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The Persecution of Sarah Palin
Maybe in their business lives, conservatives are the stern, unforgiving masters of capitalist lore. But when it comes to politics, oh, do they love a whiner!
It is her mastery of the lament that explained former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's appeal last year, and now her knack for self-pity is on full display in her book, "Going Rogue." This is the memoir as prolonged, keening wail, larded with petty vindictiveness. With an impressive attention to detail, Ms. Palin settles every score, answers every criticism; locates a scapegoat for every foul-up, and fastens an insult on every critic, down to the last obscure Palin-doubter back in Alaska.
From Ms. Palin's masterwork, we learn that the personal really is the political. Every encounter with a critic seems to be a skirmish in the culture wars, from the Alaska debate moderator who didn't play fair once to the "wealthy, effete young chap" who ran against her for governor but who, in one of the quickest transitions from anti-snob to snob in all of literature, is also said to have served as "our limo driver at [her husband] Todd's cousin's wedding."
We read about the mean things people have said about Ms. Palin's daughter Bristol, Ms. Palin's suspicions that the neighbors of the Alaska governor's mansion disapproved of her kids' toys, her assurance that she lived a spartan life as governor, "despite what some critics would later accuse me of doing." There's the nonscandal she calls "Troopergate," which is virtually impossible to follow in this telling, except for the insults Ms. Palin directs at one of the men who was (apparently) on the other side of the issue, whatever it was.
In other circumstances, Ms. Palin seems like a woman of grit. When she discovers that her fifth child is going to be born with Down syndrome, she is initially upset, but then writes a letter in God's voice-incidentally, one of the book's creepiest moments-instructing the rest of the family to "accept that I [i.e., the Almighty] only want the best for you. . . ."
But the mean things people say and do during her vice presidential run-these are not to be taken in the same spirit. These are to be recalled and deplored, one by one, as if from a master list Ms. Palin has been keeping all this time. She reminds us that someone hacked her email, that she got a prank phone call, and that she once saw someone wearing an insulting T-shirt in Philadelphia.
She claims that what ruined her famous interview with wily CBS News personality Katie Couric was the latter's "condescension," which caused Ms. Palin to bungle questions like the one in which she was asked to name her favorite newspaper. And she introduces us to Steve Schmidt, the Republican campaign strategist who is the book's No. 1 bad guy-almost alone among the book's characters, he is always referred to by his last name-and who, as Ms. Palin tells it, once implied to an aide that "if there were any more leaks critical of anybody in the handling of Sarah Palin, then a lot more negative stuff would be said about Sarah Palin."
And, lo and behold, there is. Much more. All of it neatly catalogued, bemoaned, and for sale.
But amid all this score-settling, Ms. Palin wanders into some predictable traps. When explaining her political philosophy, for example, she tells readers that "conservatism is a respect for history and tradition"; on the very next page she instructs readers to accept the creative-destructive whirl of the market, which affects society the way "wildfires in Alaska burn away deadfall to make way for new growth."
So much for tradition. The respect she shows history, though, is the kind of respect you show the flag when you soak it in kerosene and touch a match to it. "[W]e tried growing government to save the economy back in the 1930s, and it didn't work then either," Ms. Palin writes. It is a modest assertion, though, compared to the astonishing finding Ms. Palin reveals in the next sentence: "Massive government spending programs and protectionist economic policies actually helped turn a recession into the Great Depression." If this is, as it seems, a reference to the New Deal, then history, per Ms. Palin, sometimes goes backwards, with the WPA and its ilk actually bringing about events that took place before they were launched.
But Ms. Palin's life is meant to be an inspiration. Maybe I should follow her example. The opinion-page equivalent of the Palinesque style is easy enough to imagine: I would use this space to recite the indignities the world forced on me over the course of the week-an effete-looking young person ignored me the other day-plus glimpses of heartland authenticity-I sure do like pot roast-before concluding, darkly, that the reason I suffer is because I am such a sterling American.
I can't wait to get started.
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79 Comments so far
Show AllPalin's is the same sadomasochistic, co-dependent, hypochristian crap that allows them to believe that, as a son complains of parental abuse in psychotherapy, the abuse was an act of Their "godly" love, instead!
who?
This is absolutely hilarious.
