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The Pit Bull in the China Shop
AT last the American right and left have one issue they unequivocally agree on: You don't actually have to read Sarah Palin's book to have an opinion about it. Last Sunday Liz Cheney praised "Going Rogue" as "well-written" on Fox News even though, by her own account, she had sampled only "parts" of it. On Tuesday, Ana Marie Cox, a correspondent for Air America, belittled the book in The Washington Post while confessing that she couldn't claim to have "completely" read it.
"Going Rogue" will hardly be the first best seller embraced by millions for talismanic rather than literary ends. And I am not recommending that others follow my example and slog through its 400-plus pages, especially since its supposed revelations have been picked through 24/7 for a week. But sometimes I wonder if anyone has read all of what Palin would call the "dang" thing. Some of the book's most illuminating tics have been mentioned barely - if at all - by either its fans or foes. Palin is far and away the most important brand in American politics after Barack Obama, and attention must be paid. Those who wishfully think her 15 minutes are up are deluding themselves.
The book's biggest surprise is Palin's wide-eyed infatuation with show-business celebrities. You get nearly as much face time with Tina Fey and the cast of "Saturday Night Live" in "Going Rogue" as you do with John McCain. We learn how happy Palin was to receive calls from Bono and Warren Beatty "to share ideas and insights." We wade through star-struck lists of campaign cameos by Robert Duvall, Jon Voight (who "blew us away"), Naomi Judd, Gary Sinise and Kelsey Grammer, among many others. Then there are the acknowledgments at the book's end, where Palin reveals that her intimacy with media stars is such that she can air-kiss them on a first-name basis, from Greta to Laura to Rush.
Equally revealing is the one boldfaced name conspicuously left unmentioned in the book: Levi Johnston, the father of Palin's grandchild. Though Palin and McCain milked him for photo ops at the Republican convention, he is persona non grata now that he's taking off his campaign wardrobe. Is Johnston's fledgling porn career the problem, or is it his public threats to strip bare Palin family secrets as well? "She knows what I got on her" is how he put it. In Palin's interview with Oprah last week, it was questioning about Johnston, not Katie Couric, that made her nervous.
The book's most frequently dropped names, predictably enough, are the Lord and Ronald Reagan (though not necessarily in that order). Easily the most startling passage in "Going Rogue," running more than two pages, collates extended excerpts from a prayerful letter Palin wrote to mark the birth of Trig, her child with Down syndrome. This missive's understandable goal was to reassert Palin's faith and trust in God. But Palin did not write her letter to God; she wrote the letter from God, assuming His role and voice herself and signing it "Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father." If I may say so - Oy!
Even by the standard of politicians, this is a woman with an outsized ego. Combine that with her performance skills and an insatiable hunger for the limelight, and you can see why she will not stay in Wasilla now that she's seen 30 Rock. The question journalists repeatedly asked last week - What are Palin's plans for 2012? - is a red herring. Palin has no obligation to answer it. She is the pit bull in the china shop of American politics, and she can do what she wants, on her own timeline, all the while raking in the big bucks she couldn't as a sitting governor. No one, least of all her own political party, can control her.
The fact-checking siege of "Going Rogue" - by the media, Democrats and aggrieved McCain campaign operatives alike - is another fruitless sideshow. Palin's political appeal has never had anything to do with facts - or coherent policy positions. The more she is attacked for not being in possession of pointy-headed erudition, the more powerful she becomes as an avatar of the anti-elite cause. As Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, has correctly observed, "She represents less a philosophical strain on the right than an affect and a demographic."
That demographic is white and non-urban: Just look at the stops and the faces on her carefully calibrated book tour. The affect is emotional - the angry air of grievance that emerged first at her campaign rallies in 2008, with their shrieked threats to Obama, and that has since resurfaced in the Hitler-fixated "tea party" movement (which she endorses in her book). It's a politics of victimization and sloganeering with no policy solutions required beyond the conservative mantra of No Taxes. Its standard-bearer can make stuff up with impunity: "Thanks, but no thanks on that bridge to nowhere"; Obama's "palling around with terrorists"; health care "death panels."
After the Palin-McCain ticket lost, conservative pundits admonished her to start studying the issues. If "Going Rogue" and its promotional interviews are any indication, she has ignored their entreaties during her months at liberty. Last week, Greta Van Susteren chastised Oprah for not asking Palin "one policy question," but when Barbara Walters did ask some, Palin either recycled Dick Cheney verbatim (Obama is "dithering") or ran aground. Her argument for why "Jewish settlements" should be expanded on the West Bank was that "more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead." It was unclear what she was talking about - unless it was the "rapture" theology that requires the mass return of Jews to settle the Holy Land as a precondition for the return of Christ.
