlash is accompanied by a whole lot of liberals/progressives sitting this one out – because if we can’t get things done with Obama, what’s the point? – you’ll find the political landscape changed enough to bring Sarah back as a frighteningly viable candidate.
me
Asking Sarah Palin followers to watch Glenn Beck? Talk about low hanging fruit.
Common Sense
Seriously, I think a few well placed trolls could spread a rumor on the right that Obama killed Kennedy, as well as his grandma, for political gain. I mean, Obama goes to Hawaii and grandma dies a week later. Obama goes to Massachusetts and Kennedy dies soon after. What more proof would they need?
Robertdsc-iphone
She’s a beautiful embarrassment.
me
So, he’s going to claim to return to be more powerful then we can imagine, but when he comes back he’ll spend his time shooting the shit with a short green troll?
freelancer
@Common Sense:
Mind-meld
Econwatcher
No one on this site should wish her to be the Republican nominee. A nominee of either of the two major parties always has a chance to win, if the right chain of events occurs at the right time.
What if there were a major terrorist attack a month before the election, and the Palin folks came up with some semi-plausible way of blaming it on Obama’s allegedly “soft” approach to terrorism? What if they were aided and abetted by wingnuts in the intelligence community or the military, who leaked some disinformation shortly before the election, which could not effectively be dispelled in time?
Don’t pretend she couldn’t win. Don’t kid yourself. W won twice.
smiley
@Deborah: Benen has the clip:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_08/019652.php
Max
Somehow I doubt Beck has the connections to get “behind the scenes” at a White Castle, let alone the White House. Hell, Obama doesn’t even call on Fox in the pressers and has not done anything Fox-related since the inauguration. To say nothing of how he openly mocks them, see his last townhall.
GReynoldsCT00
@Maus:
Some people do and I find it an insult to women. She can’t even speak in complete sentences… no class whatsover
Zifnab
DougJ, there’s not enough popcorn in the world.
I enjoyed the everliving hell out of last year’s GOP debates.
cleek
then the obvious solution is… Palin/Cheney 2012 !
on the other hand, Jon Stewart is probably rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of Palin getting a full-time TV gig.
Tonal Crow
Anyone else has a chance?
4tehlulz
>Beck really is like Obi Wan Kenobi.
A fictional character?
dermotjm
I agree that the 2012 GOP primaries will be both disturbing and fascinating.
And, unlike past GOP conventions, I don’t think there’ll be a huge effort to showcase minorities.
I think it’ll be more like a Leni Riefenstahl production.
JK
Sarah Palin is the most virulent and malignant cancer within the Republican Party and Glenn Beck is valiantly competing against Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh to become the most virulent and malignant cancer among radio and tv talk show hosts.
Chris from Maine
Palin/Beck 2012.
Lets make it happen.
The 2012 Republican primary is so scary that I dare not even contemplate it. Imagine the convention…
Elie
Sue and others…
Its already ocurring. I encourage all here to pay attention to local races and primaries even right now. We have important County races — (primaries) that have been pretty tight or in favor of right wingers. Not important, you say? In our County in northern WA., the creeps getting the votes would rescind a whole lot of environmental initiatives for clean water and other things that have been promulgated over the last 5 – 10 years. We have some VERY right winged/libertarian types up here and they are highly energized right now..
I am working for our candidates but across our country, please pay attention in your own areas. We cannot rest or take this for granted and sadly, much of the emotional debate on healthcare and other issues are spilling over into this.
Thanks!
freelancer
The Juice is going through some spasms. Is Admin about to post again?
Brick Oven Bill
There are essentially two coherent voices for the Constitution today, the New York Times #1 bestseller Glenn Beck and Ron Paul, and the two appear to be on friendly terms. Both have organized followings who do not need to be given cigarettes to show up and participate in events.
There is a chance that Glenn Beck could be the leader of this country. I put the odds at two in five. His Rochester Group is now 628 members and growing, twenty new members in the last week alone. This does not include the people who do not wish to have an Internet presence. People are being drawn to the Constitution.
You cannot stop Glenn Beck. Resistance only makes him more powerful. The Force is the Constitution, which, when you think about it, is a function of biology. This is why some get goose-bumps when the national anthem is played.
Goose-bumps trump cigarettes every time.
ChrisB
I suppose things have gotten crazy enough to consider if Palin could win the Republican nomination.
Well, lots of Republican primaries are winner take all (it’s how McCain won) so if she gets all the crazies and other candidates split the rest of the vote . . . .
“. . . . the great state of ________ proudly casts all _____ of its votes for the next President of the United States, . . . .”
Zifnab
@Tonal Crow: Wasn’t “None of the Above” leading the pack back in ’08?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Brick Oven Bill:
BOB, I’m afraid I have some bad new for you, in fact you might want to sit down for this.