Great piece, and one that Palin may eventually happen upon to add to her long list of transgressions against her, the Real American. Her appeal would seem to come from so many American "conservatives" who identify with her pain--the pain of knowing you're the real thing, with your guns, love for war against impoverished, defenseless peoples, fishing equipment, church-going, literal Bible-believing, resentment and fear of immigrants, the French (snobbiness) and those detestable "enlightened elites".
Real Americans are proud of their holy ignorance and know it to be superior to effete educated types who think they're smarter than Jesus for disapproving of our brave and valiant military killing all those ragheads in Iraq, Afghanistan, or wherever good ol' American patriotism calls for a nice clean massacre to knock some horse sense into those Muslim infidels. Real Americans know that only those raking in over $200K a year truly deserve decent health care, and anyone who thinks otherwise is a liberal yuppie faggot loser begging for a government handout while sipping his latte and watching Rachel Maddow.
The horror is that there are more of these persecuted-by-liberals Real Americans out there than the rest of us Bad Americans want to know. In one day Palin's narcissistic jeremiad became a "best seller," a book industry designation for a large first printing and orders from big box chain stores. It has nothing to do with how many books are actually sold to customers. It's a projection, and if the sales don't materialize the "best seller" is quickly remaindered so publishers can cover their losses. If enough people refuse to buy Palin's self-pitying and self-worshiping dreck, stores will return piles of her books to publishers for credit and in a year they'll be on remainder shelves for $4.95. That's the best case scenario. The worst is that far too many Amurricans really do idolize this simpering twit and will pay full price for her whining screed, making her not only a pop star but a Real Best Selling Author. Only in America.
Nice to see Thomas Frank sort of get it right but let's be real. Palin will not be the nominee in 2012. It will be a low key type sounding "moderate". Mcdonnell, Christie, and Pawlty come to mind.
The entire Right Wing Rant is built on resentment.
Sarah is the very paragon because she obviously resents everyone else on earth that is not her.
And she is the only her around.
Palin/Cheney 2012!
Bury the GOP for the next half century.
I was thinking earlier that Cheney might decide to put himself in the VP position again so he could finish what he started in G.W.'s first term, but I'm sure he realizes this sniffling whiner has a different kind of mental condition than G.W. has, and that she'd never turn the reins over to him or anyone else "beneath her," even if she made it into office through another rigged election.
Maybe he'll take her hunting. Maybe she'll take HIM hunting.
Apparently the book is a full-on demonstration of the primary symptom of schizophrenia displayed by conservatives: their inability to distinguish between themselves, both collectively and individually, and the United States.
Palin, apparently, has further difficulty in distinguishing her personal opinions from "god."
Has anyone out there been convinced that Palin is leadership material? There is no excuse for ignorance unless you are an idiot and have the intellegence of a tree slug. Please America, don't tell me that this person is the best we can offer for our political system. Most humble people know their limitations and act accordingly. Truely, this nut does not get it; she is "a legend in her own mind." God help us.
She's the darling of the neo-cons (although G.W. saw through her during the Primary. Guess it takes one to know one).
Way to take on the tough issues!
We need more critical articles on Sarah Palin in the liberal media, seeing as she holds high office right now with the votes and contributions of millions of liberals, and is driving the country to the right every day.
I look forward to tomorrow's attack on Barry Goldwater.
good one quiz - i say its barry obummer we need to be thinking about
the trap with this very weird non-entity is to take her seriously or to try to bitterly point out her shortcomings, which are many
more than being an out and out liar she seems to be unaware of reality in a disturbingly profound way. her memory is not very good it seems
she recreates the past with a schizophrenic sense of revenge and paranoia wrapped together into a melange of toxic gumbo that is neither fish nor fowl
her weakest point is that she is an idiot - hard to get around that issue when she talks so much, it just presents itself over and over. being that maccain is an idiot himself (after all he was the one who chose her against the objections of his campaign team wasn't he) they made quite a pair
the fact is though that she revitalized mccain's tepid campaign - though sadly she did it through racist rants and by invoking the code words us and them - which for the elderly red faced white folk who supported her really means the blacks
her stock and trade was hate - and that played well with the overfed white racists across america. her whole campaign was a reprise of the bush daddy willie horton ads
just the fact that she was even on the presidential horizon demonstrates the morass - i think terminal - of the american political system
bush used to lie about reading books - palin can't even name one
in the end though, i think it is time we just gave up the ghost on the political process of america
it is dead dead dead
it is run by the banks for the banks and the banks are only interested in moving the army around the planet in support of their theft of the world's resources
time to stand the washington dc whorehouse down
after all what is obama but an eloquent palin
the white man in negro clothing
the ghoul who lies ably but who, unlike the senile reagan, knows very well what he is doing
so is he better than palin or worse
i say never mind palin - president peacenik is the one we need to worry about
Palin/Prejean 2010
Fancy Pagent Walking You Can Believe In!