The discredited neocon hacks who have latched on to Palin as a potential ticket back into power have their work cut out for them. But it's better for Palin's purposes to remain as blank a slate as possible anyway. Some of her most ardent supporters realize that she'll drive still more independent voters away if she fills in too many details. And so Matthew Continetti, the author of the just-published "Persecution of Sarah Palin" and her most persistent cheerleader after William Kristol, wrote in The Wall Street Journal that her role model for 2012 should be Bob McDonnell, the new Republican governor-elect of Virginia, who won on "a bipartisan, center-right approach."
What Continetti means is that Palin could still somehow fudge her history as McDonnell did; his campaign kept his career-long history as a political acolyte and financial beneficiary of Pat Robertson on the down-low. Even the far right has figured out that homophobia is a turnoff to swing voters, which is why Palin goes out of her way in "Going Rogue" to remind us she has her very own lesbian friend. (What's left unsaid is that the book's credited ghost writer, Lynn Vincent, labeled homosexuality as "deviance" in her own writings for World, the evangelical magazine.)
But no matter how much Palin tries to pass for "center-right," she's unlikely to fool that vast pool of voters left, right and center who have already written her off as unqualified for the White House. The G.O.P. establishment knows this, and is frightened. The demographic that Palin attracts is in decline; there's no way the math of her fan base adds up to an Electoral College victory.
Yet among Republicans she still ties Mitt Romney in the latest USA Today/Gallup survey, with 65 percent giving her serious presidential consideration, just behind the 71 for her evangelical rival, Mike Huckabee. The crowds lining up in the cold for her book tour are likely to be the most motivated to line up at the polls in G.O.P. primaries. They don't speak the same language as Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Michael Steele, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner or, for that matter, McCain. They are more likely to heed Palin salesmen like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh than baffled Bush administration grandees like Peter Wehner, who last week called Palin "a cultural figure much more than a political one" on the Web site of the establishment conservative organ Commentary.
Culture is politics. Palin is at the red-hot center of age-old American resentments that have boiled up both from the ascent of our first black president and from the intractability of the Great Recession for those Americans who haven't benefited from bailouts. As Palin thrives on the ire of the left, so she does from the disdain of Republican leaders who, with a condescension rivaling the sexism they decry in liberals, belittle her as a lightweight or instruct her to eat think-tank spinach.
The only person who can derail Palin is Palin herself. Should she not self-destruct, she will doom G.O.P. hopes of a 2012 comeback. But the rest of the country cannot rest easy. The rage out there is larger than Palin and defies partisan labeling. Her ever-present booster Continetti, writing in The Weekly Standard, suggested that she recast the century-old populist outrage of William Jennings Bryan by adopting the message "You shall not crucify mankind upon the cross of Goldman Sachs." If Obama can't tamp down that rage across the political map, Palin will at the very least pave the way for a demagogue with less baggage to pick up her torch.
69 Comments so far
Show Allwho?
My god what a backward, ignorant country the US has become when a white trash idiot like SP, not only rund as VP on the republican ticket, but gets celebrity status.
I love Michael Palin and consider him a brilliant comic mind with other talents too. Rich's article makes no sense.
*snork*
And now for something completely different...
"...Palin reveals that her intimacy with media stars is such that she can air-kiss them on a first-name basis, from Greta to Laura to Rush."
Why does this last not surprise me? What a sad commentary on the state of politics in this country.
This is what passes for incisive analysis by the newspaper of record. 500 lb. and 2000lb. American bombs and drone missiles are being dropped on Afghans and Pakistanis, their limbs being torn limb from limb, people who have never invaded, much less threatened to invade, the United States while tens of thousands of Americans die in this country because they are unable to afford quality health care in the land of the brave and the home of the free yet Frank Rich, the much lauded sage of the New York Times devotes his Sunday column to a mental lightweight such as Sarah Palin. Is it any wonder that newspapers are soon becoming a relic of the past with such less than admirable feats of writing being placed on display by the likes of Mr. Frank Rich? Not exactly muckracking or probing journalism at its finest.