One, you aren’t Luke Skywalker’s avatar. In fact, you aren’t even a Jedi. Jedi are fictional characters in a movie series. Two, those voices that you keep hearing in your head, that’s not Glenn Beck speaking to you. Three, there are some nice men from the FBI waiting outside and they’d like to have a word or two with you about this “brick oven” of yours. Oh, look, here comes the backhoe now. They are going to starting digging now, I think.
BOB? BOB? Helloooo, BOB?
Zifnab
@Brick Oven Bill:
Essentially? Coherent? Those are some big words, BoB. Sure you don’t want to back it up and bit and stay within your own reading level? I’m not sure if you’ve learned what these words mean yet.
JK
@BFR: @Cat Lady: @Michael:
Dick Cheney can never be a viable candidate because of his heart problems. There’s no way in hell, his medical condition would not emerge as a serious issue. I realize it wasn’t a serious issue in 2004, but we’re talking EIGHT years later – this is a big deal for someone with a history of heart trouble.
@Fencedude:
Palin qualifies as a knuckle dragging, neanderthal politician.
JGabriel
ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Fourth, Obi Wan Kenobi really wasn’t more powerful after he was struck down. Kenobi just became a ghost who sadly muttered useless platitudes like “Use the force, Luke!” or “C’mon, Yoda, give Luke a chance!”
Kind of pathetic, really. When you think about it.
.
Michael
Shit, they’d perpetrate it and claim it was done by “them goldurn terr’ists aided by evil neegroze ‘coz Obama was soft”.
See Fire, Reichstag.
General Winfield Stuck
Palin/Beck?
Palin/Norris?
Palin/Nugent?
Palin/Badenov?
Palin?Dobbs?
cleek
ah shit!
the BJ HTML has changed… and now my pie filter has stopped working!
i’ll try to get it working again later tonight.
Midnight Marauder
@Brick Oven Bill:
Again, I’m curious, so I’ll bite.
What are you attempting to accomplish with your posts here again?
Sue
I know it because I live it, Elie @ 60. Dems can’t get elected in my county in SE Wisconsin, and my local representative recently sent out a newsletter discussing the loss of our freedoms, using a fake pie chart to illustrate. Not fake as in made-up-numbers, – in fact there were no numbers at all – fake as in he just drew a pie chart and put a big slice in to represent all the lost freedoms. 2010 is going to be nastier than 2012, in my opinion, because the races are closer to home, and home is still a lunatic asylum in too many places.
JK
@General Winfield Stuck:
Palin/Bachmann 2012
Possible Slogans
The Dimmer Twins
Dumb and Dumber
Dumbness Squared
Ignorance is Strength
KG
@Calouste: forgot, ignored, six of one, half dozen of the other.
used to be disgusted
@BOB:
Yes, when you come to think of it, the Constitution *is* a function of Biology.
But I think it’s wrong to say that Beck’s odds of becoming President are 2-in-5. Like Kenobi, Beck will recede into the background, in order to allow one of his disciples to become President. This is why I’m placing all my money on Palin.
After all, Palin is to Beck as Luke Skywalker is to Obi-Wan.
But I wonder whether you also agree with me that
Beck : O’Reilly :: Obi-Wan : Anakin Skywalker ?
Bulworth
@Max:
LMAO
Palin Porn
Sadly, she won’t run.
She’s too thin skinned and lazy.
Sploosh
Seriously, is Sarah Palin actually any dumber than George Bush, who was elected[-ish] twice? I don’t really think so.
cleek
Palin as President?
she has a national approval rating of less than 40%.
Deborah
@smiley:
Aha! Beck has a chart. Can’t be crazy if you have a chart or graph to point to.
As a commenter at PA notes, promoting Beck on Facebook is the important work being governor of Alaska kept her from doing?
jibeaux
@Sue:
Ooh, is that online anywhere? I’d like to know the exact percentage of the Second Amendment he thinks we’ve lost. Or maybe if there’s no numbers at least an estimate based on the size of the pie. I know that you didn’t say your local representative was a guy. I’m just making sort of an educated guess about that.
used to be disgusted
I’m taking for granted, of course, that Colbert = Darth Sidious.
General Winfield Stuck
@cleek:
Yes, But wait till they see her perform as Annie Oakley on The Rub- Rub- Rubber Chicken Circuit.. Minds will be changed. You Betcha! Also.
d-man
BOB is one of the best spoofs this site has had in a while. Keep it up.
Tonal Crow
@Brick Oven Bill:
On the public stage, there is really only one coherent voice for the Constitution: the ACLU. But there are zillions of trolls that claim to be all for the Constitution while working tirelessly to ensure that the State can search and seize whenever it wants, imprison citizens indefinitely without charges, jail us for exercising our 1st Amendment rights or for smoking a joint, and brutalize us during arrest, in jail, and in prison.
jibeaux
@cleek:
Well, yeah, but I’m not sure Cheney’s ever hit the double digits. There are more people who believe in alien anal probes than believe Dick Cheney was a good leader. It’s all relative.