Sarah Palin has written her "Mein Kampf."
Palin will not win a nomination, nor even come close. However, she will keep this bus tour of her's going long after the book has been forgotten to boost her own self worth.
She is a small town politician with small ideas. Her only way out of Palookaville was the book and she was smart enought to take it.
Why is Palin even in the news? Because Oprah and the like need viewers, mindless viewers, but viewers none the less.
It's interesting that Palin is gathering much more media attention than the President who's often been accused of being ubiquitous throughout the media. The pundits have been so busy dismissing her as a unelectable political airhead that she's becoming a political Star (remember Reagan).
A considerable amount of conservative voters obviously love dim witted leaders, whose handlers say are blessed with the ability to communicate with the common masses using their "common sense" approach to solve common problems. Just because her conservative babble doesn't make sense doesn't mean she's unelectable, look at G.W. Bush, he was elected, at least once.
"A considerable amount of conservative voters obviously love dim witted leaders, whose handlers say are blessed with the ability to communicate with the common masses using their "common sense" approach to solve common problems."
The irony is that these "leaders" do everything in their power to exploit, sell-off, or destroy what could be called "the commons".
very insightful
The evolution, or devolution, of the US presidency:
Carter: 80 percent puppet of the corporatocracy
Reagan: 95 percent
Bush I: 90 percent
Clinton: 85 percent
Bush II: 97 percent
Obama: 90 percent
Palin?: 99 percent
The more one is a puppet, the less one needs to have any actual knowledge or ability. Palin as president would simply read what she was given and would not hold press conferences.
This is the female Ronald Reagan: Self absorbed, a black-and-white view of everything, sentimental without being kind, both ignorant and stupid even while she sparkles like a diamond.
Best description of Palin I've ever read. If she's being persecuted, bring on the Spanish Inquisition.
At 6PM tonight this nut job moron will be signing her ghost written nonsense book 20 miles north of me in G.R. Michigan.
An estimated 1000 people were lined up this morning to get tickets that allow them into Barnes & Noble tonight to buy the book & get it signed.
Her book will only be signed if bought at B&N.
When I read accounts like this, I don't think we can be so sure she will not be the next president. Reagan was dismissed as unelectable too.
The old Ronald Reagan bean-pod skit in a 1979 episode of "Saturday Night Live" (surely some other old farts remember it) comed to mind.
"The Persecution of Sarah Palin"
IMO, she deserves all of it.
Delete.
Oh Sarah, you are a corporate world dream! I bet they will buy all your leftover books just to make you look good for voters! I wonder if the Corporate CEO's are helping Sarah plan her next run for public office?
If American voters can elect someone like George Bush Jr. surely Sarah can convince them again that empty headed nonsense makes a good leader. I wonder if Hollywood is on the horizon for Sarah?
Conservatives must be proud to have someone like Sarah on their team. What is coming next from Sarah? I can hardly wait!
When will the first school of Palintology be spawned?
As a side note, would anyone pay attention to her if she weren't pretty? "Oh look, something shiny!!"
So "dog-gone" sad ya know.
She must know how Britney Spears feels!
Golly - You betcha.
What is this the National Enquirer? The Sun? Oh I forgot Murdoch owns the Sun and the WSJ, not much difference.
The WSJ? Not even worthy as toilet tissue.
F-off Mr. Frank and F-off Rupert Murdoch
You owe Thomas Frank an appology!
Read his books.
Apology for what? I am only reacting to this article. If you would like to dispute the substantive issues raised, please do so. In my opinion this is junk tabloid material.