Sioux Rose
ERROLL: Points well-taken. Thank you for speaking for conscience. These events haunt me and feel like a shadow placed over our land. Some of us are more sensitive to its presence than others. Although we are now passing through Sagittarius, the season of joy and plentitude (and its chief holiday, Thanksgiving somewhat accords with the higher celestial tone of the times), rituals seem empty. A sense of antipathy, struggle, anger, and fear crowds out the more joyous emotions that should accompany living. Our nation suffers from a loss of understanding, a dismissal of The Sacred. A friend of mine who teaches in Singapore has been to every continent and spent time in more nations than anyone I know. She relates the basic happiness she observes in so many people as they work their simple existences. I think the U.S has long suffered a surfeit of the senses, but now that many of the indulgences we've all taken for granted are being drawn back (due to high living costs and lessening wages), it's almost as if a silent scream is being issued from this "vacuum suction," a covert negation of the American Dream. Since our nation has used so much of its treasure and the inventions of too many trained minds in pursuit of weapons designed to destroy others, it makes karmic sense that rendering nightmares of other lands (Iraq, Afghanistan) has imploded our nation's semblance of bright hopes and dreams. No nation nor individual can run away from their karma. Its reckoning permeates the psychic landscape of our land of broken dreams.
.."a dismissal of The Sacred"...I think that is the key here, somehow, in getting away from ancestral roots, the people in this country do not feel obliged to care for each other...it's a dog eat dog, competitive environment out there...me first...and if consideration of cooperation and care is voiced, it is immediately accused of being socialist, communist, or other more mindless accusations. Sarahs Wasilla is/was a white bread, mostly white population, full of disfunctional families from around the country, oil boom society, that has no interest in voting, or in even knowing the issues..totally reactive in nature and willing to swallow the swill of the corporate intentions, disguised as job creation, to further their exploitation of the earth. I wish that everyone said the "Lords Prayer", with meaning and understanding, take a good look around and behave accordingly...
Sioux Rose
CONCERNED: Although some of the history buffs who post on this site can make excellent cases that explain America, the entity, as a ferocious empire, one that has gone from conflict to conflict while beefing up its military, I would complement that assessment by suggesting that the tools of socialization have worked hard to turn person against person. The recent exposure of Darwin's study that did NOT lend credence to the dog-eat-dog competitive view of human nature reminds us that societies have also been born and developed that centered around virtues like community and caring. Because my chosen area of study is the astro-logos, I find in its twelve archetypal references a powerful explanation for what ails us, and it distills quite simply to this: "Mars rules." To the extent any society invests in war, armaments, competition, and the ethos of person against person, is the degree to which the reciprocal values associated with Mars' cosmic complement, Venus, come into neglect. And so we have a dearth of respect for the less concrete virtues, such things as love and tenderness, caring and compassion. These have been largely considered feminine traits. Patriarchal cultures that depend upon war must replace these qualities with the more "manly" intentions of being hard, firm, in control, powerful, and skilled with the use of deadly force. These attributes have been fashioned into the erroneous ideal of heroism, and a great many people have fallen into the stupor that follows after such images as did naive townsfolk, the notes issuing from the Pied Piper's flute song.
"...500 lb. and 2000lb. American bombs and drone missiles are being dropped on Afghans and Pakistanis, their limbs being torn limb from limb, people who have never invaded, much less threatened to invade, the United States." –(Erroll)
–Not much more need be said. Says it all.
But then such little blood baths are of no importance to Americans as a whole. Sioux Rose's so called 'off-center' attempts to explain just that, in their own way, go far in explaining the crux of the matter which you so cogently state.
–(Jill Bains)
Yawn. The way people like Rich use the words "the left" to refer to PC crony-capitalist liberal democrats makes me want to puke. Ridiculous and dangerous as Palin and her ilk may be, the so-called "liberals" still don't get the picture. And they play as much into the phony "right-left" game, which has the Repugs on the right and the Dims on the left, as anyone else. I prefer the characterization of the American political system recently given by "trends forecaster" Gerard Celente: it's like Championship Wrestling. The opponents pretend to compete, say the nastiest things to and about each other, while behind closed doors they solidify their consensus in perpetuating the game. The game is rigged. The frothing fools on the lunatic fringe who keep impugning the pathetic, crony-capitalist, corporate-welfarist, war-mongering Obama for his "socialism" are simply playing into this game, as are the "liberal" commentators like Rich who are "shocked" and "appalled" by Palin and her disgusting supporters. "Liberal" dems are just as responsible for the suffocating, no-way-out situation of American politics as their much-excoriated--though much-accomodated--opponents. The country, the West, the world need a new vision of social and humanitarian equality equally wary of predatory capitalism, invasive statism, rampant militarism, and the criminal exploitation of the mass media to brainwash people into believing false paradigms.