I do think the most likely scenario, though, as said before, is that Romney will win because the Whackadoodle vote will be split. Romney will be the new McCain. And of course, nobody actually likes Romney and his vast hollow wasteland he calls a soul, just like people don’t like McCain, but he’ll win a plurality on the basis of being somehow less batshit insane than the other guys. Which is not to say that Republican primary voters are not batshit insane, it’s just that their votes are split on the precise form the insanity takes. If you could consolidate the batshit insane candidates and pool their votes, that monstrosity would win instead.
joes527
@cleek: Favorable: 39.3%
That is some scary shit. Well over 1/3 of the country is outright insane. Bunch them up in the right winner-take-all states and they could do serious damage to the fabric of space-time.
cmorenc
On a cautionary note: I seem to remember back in the early pre-primary runup to the 1980 election how gleeful Democrats were regarding the notion that Ronald Reagan just *might* have some plausible chance to win the GOP nomination. He seemed like such a good bet to be the type of extreme right-winger who could appeal to a big segment of the GOP base, but with just enough nuttiness to scare the bejeesus out of the general electorate (with a little help from his “friends” on the Democratic side of the aisle) – that for all the problems that were piling up with the economy, Iran, etc, and Carter’s lukewarm public approval numbers, the Democrats had a really good chance to keep the White House in 1980. The thinking went, we’d be in deep trouble if a solid, respectable moderate such as George Bush (Sr) was the nominee, but that Reagan was nearly as much of a loose-mouthed wild card as Sarah Palin is regarded today, and a former B-movie actor (who’d appeared in such gems as “Bedtime for Bonzo”) rather than moose-hunter. He did OTOH have going for him having been the two-term Governor of California, but that was back in a period when the type of wingers who could most easily be found in Orange County and San Diego were the dominant force in Cal state politics, rather than moderate and leftist democrats.
And look what happened when Reagan was able to surf the wave of public unease about the status quo, and use his one debate with Carter to such devastating advantage with reassuring one-liners e.g. “There You Go Again” seemed to take care of the potential risk of putting the nuclear trigger in Reagan’s hands with enough of the public. Also, it may be a bit tacky to note this bit of history on THIS particular sad day for a genuine giant of the Senate, but back in 1980 the democrat who gave Reagan a bit of perverse “help” was Ted Kennedy by running against Carter in the primaries. Fortunately, Kennedy’s done such a mountain of positive good since that he can perhaps be forgiven that immensely counterproductive faux pas.
Deborah
Comment 61 followed by Comment 62 is just wrong.
@cleek:
But does the base care? Cheney is more daunting, but those who argue that anyone who gets the major party nod had a serious chance to be president are right. And after a brief flirtation with the idea of attracting minorities with fiscal restraint the GOP has just been doubling down on crazy.
RememberNovember
Nuremburg Rally? Or Argentine Mob?
Evita Palin?
As for the Reagan syllogism…it stops there. Reagan had brains and knew policy.
cleek
@joes527:
39% and, to a first approximation, the first derivative has a negative slope.
ie. she keeps getting less and less popular.
Napoleon
@JK:
How about “America’s first MILF ticket”?
Sue
jibeaux, his website doesn’t have any newsletters more current than 2007, for some reason. I wish I had saved the newsletter, I could have quoted some of the article, which seemed directed at children (“now if you look at this [non-percentaged] chart, you will see that…”). He’s an embarrassment, and a popular guy around here.
MikeJ
Reagan who? Certainly not Ronald Reagan.
sbjules
I am trying to picture Glenn Beck “walking” America. Does America have a leash with rhinestones? Does the President know that Beck is walking America behind him?
flukebucket
People are being drawn to the Constitution.
Now folks, that’s entertainment.
Kelly
Damn!
coherent.
1 a : logically or aesthetically ordered or integrated : consistent b : having clarity or intelligibility : understandable
2 a: not necessarily any of the above, but nevertheless somehow compatible with the egocentric and peculiar world of Brickhouse Bill:
Rick Massimo
MILF? Moron I’d Like to Forget?
I just want to continue to point out that, absent some new scandal, it looks like SarahPalin really did resign as the actual governor of an actual state because such a lofty position implied etiquette restrictions on what she could put on her Facebook page.
She actually quit as governor of one of the United States so that she could type “who’s really running the White House” on Facebook.
But she’s very Serious!
Zifnab
@Napoleon: You want to knock boots with a pair of fifty year old women that insist on screaming “Ah hates darkies, towelheads, and the lie-brul MSM!” as they climax, you go right on ahead.
I will keep my pecker at a safe distance from both of those psycho hags, thank you very much.
Now if you want to run the Kucinich’s Wife / Thompson’s Wife ticket for President, and we’ll talk.