For financial news I would rather folks read the Financial Times.
Absurd on your part. This woman has challenged for a job a heartbeat away from Pres., and she has a fairly good chance of running for the top job in 2012. She writes a book to make $$$ and contribute in other ways to her political aspirations.
It is therefore deadly important for informed, serious commentators to point to the political and personal inaccuracies and distortions. I was talking just yesterday to a very reasonable person who votes Dem who had several serious misconceptions about what Palin represents.
She's very 'dangerous' and needs to be treated seriously as a political threat to the nation.
While I do not disagree with the essence, I see it rather differently:
The mainstream press is only spreading her credibility and publicity. If the MSM (and mainstream liberal commentators) ignored her, few would pay attention and her name would fade away in the public discourse.
The MSM echo-chamber does us no service when lending a voice and credibility to people like her and Cheney.
If they were ignored and dismissed as the goofball crackpots that they are we would not be having this conversation in the first place.
What is your opinion of the WSJ?
In what world are you living in?
Do you think Fox news would ignore her? Do you think that the sales of her book means people would ignore her, even if mainstream liberal commentators do?
Hitler was dismissed as a crank and not taken seriously. The ability of people like Palin to completely twist and distort history--which Hitler was also able to do--without being challenged cannot stand. In the USSR, she would have been a Stalinist. The more exposure she gets as lying imbalanced petty nag over the next 8 months the sooner her political death will occur.
Prejean, Vitter, Craig, Sanborn, Ensign, Palin: pretty sluts, but not much upstairs.
ENOUGH NOW!Please,please,please Common Dreams no more articles about the pistol packin mama from Alaska!
I strongly second that motion! If we want saturation coverage of the blithering idiot, we can turn on CNN, Fox etc.
It seems many are un-aware or forgot that Rupert Murdoch owns the WSJ.
Really.
Enough is enough. Let democrat sites like Huffington and TV shows like Maddow carry this silly, adolescent content.
They're sillier than Palin herself.
The pettiness and shocking ignorance of this woman is stupifying. Is there anyone, ANYONE, more ill-suited to be in a position of leadership than she? Her glaring inability to grasp the most basic tenets of government is, well, simply dumbfounding. I know third graders with a better grasp. Those same third graders are also in possession of better manners and a much healthier psyche as well. Nothing could more poignantly highlight the blindness of the "faithful" than their sycophantic worship of her. It's an old cliche, but she truly is a train wreck.
The Persecution of Sarah Palin
______________________________________
I hoped the headline was ironic, and that Frank would express the untypical view that I hold. I expressed it in a previous comment to a Palin article by David Michael Green published earlier this year, here's a slightly reworked version:
______________________________________
I must be the only Amerikan who finds the grotesque, obsessive stoning of Sarah Palin to be far more significant than Palin herself.
When the Republican Party pulled her out from under her Alaskan rock, I thought of Katherine Harris-- another ditsy, ambitious Republican wingnut serving the reactionary cause.
Still, from her debut to the present, Palin's elicited an absolutely brutal animosity from the partisan Democratic ranks and its progressive penumbra.
Even after the Maverick McCain/Calamity Sarah Palin ticket lost, the compulsion to mock and deride the woman persists at a level that can't be fully explained by the conviction that she's an incompetent dingbat without redeeming qualities.
Please note that I don't particularly dispute this opinion. I just don't think it's as important as the anaphylactic shock she induces in her detractors.
Sites like Salon.com have NEVER stopped pouncing on every possible twist and turn of Palin's peculiar life to publish articles with sensational tabloid headlines, detailing her latest supposed outrageous conduct or stupidity. Strictly speaking, I don't know that the mushy moderate liberal Joan Walsh, Salon's editor, oversees this almost daily scourge. But Google for yourself to see the avalanche of Palin-sneering and criticism published there.
Despite the vast differences between Palin and Al Gore, they both have been victims of corporate OR progressive mass media's penchant for choosing certain individuals as targets for sophomoric cheap shots and supercilious gossip. Strange bedfellows! (Sorry for the disturbing image.)
