If Palin is indeed a cancer on the GOP, why can't the Republican establishment retire her to a life of moose hunting in the political wilderness? Why has her appeal increased in the wake of her catastrophic political expeditions?
The answer lies beyond the realm of polls and punditry in the political psychology of the movement that animates and, to a great degree, controls the Republican grass roots -- a uniquely evangelical subculture defined by the personal crises of its believers and their perceived persecution at the hands of cosmopolitan elites.
By emphasizing her own crises and her victimization by the "liberal media," Palin has established an intimate bond with adherents of that subculture -- one so visceral it transcends rational political analysis. As a result, her career has become a vehicle through which the right-wing evangelical movement feels it can express its deepest identity in opposition both to secular society and to its representatives in the Obama White House. Palin is perceived by its leaders -- and followers -- not as another cynical politician or self-promoting celebrity, but as a kind of magical helper, the God-fearing glamour girl who parachuted into their backwater towns to lift them from the drudgery of daily life, assuring them that they represented the "real America."
(Click the title to read the rest of Max's LA Times op-ed.)
Today we will witness Palin's carefully constructed publicity machine begin to slither through the country looking to tap into the disaffected, emotionally charged, Republican evangelical base who are desperately looking for hope. And against all of the laws of logical thinking they will come to believe Sarah Palin represents that hope.
This is less a book tour than a Gospel Tent Revival with Sarah Palin as the featured evangelist and faith healer. She will represent to them a direct line to God, and they will believe her versions of reality despite any of those pesky facts that are represented by the media.
Yet those of us in the "media" have an obligation to at least let those who have not yet drunk from the "Sarah Palin tub of reality altering Kool-aid" the opportunity to learn the truth before they are subjected to Palin's hypnotic influence.
And as we have all now come to realize, the stakes are indeed high.
SOOOOOO WHEN?????????
ReplyDeleteIT NEEDS TO BE TODAY THAT YOU SLAM HER!!!!!!!!!!!
Haven't had the time to read Max's post and this is off topic but wanted to post in case you hadn't come across it yet. Coming out now that she criticizes Levi on Oprah. Disappointed in his choices, busy doing porn instead of seeing son, sorry that media tour more important than seeing child.
ReplyDeleteUh-Oh Sarah!
What does Levi know?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29571.html
MSNBC just showed a poll from Washington Post/ABC News. The question was whether you would vote for SP in 2012. 53% said definitely not, 9% definitely would, and 37% would consider it. That 37% is kind of troubling.
ReplyDeleteThis is in response to the last commenter on the post showing the pic of Sarah, Willow, Piper and Barbara - CBJ does not attend Wasilla Bible Church. The Church did not lose "adoption" records in the fire that wouldn't have been on file elsewhere - it is a very non-trendy, non-weird, straight-as-it-gets evangelical non denominational church. You don't have to like evangelicals or Christianity - but let's at least deal with reality. CBJ does not attend WBC and no adoption records of any unusual merit were lost in the fire.
ReplyDeleteShould Cathy have to address the Wild Ride account? Yes, I believe she owes it to the country. However, (and any medical professional could weigh in here) I believe she rightly feels she is more beholden to the patient-doctor confidentiality responsibility than to whistle blowing for the nation.
She shouldn't be asked to do what John McCain and John Tracy (channel 2 news up here) wouldn't bother doing. She isn't the press. She didn't tap Sarah to run for VP.
Can she be made to answer under oath at some point about what she knew and when she knew it? I don't know. I'm not an attorney.
Here is the question I'd like to know the answer to: Did Sarah, when Sarah called her from Texas the morning of her speech, explain that she believed she was leaking amniotic fluid?
The answer will be no. If the answer was yes, CBJ would have done what 100% of every other Family Prac the country over would have done: insist that she get straightway to the nearest hospital.
Sarah was leaking fluid. She told her parents this upon her return to the State. Her father proudly recounted this on the evening news the night of Trig's birth.
Did Sarah tell CBJ this? No.
Sarah lacked prudence, wisdom, responsibility, and judgement regarding the affairs of the birth of her month early, special needs child. Yet she asks us to trust her to run the nation (have no doubt, she'll run in '12)
Unbelievable.
Me again Gryphen. Worse than what I originally posted. Calls Levi 'Ricky Hollywood'. Jealous much Sarah?!
ReplyDeleteWow she's such a simpleton and really has never graduated from high school yet has she?
So much for the high road.
This is a recognizable Palin move: She knows what she's supposed to say, says it, then dives into the fray anyway:
Asked by Oprah about Levi Johnston, Palin, R-Alaska, responded: "I don't think a national television show is the place to discuss some of things he'd been doing and saying."
She continued: "By the way, I don't know if we call him Levi -- I hear he goes by the name Ricky Hollywood now, so, if that's the case, we don't want to mess up this gig he's got going…. Kind of this aspiring, aspiring porn -- the things that he's doing. It's kind of heartbreaking."
Oprah clarified that Palin was referencing Johnston's decision to pose for "Playgirl."
Said Palin: "I call that porn, yes. So it's a bit heartbreaking to see the road that he's on right now."
The Ricky Hollywood thing, by the way, is a piece of Levi esoterica she seems to have picked up from a Daily Beast write who went shopping with him.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/1109/Palin_attacks_Levi.html?showall
Sarah wasn't leaking fluid because Sarah wasn't pregnant.
ReplyDeletehey Sarah, what do you think of Carrie Prejean's road now?