JK
@Napoleon:
Great suggestion, thanks for passing it along.
The Raven
Sarah Palin, (cue comic book font) Barbarian Hero! People identify with her story about herself, and that makes her charismatic. And she seems utterly amoral and egotistical. I agree, she could make it. That narcissism could make a truly monstrous leader.
I’ve written quite a bit about her since she appears on the national scene. Here are some bits that I think are most relevant:
Indylib
@Sue:
SE Wisconsin? Are you unfortunate enough to be represented by Paul Ryan by any chance?
Indylib
@Sue:
SE Wisconsin? Are you unfortunate enough to be represented by Paul Ryan by any chance?
Brick Oven Bill
In no manner have I ever considered myself to be Luke Skywalker’s avatar. Although I do relate with the Russian Chief Engineer onboard the Red October, the one with the discerning eye, smoking the cigarette when the Dallas crew boarded her.
In any case, I have no TV, and am now inspired to check out the broadcast, which is on a TV downtown in half an hour. You are all invited to join Sarah and me in enjoying the metaphysical, binding, and ubiquitous power that is Glenn Beck.
celticdragon
Kind of like a game of Brockian Ultra-Cricket…
http://www.earthstar.co.uk/cricket.htm
Rule One:
Grow at least three extra legs. You won’t need them, but it keeps the crowds amused.
Rule Two:
Find one good Brockian Ultra-Cricket player and clone him off a few times. This saves an enormous amount of tedious selection and training.
Rule Three:
Put your team and the opposing team in a large field and build a high wall round them.
The reason for this is that, though the game is a major spectator sport, the frustration experienced by the audience at not actually being able to see what’s going on leads them to imagine that it’s a lot more exciting than it actually is. A crowd that has just watched a rather humdrum game experiences far less life-affirmation than a crowd that believes it has just missed the most dramatic event in sporting history.
Rule Four:
Throw lots of assorted items of sporting equipment over the walls for the players. Anything will do – cricket bats, basecube bats, tennis guns, skis, anything you can get a good swing with.
Rule five:
The players should now lay about themselves for all they are worth with whatever they find to hand. Whenever a player scores a ‘hit’ on another player, he should immediately run away and apologize from a safe distance.
Apologies should be concise, sincere and, for maximum clarity and points, delivered through a megaphone.
Rule Six:
The winning team shall be the first team that wins.
Curiously enough, the more the obsession with the game grows in the higher dimensions, the less it is actually played, since most of the competing teams are now in a state of permanent warfare with each other over the interpretation of these rules. This is all for the best, because in the long run a good solid war is less psychologically damaging than protacted game of Brockian Ultra-Cricket
Napoleon
@Zifnab:
Well the 50 year old part doesn’t bother me since that is around my age, but the second either of them said anything it would be hard to maintain interest.
And your right, Kucinich’s Wife and Thompson’s Wife would be a whole differant story.
Yinzer
I dunno, I just can’t bring myself to believe that Palin can fight city hall here. The GOP Powers That Be are pretty strict about being “next in line.” Just look at John McCain – loathed by evangelicals, hated by Southerners, detested by big business for the McCain-Feingold Law, distrusted by movement Conservatives, and to top it off, someone who ran his campaign six feet into the ground in mid-2007. I never thought the GOP would nominate him in a million years, but this is exactly what happened – JUST BECAUSE he was NEXT IN LINE. So don’t tell me that the evangelicals will never vote for the Mormon, because it doesn’t matter (the little fact that Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich, Pawlenty, Jindal, Barbour and maybe Santorum will be splitting that evangelical vote into itty-bitty pieces is also an important factor). Romney’s next in line, Romney’s the next nominee, you can take it to the bank. If it makes the Palinistas feel any better, she’ll probably be Romney’s running mate – she can be the William Jennings Bryan of the Vice-Presidency! Unless Romney chooses Bachmann – who is Palinesque and yet has never randomly resigned from office.
Sentient Puddle
Er…you guys realize that BoB pretty blatantly stole that like from Erick Erickson, right?
DS
In all seriousness, these are the people who may run in 2012: Palin, Santorum, flip-flop Mit, Huckabee, Pence, Cantor. I mean, how do you even choose between these people? Remember when 60% of the Republican field was crazy as shit and one or two people would be moderately sane or at least pretend to be sane?
JK
Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, and the other Republicans on stage would rip Sarah Palin to shreds in any Republican Presidential debate. Palin has less substance than cotton candy. In a debate with 4 or 5 Republican opponents, Palin wouldn’t be able to duck and dodge tough questions the way she did with Joe Biden.
celticdragon
BOB
Uh…if you are talking about metaphysically binding with Glenn Beck, then you need a serious counseling session with Shirley MacClaine…
Cat Lady
@JK:
Since Cheney clearly doesn’t have a heart, I think Palin/Cheney is definitely a possibility, and a wet dream for the wetsuit wearing thumbsuckers. Also.