In the summer of 2008, I mentioned to an Obama-supporter of my acquaintance that I was horrified by the anti-Palin overkill arising from both political opponents and the moderate-liberal blogosphere. He retorted heatedly that it certainly WAS contemptible and outrageous that the Republicans would resort to picking a provincial nitwit as a "Hail Mary" strategy to gain political traction. What was WRONG with me?
This Obama supporter, otherwise intelligent and perceptive, mistakenly responded to my observation as if I were "supporting" or commending Palin. This knee-jerk hostility unwittingly demonstrated exactly the point I was trying to make-- and the futility of doing so. Still, I tried to explain that even if Palin IS pathetic and DANGEROUSLY unfit for high office, the attendant hostility and rancor was many orders of magnitude greater than that elicited by other trashy opportunists. I maintained, and still maintain, that the anti-Palin hostility was, and remains, far deeper and more insidious than mere resentment at her unfitness for high(er) political office.
Finally, I appreciate the straw-man argument that all things being equal, obnoxious cretins are hardly model candidates for elected office. But that precept neatly obscures an even MORE distressing truth: consider all of the Serious, Experienced, Impeccably Credentialed, and Highly Qualified Misrepresentatives we keep electing on every level. You know-- the ones who supposedly SCREAM "leadership material".
Don't THEY, by and large, turn out to govern as plutocrats, dictators, and war criminals? I'm in no way "pro"-Palin, but the Fine and Upstanding "bona fide" players with sparkling curriculum vitae are as bad in their own way-- or worse. This is the deeper issue, beside which the Awful Awfulness of Sarah Palin is a mere distraction.
· Yr Obd't Servant
The short answer: the reason for all the SP hostility is because we thought we were done with lying f**king morons running the asylum for at least a few minutes.
The hostility directed at SP is actually the manifestation of our frustration resulting from our inability to hold the previous morons even the slightest bit accountable.
She's our worst nightmare incarnate - Bush in drag, with a voice so grating she should be doing book readings to Gitmo hostages. And she's got the dittoheads and willfully blind wrapped around her little greedy finger, just like the last f**king moron...
Not hating her is impossible for many of us. We know it's wrong, but after 8 painful years, even the best of us can't help it...
I take your point, frank.
And a shorter version of my own screed is consistent with your comment: Palin is a scapegoat.
And unlike you, IMO far too many people are so caught up in her abundant negatives that they either don't see the scapegoating, or idiotically conclude that since she's so Obviously Horrible anyway, so what?
Clarence Thomas bamboozled the Beltway cliques with his complaint that he was being subjected to a "high-tech lynching". That's exactly what Palin, like Al Gore before her, is getting.
It's pathetic that people will dismiss the implications by simply noting that it couldn't happen to a nicer "guy".
· Yr Obd't Servant
I say the Left/Dems ignore Palin at their own risk. There are alot of hardcore Christians in this country, and they feed off persecution, and by reflection, off of persecuting Palin. They also value ignorance. If Palin cleans up her act a bit, in terms of knowing basic facts so she doesn't come off as a sheer nitwit, even more folks will turn to her.
I disagree, by playing into the MSM saturation coverage, people like her and Cheney are only empowered. Their names are implicitly given credibility in the average gullible person's eyes. Their names are repeated in the echo-chamber and pounded into the public discourse.
Like a spoiled child, we ought to ignore them and not encourage them. Many on the so-called Left are simply playing into their hands and acting as publicity agents.
They (the R party elites) are fully aware of this and few have figured it out.
I think you actually agree with me. By "ignore" I didn't mean give her more airtime on MSM. I mean they shouldn't write her off in Left/Dem political calculations. I agree that the more Lefties "persecute" her by criticizing her the more they embolden the righties, and even moderate righties. I think Biden actually did the best job. Take her on as a so-called equal, and let her hang herself with her own words and lack of ideas.
Unfortunately this world is powered by testosterone, and so lookers like Palin are drooled over, and humored. If she were homely, she would be history by now. This is an insult to every intelligent woman who has worked hard to get herself elected to office. Its disgusting that a woman like Palin, who has obviously been conditioned to use her looks to get what she wants, is given so much precious media attention, attention that needs to be given to truly important things. The world is falling apart, billions are starving, the environment is reaching the point of no return, and Sarah Palin is tittilating the good old boys of America. The more things change, the more they stay the same.