ReplyDeleteanon 7:47
ReplyDeleteCBJ most definitely IS a bible thumping, god fearing, card carrying member of the Wasilla Bible Church. One in 7 residents of that creepy place are members of that church. Take away children and you have just about everyone in Wasilla drinking the kool aid
According to Sarah's worldview, there is no such thing as evolution. God created, yadda, yadda...tossed perfect Adam into a nice little park setting, administered a dab of ether and ZAP--Eve popped out. They were, so the story goes, subsequently tossed out of that garden for listening to a silver-tongued snake oil salesman
ReplyDelete--it was all Eve's fault, of course, and that is that! Really very unfortunate for the rest of us these thousands of years later.
On the other hand, Sarah's feverish concern and confusion, at the prospect of being pregnant while governor, was the reaction that she had--in fear of the criticism that she would receive from the "Neanderthals."
Holy Moses! Eden vs. Evolution.
Adam vs. Neanderthal?
Is she suggesting that Adam was a Neanderthal, and that his Neanderthal descendants still exist and have taken up residence in Alaska?
Question to Sarah and her slithery cohorts: Where does this group (Neanderthals), long known by scientists to be extinct, fall into your non-evolutionary fantasy world?
Sarah's logical reasoning would make Aristotle's head explode. I know it is giving me a rather nasty little headache.
If Sarah weighed 250 pounds and was ugly as Cheney, no one would be listening to her at all. She was a "trophy" VP. Can you hear McCain telling his staffers to "find me pretty one"??
ReplyDeleteTo 8:00- Okay - but Dr. Baldwin-Johnson should still be asked this specific question. To 7:48 - You're wrong about the high school remark. Sarah never made it - emotionally - out of middle school. Just ask the people she went to high school with. If they feel safe enough, they'll tell you about the incessant pettiness and mean-spiritedness that has been SHP's MO since way back when. The only reason she ever made it anywhere politically is because she causes grown men - often highly educated grown men - to do some weird sort of swooning thing. Case in point - Randy R (before he was tossed under the bus); Dan Fagan (before he woke up and had the gonads to call a spade what it is); John McCain (before he realized he had made the biggest political blunder in the history of our nation. You note I say "political" - not military, or economic, etc.); Steve Schmidt (before he had to face that he'd advocated for the most ill-equipped, emotionally unsuited individual to serve at the second highest level in the nation); Mark Steyn (he's still asleep at the wheel), etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat I'm observing is that once intelligent Republicans in the country wake up and realize what they're really dealing with in Sarah, they move away from her - but silently. They don't want to inflame her crazy, ignorant, unthinking base.
That's what's terrifying about Sarah right now - the unstable base led by their unstable leader. And the base is bigger than we thought. What will it take to reason with these people?
An over-40 woman with a history of miscarriages bearing a DS baby calling her doctor to discuss a CHANGE of any type in the state of her pregnancy at 35 weeks gestation would/should NOT be told to get on a plane from Texas to Alaska and cruise right on by a neo-natal intensive care unit to deliver in a little local hospital not equipped to even deliver twins.
ReplyDeleteCBJ doesn't have to say anything. Sarah Palin speaks for her.
Oh, Margot, Margot, Margot @7:40:
ReplyDeleteYou need to make yourself a nice a cup of chamomile tea--take it with you out onto the lanai and relax for a while. Breathe deeply and watch the Sea gulls as they gracefully soar against the Florida sky--or, just pack a lunch and take a walk to the beach.
In other words: Get a grip on your e-meter.
Love,
Greta
Didn't she also say (I just heard it on radio) that she will pray for Levi.
ReplyDeleteI would love to go to her book signing to tell her that I would Pray for her, to go away.
Re: Levi as "porn star"--notice SP is NOT opining to the press or her Facebook cronies about her BFF, the VERY pious Carrie Prejean, unless I missed something. Fine for Prejean, for Levi--not so much. Trying to discredit him before the crapola hits the fan, eh, Sairy-poo?
ReplyDeleteMax Blumenthal has hit upon something. I think that the power brokers within the GOP made a Faustian bargain with the devil back in 1964 when they consciously targeted the fundagelicals. The fundies have consistently be stupid enough to be led like sheeple for decades. I think that they finally have realized that there are many within the GOP that do not really share their fundamentalist religious beliefs. Hence, the dissatisfaction with the most conservative folks in the land with the GOP.
ReplyDeleteThis rift with the teabaggers and the GOP is that struggle playing itself out. The GOP sowed the fundagelical wind and is now reaping the teabagger whirlwind. They are so richly reaping what they have sown.
I feel sure that the reason her book pages were whittled down (17 pages) is because sp was wisely advised to leave Levi out. Levi was clear that he wanted her to STFU about him and his family. But she just could not help herself when Oprah gave her the opportunity to diss him - and BTW, Playgirl is NOT porn by ANY stretch.
ReplyDeleteLevi WARNED her! Levi will not take these slams in stride - GO GET HER LEVI!
And as for Halcro, McCain campaign staff, Katie Couric and all the others she has VERIFIABLY LIED ABOUT - LIBEL SUITS! STAT!
I emphasize re the libel suits - DO IT STAT! Before she has time to hide her profits in the pie-in-the-sky, the AK FUNDie Trust, or in Megaphone's bonnet.
ReplyDeleteThe Smoke: I find it interesting that 9 and 37 add up to 46%...the same percent of the vote that McCain got!
ReplyDeleteAnd about Sarah praying "for" Levi...I remember Stephen Colbert noting in "I Am America And So Can You!" that "You'd be surprised at how threatening you can make 'I'm praying for you' sound."