Zifnab
@MikeJ: Reagen knew policy. He might have been a right wing goon more interested in sucking corporate cock than representing his constituencies, but he knew what the issues of the day were and how to press all the hot button issues.
No one since Nixon could take an under-educated but well meaning middle class white male and turn him into a frothing xenophobic anti-liberal zealot. He was a first rate demagogue.
The distance between Ronald Reagen and Sarah Palin is absolutely massive.
RememberNovember
@MikeJ:
Aw ease up on Ronnie Raygun, I liked him. Of course we all knew Al Haig was the real brains of the outfit.
You can’t honestly equate RR with an atavistic opportunist like Palin.
Indylib
Grrrr! sorry for the double post. When do we get edit back again?
freelancer
@d-man:
I’m of the opinion that BOB’s not so much a spoof as he is schizophrenic. The word salad linguistic tendencies, the stream of consciousness rants about microwaving food, and the non-sequitur racism just peg him squarely as a centrist Wingnut.
celticdragon
Oh yes she would. She would just wink and show a little leg to the camera, and all the Andy MacCarthys of the right wing would be ejaculating on their tv screens.
kay
@Palin Porn:
I agree. She won’t run because she’s think-skinned and lazy.
It’s hard to be a governor right now. A lot of them are unpopular. They’re broke, and they all have to make hard choices, and try to raise revenue.
Alaska was probably fun to manage when oil revenues were pouring in, and she was handing out checks.
When it got difficult, and her poll numbers dove, she quit. She picks fights with local bloggers, for God’s sake. She think “governor vs blogger” is a BRUISING battle, and (amazingly) she freaking LOST that one. They drove her out of office. She ran away.
wasabi gasp
I don’t see how a fool hawking a fool has anything to do with getting closer to the presidency. But, if it does, then my vote goes to Palin for the sooner to get this country over with.
I’d prefer to see this scenario happen in a America is Totally Fucking Stupid SIM, but, fuck it, America deserves better than silly games.
Kelly
@ Brick Oven Bill:
Er, that would be the crew of the Dallas, not the Dallas crew. We’re known more for our football teams than our submarine crews.
BTW – Sometimes cigarettes give me goosebumps. Do you think they’re biological or constitutional in origin?
Sue
Indylib, no the guy I was talking about is my local representative. My US representative is… SENSENBRENNER!
Anne Laurie
@KG:
Even if Cheney’s health permits him to run, his warm & compelling personality is not the stuff political advisors’ dreams are made of, and a certain percentage of voters loathe him to a degree unequalled since the death of Richard Nixon.
Willard Romney cannot “decide to be himself rather than the panderbot he was in ’08” because, from all reports and my personal experience as a Massachusetts citizen during his gubernorshiftless, a Panderbot is the best that Willard can aspire to be. His natural instincts are in favor of torturing the family dog in front of his traumatized children, or announcing that his “beloved” wife’s health matters less than his own political ambitions — and then bragging about it to the media. Even the people who worked for Romney seem to agree that if the man isn’t actually a clinical sociopath, he’s got an incurable penchant for playing one on tv.
Huckabee and Palin, if either one decides to run in 2012, will immediately split the Talibangelical / Rapture-Ready voting bloc. If our beleagured nation is very fortunate, the ensuing shitestorm of dirty tricks and embarrassing personal details “leaked” to a fascinated MSM may reach such proportions that the Christianists will retreat into their pre-Reagan render-unto-Caesar gated communities and give up on voting altogether.
If Palin does run, as opposed to just collecting ‘love offerings’ and PAC-donations from her adoring fans, her separated-at-pupation twin Newt Gingrich will feel it incumbent upon his honor to drop his cushy I’m-the-white-Al-Sharpton Resentment Tour and declare his own eligibility. And if Newt is an official candidate, every Republican currently in Congress who’s ever made the front page of the DC newspapers — if only for getting mugged while cruising, er, sightseeing — will be compelled to offer their services to America’s Heartland(tm). There will be a veritable piranha-orgy as Boehner, Cantor, Bachmann, Grassley, and a selection of rookies to be named later waiver between the embedded-tick security of their seats and the egomanical dreams of national glory. Even Michael Steele may mount an exploratory committee, possibly in tandem with George ‘Maccacca’ Allen.
You’re quite correct in saying that there is no “natural” inheritor of the time-honored Republican It’s-Their-Turn mantle for 2012. The last two times this happened, the GOP threw up Bob Dole and then John McCain, and the voting public threw them both right back again. It will be interesting to watch, as long as the anti-nausea medications keep working.
freelancer
@Kelly:
Don’t even try to bring the crazy. Not with BOB.
The Raven
“metaphysical, binding, and ubiquitous power that is Glenn Beck.”
“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Beck R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn?”
Kelly
@freelancer
I know, but sometimes I just talk to myself for the hell of it.
However, I do appreciate the reminder.
tripletee
@celticdragon:
There’s nothing meta about how BoB wants to physically bind with Glenn Beck. The only question is who’s pitching and who’s catching.
Indylib
@Sue:
Oh, geez, you’re up there in the Wisconsin equivalent of wingnutopia.
My condolences. Ryan is a twit, but my State Senator (Pleasant Prairie) is a Dem and so is my State Assemblymen
JGabriel
@Sploosh:
Palin is definitely more poorly educated than Bush. And yes, she probably is dumber. Granted, Bush was no genius, but he probably had an IQ in the 110-125 range. Palin’s IQ appears to be more in the 95-110 range.
.
drillfork
@Andrei:
And what ever goes on the front of the shirt, on the back says only:
“Also. Too.”
BFR
and a certain percentage of voters loathe him to a degree unequalled since the death of Richard Nixon.
Within the GOP though? I thought he’s still pretty popular with the base.
Ash Can
@cmorenc: Thanks for that little stroll down memory lane. I think I’ll go fix myself a double martini now.
geg6
@MikeJ:
“Reagan who? Certainly not Ronald Reagan.”
Seriously. He had a brain full of Swiss cheese long before the Altzheimers took what little there was to begin with.
Wile E. Quixote
@jibeaux
I’d love to see Romney and Huckabee become the candidates for 2012. It would be a perfect opportunity to ratfuck the two of them and the Republican party by dredging up all of the hatred that evangelicals have for Mormons, who they believe are doomed to burn in Hell for adding extra stuff to the Bible (I have had more than one evangelical tell me this, apparently there is some passage in Revelations that prohibits any sequels to the Bible, and the Book of Mormon is regarded as very much of an unauthorized sequel). I’d love to see the evangelicals and the Mormons going at it. My money would be on the Mormons, they’re smarter and more disciplined than evangelicals, most of whom are complete and total fuckups, dipshits and losers who use Jesus like junkies use smack.
Sue
Indylib, everytime my head wants to explode I remind myself that one of my US Senators is Feingold. That helps a lot.
tc125231
Actually, the correct corollary would be the German elections of 1932.
freelancer
@geg6:
He wanted to be in Return of the Jedi…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI5_YuCWTMA
tc125231
@Brick Oven Bill: Do you realize that whatever you are taking is probably illegal?
Or perhaps you are certifiably insane?
The correct corollary to Glen Beck is whatever freak was the public mouthpiece before the 1932 elections in Germany.
Xecky Gilchrist
@KG: In no manner is Beck like Obi Wan Kenobi. Jar Jar Binks, possibly.
I respectfully disagree – Jar Jar was annoying, but goodhearted and put his ass on the line to help out his new Jedi friends right after meeting them. I’d hang out with Jar Jar for a decade rather than spend one afternoon with Blecch.
KG
@Anne Laurie: actually, I think Dole and McCain were examples of “It’s his turn” nominees. Both had previously run, had served a long time in Congress (Dole had even had leadership positions), and more or less stuck to the party line. Bush in 2000 was really the last guy that benefited from there being no natural successor. But otherwise, yeah, you’re probably right.
Indylib
@Sue:
LOL, I do the same thing everytime I get an e-mail update from Ryan’s office.
SGEW
@KG:
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.
Suffering leads to ratings!
Beck/Vader 2012: “I find your lack of faith disturbing”
Bob (Not B.o.B.)
@Brick Oven Bill:
OK, you HAVE to be a lefty plant to make the right look even worse than they really are.
Holy shit, I am stunned.
Next comment: “Obama is a credit to his race.”
SGEW
Stop feeding B.O.B.
He lives off of our disgust.
zoe kentucky
Glenn Beck = Hitler/Stalin/Pol Pot
Whaaa….that’s ridiculous, hyperbolic and offensive?
Because that is EXACTLY what Beck said about Obama and the Dems on health care reform– that it makes them just like Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. I heard it with my own ears on his radio show. It was quite possibly the looniest, most ridiculous thing I’ve heard EVER. Afterwards I was waiting for Beck’s next observation to be that the sky is orange with purple polka dots and that his best friend is the ghost of George Washington.
I’d truly love to see Palin and Beck have a battle of wits– I think they’d both lose.
zoe kentucky
Um, folks, I don’t think that’s the real BOB on this thread. I know it’s hard to tell and all because sometimes whomever spoofs him does it too far too well.
freelancer
@zoe kentucky:
Are you calling Beck an atheist?
celticdragon
That visual will haunt me for days…
celticdragon
I was thinking the same thing. High quality spoof trolling.
General Winfield Stuck
@SGEW:
A little ratmeat PIE as he squats in the jungle wouldn’t hurt.
Davis X. Machina
Not sure how this is apposite, but Glen Beck, I am sure, is pissed that when you google ‘Beck’, this still comes up on top.
Perhaps a shared interest in chemtrails?
freelancer
@Davis X. Machina:
Glenn is a Mormon. Beck is a member of the Super Adventure Club.
They’re both followers of batshit, American-invented religions.
Laura W
Y’all need to keep up and pay closer attention. BOB is fond of paying homage to Warren Zevon, one of his very favorite musicians. He frequently uses this “credit to her gender” line. There is a coherent and consistent patterning to BOB’s offerings. The trick is just to sit back and enjoy the Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and stop trying to prove anything with or to him. Unless that’s fun for you, I mean.
Poor Poor Pitiful Me
Laura W
@Laura W: I’ve yet to figure out why half of those work for me and half don’t. Not for lack of trying:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN0EWxDvZcw
Herb
Can we ignore Sarah Palin’s Facebook page? I’m a grown man. I’m not in junior high and I really don’t care what Miss Popular thinks about issues she doesn’t understand.
BFR
Romney will win
Nah – not going to happen. He’s not going to be any less Mormon in 2012 than he is today.
DonkeyKong
The 2012 republican primary winner will be the alpha/omega bomb. Dick Cheney and the party operators will pull their faces off to reveal radiation burns and they will sing hymns to the bomb.The ape wingnut base will flood into the underground chambers for the apocalypse.
Or was that the ending of “Beneath the Planet of the Apes”
DonkeyKong
You did it, you finally did it!…………Damn you all to hell!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M_GXymd7KM&feature=PlayList&p=D741E1DE653562DA&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=57
freelancer
@Deborah:
…the fuck did I do?
Brachiator
@Brick Oven Bill:
I think you are confusing Beck with The Borg “Resistance is futile”).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borg_(Star_Trek)
And they are both fictional characters. Nothing to see here.
I just don’t see it. Her political career is on life support, and in a few more years, even Bill Kristol will be handing her an “End of Political Life” pamphlet to look over.
When Nixon exited from public life in the 1960s, he could write about his experience as a Congressman, as a VP, his meetings with foreign leaders, etc. Palin’s memoirs would read, “And then I quit from …” Also, too.
She is not part of any serious political discussion. The only foreign leader who would not look like a total fool meeting with her would be Silvio Berlusconi. Maybe.
Tsulagi
@tripletee:
Actually, if scale is any consideration, I think the question is who’s the hot dog and who’s the hallway.
steve s
if Romney’s really the soulless ambitious pol, what’s to stop him from realizing the error of his ways and converting to True Christianity (R)?
Makewi
Palin won’t be the nominee in 2012. She already lost to Obama once, and while the GOP is stupid, I don’t think they are that stupid.
Tsulagi
@Makewi:
Now that’s some good comedy.
freelancer
Palin’s lost Makewi.
She’s toast.
Midnight Marauder
@freelancer:
Palin’s lost Makewi.
She’s toast.
Seriously.
me
We came depressingly close to having Reince Priebus for our state senator though. (I live in Kenosha)
Surreal American
@Makewi:
I’ll take that bet.
General Winfield Stuck
@me:
Sounds like a Roman Aristocrat.
Ceri B.
El Cid’s #21 is exactly what I’m afraid of:
If it so happens that the Senate Democratic insurance lobby gets their way and somehow Democrats decide to ruin a decent health care reform in favor of a deregulatory insurance company giveaway which screws the insured with higher expenses, bankrupting deductibles, and mandated participation—something I think is avoidable but just barely if we raise godawful amounts of hell—then, Republican lunacy be damned: you’ll see a popular anti-Democrat reaction recently undreamt of by GOP vampires.
The problem for people who actually want liberal solutions to problems – which is a large fraction of the country – is that we can’t ever count on voting to get us to a liberal majority or even plurality. In 2006 we voted for a lot of candidates who talked about ending the war, investigating grounds for impeachment, and the like, who then did nothing of the sort. In 2008 we supported a candidate who pledged to filibuster surveillance measures and then didn’t and who’s gone on to authorize massive handouts to the financial sector and support massive handouts to insurers, and who won’t do anything about the people responsible for crimes in the previous administration, and…on and on.
There are individuals we can trust, but just not all that many of them, and apparently not enough to push Democratic leadership the way we’d like them to go. In such a situation, apathetic withdrawal is a sensible solution, even though it’s not one I can live with myself for supporting yet. I find it harder and harder to blame anyone who thinks that after a few election cycles of constant betrayal, they’ve given it enough of a try.
Indylib
@me:
Not as close as we could have, Wirch won with 67% of the vote. That being said Priebus is a complete whackadoodle wingnut of the first order.
flavortext
@Makewi:
Is 2008 already a distant memory?
Seth
Michael,
It’s no longer the “Keystone Kops Korps”. Today’s (cough) “conservatives” are *so* over the letter ‘K’. They’ve moved beyond it. All the way to the letter ‘L’. Now they are the “Limbaugh Loony Legions”.
handy
Thou shalt not put musicians and recording artists on ridiculous pedestals no matter how great they are or were.
The Beatles… Were just a band.
Led Zepplin… Just a band.
The Beach Boys… Just a band.
The Sex Pistols… Just a band.
The Clash… Just a band.
Crass… Just a band.
Minor Threat… Just a band.
The Cure… Just a band.
The Smiths… Just a band.
Nirvana… Just a band.
The Pixies… Just a band.
Oasis… Just a band.
Radiohead… Just a band.
Bloc Party… Just a band.
The Arctic Monkeys… Just a band.
The Next Big Thing.. JUST A BAND.
handy
LOL wrong thread my bad.
Ash Can
@Makewi:
I guess that means it’s Palin in a walk.
Mario Piperni
Here’s a <a href=”http://mariopiperni.com/conservative-madness/wingnuttia.php” title=”piece on Wingnuttia” which pretty much explains why wingnuts say what they say and do what they do.
Psychologists have it all figured out.
Mario Piperni
Oops…link didn’t work. Trying again…
Here’s a piece on Wingnuttia which pretty much explains why wingnuts say what they say and do what they do.
Psychologists have it all figured out.
Anne Laurie
@steve s:
Munny, the true good of most politicians and all Rethuglicans. A good chunk of Romney’s “hard earned, hard edged businessman” fortune came from convincing his fellow Mormon ‘stakeholders’ to turn over their tithes to Willard in his position as Bain Capital figurehead. His polyamorous grandpa and Mexican-born father are in no position to demand the paltry couple millions they left him back, but if Willard turns his
temple garmentscoat, the Salt Lake City maffiya is gonna be on his bony arse like ugly on a Cheney.Comrade Darkness
@DonkeyKong: My god, it’s a Star Trek Classic episode, but with apes!
me
in 2008. Wirch ran against Prebius in 2004 and he won with just 52%.
Comrade Darkness
@Bob (Not B.o.B.): Next comment: “Obama is a credit to his race.”
Hawaiian?
The Populist
But nooooo, there wasn’t anything seedy about the goings on behind the scenes in the Bush White House.
Nice try, this independent does not buy it one bit.
I guess Beck is desperate to keep his ratings up without advertisers. Now they are begging people to bring a friend to watch some useless flowchart presentation of who REALLY controls the WH?
Yep, fucking insane.
The Populist
So B.O.B. is comparing Glenn Beck’s lunatic rantings to that of the fictional Borg collective?
Ok, I’ll play…the Borg are faceless, soulless machine drones that do the bidding of a queen.
Hmmm, sounds like a modern day Republican to me!
Deborah
@freelancer:
The reference was just to “is Admin about to post” followed by a B.O.B. post. I came over all matrixy. You were an innocent victim of timing.
Deborah
@flavortext:
McCain really was about as good as the Rs could do that year. From his 2000 run he really was very popular with moderates, independents, centrist Dems. I respected him as the only R to come out against torture, but he then flipped that position to be acceptable to the base. And kept flipping to mollify the right, which lost independents who paid attention….but how much of the electorate pays attention?
And who knew he would go so nutty at the end of the campaign–nominate Palin knowing little about her, the suspending his campaign stunt?
The Rs weren’t crazy in 2008, they were just out of candidates given the failure of DARPA to animate a convincing Ronnie Zombie. In 2009, they’re crazy.
Little Macayla's Friend
If he says it “on the air all the time”, many of Beck’s followers must have heard this (last line of article):
“He added later: “I say on the air all time, if you take what I say as gospel, you’re an idiot. ”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/30/business/media/30beck.html?em
How do Palin, et al., then rationalize “extraordinary”, “coherent”, “leader”, etc. (beside the answer in the quote)?
bob h
The problem for Sarah will be that many serious Republicans (those that remain) will desert her. Her campaign will be a debacle, a travesty for our democracy, but we will be pleased with the outcome.
Ash Can
@The Populist:
I don’t know about that. Rush Limbaugh may be gay, but he doesn’t have nearly enough style to be a queen.
...now I try to be amused
If I was a Republican with a realistic shot at becoming President, I wouldn’t have wanted 1996 or 2008 to be “my turn”; I’d bide my time.
Joe
So how much would Berlusconi pay Palin to party with him?
Rob C.
I don’t think a Sarah Palin led ticket in 2012 is something to be mocked. We Dems may gleefully anticipate such an outcome as a colossal blunder for the Republican party, but I’m not so sure. Having watched the batshit craziness of the far right infect the national debate on health care reform, I worry that a much larger portion of our society is (or is becoming) ignorant enough to actually vote for her. I am truly worried that a person like Sarah Palin could actually become President. At the very least, a major campaign for her presidency would drive civic discourse to even lower depths and push far right fear, racism and violence even further into the mainstream.