Sioux Rose
CLOVIS: Good post. I never read Gerald Celente but I had that EXACT same World Wrestling Federation M.O. reference repeatedly come to mind whenever I'd read political analysts in their assessment of the "great game" that constitutes America's would-be dual party system. I suppose this image is now part of the collective consciousness and more and more of us will see through the spectacle to the illusion behind it's being so expensively staged.
This post is a fine example of Frank Rich's warning that Republicans will 'recast the century-old populist outrage of William Jennings Bryan by adopting the message "You shall not crucify mankind upon the cross of Goldman Sachs."' Republican strategists recognize that GOP re-emergence depends on populist rants against 'corporatist capitalism' (which they in fact adore).
Excellent post. Obama is making Sarah the phenomenon easy for the dimwitted Sarah the opportunist to pull off. The ineffectual left is similarly making it easy for the splintered right to carry on.
If Obama had kept the promises of his campaign the right would never have dared to try the stunts they are getting away with. A strong, trusted leader would not have these problems.
The book's most frequently dropped names, predictably enough, are the Lord and Ronald Reagan (though not necessarily in that order).
Aren't they the same for Republicans? I was always surprised that Reagan's body was not taxidermied and put on display at some evangelical theme park, kind of like Lenin and Stalin when there was a Soviet Union.
It was proposed but Nancy nixed it.
At the beginning of the article, Mr. Rich claims, "attention must be paid" (to this looming cultural icon). "Those who wishfully think her 15 minutes are up are deluding themselves."
By the end he admits, "there's no way the math of her fan base adds up to an Electoral College victory."
It appears to me that it is the media (mainstream and otherwise) who are keeping this political lightweight in the ring.
I do not know what Rich's game is. Palin is still clearly hard right on economic, tax, and foreign policy issues, and Rich is trying to argue that she may be positioning herself as center right based on some rather flimsy evidence. It should be impossible for Palin, who reminds me of a female version of Michael Scott of "The Office," to ever win the presidency, but the political environment is quickly deteriorating and I am afraid almost anything can happen. The corporatocracy seems content with installing more and more pure puppets (Reagan to G. W. Bush to Palin?) and almost anyone can be a puppet, especially if that person is more interested in being a celebrity than a real leader or decision-maker.
What is most disturbing for me is that Palin continues to so successfully plant weeds in fertile fields that the US left desperately needs to cultivate if it is to be a political force in the future.
Sioux Rose
KIVALS: As per your your astute comment that "the political environment is quickly deteriorating and I am afraid almost anyting can happen," should this woman be able to claim the throne she's such a loose canon that I could see her bucking at the puppet strings. I think she's got such a strong narcissistic personality disorder that she might well believe she's a DIRECT conduit from His almighty, and as such, come to believe she need not take the advice of all the advisors, those who generally would carry the day's talking points or policy positions and spoonfeed them to her majesty. If America owned the fate of having this one in the hot seat, all bets are off; and those who have so generously provided the media space to allot her status of Queen for a day (or several years), may find themselves betrayed for selling the nation out with this spectacle aimed by, at, and for stupidity. I suppose an accident would be arranged in such an instance, and the VP chosen with much care to potentially anticiate it.
You may be right as the woman certainly is proud, narcissistic, and unpredictable. However, if she does defy her would-be masters, the risks of utter catastrophe, including possible worldwide nuclear war, would rise dramatically. So if the oligarchs do install her, it may be for the best if they have a back-up plan of the nature you described, which I suspect they will.
normally, when one is allowed to move to 1600 PA Ave but s/he "goes rogue" the problem is solved with a bullet or two (see, for example, JFK). But that would not be necessary with the quitting governor. She's only in it for the glamor and the face-time with the rich and famous. For her, state dinners and (carefully screened) adoring, screaming fans would be enough; the details would ALL be left to others.
BTW, great posts, chelsea, godistwaddle, and socialist.
"no gods, no masters" --m. sanger
Sioux Rose,
I agree with you but she, like Obama, is a magnet for the extreme narcissism in this country. I count Frank Rich as the archetypal elitist narcissist of the so-called Left. The fact that he's driven to write about Palin, as is his colleague Maureen Dowd, is no coincidence. Chaotic idiocy due to the narcissism sweeping the country and the developed world from Bush to Obama to Palin appears to be where history is taking us. Narcissists do not see outside themselves. Rick Hertzberg, for example, is now a lover of white phosphorous drive by drone killings as is Mr. Rich who in supporting Obama is supporting this. The pattern of the far right is no different.
Sioux Rose
Fenner: I agree with your points. Those who are unwilling to toe the "establishment" position are generally denied a podium, print column, or media access. Mr. Rich manages to get a few important tidbits in, and that is to his credit. Given the collective rage of the teapot movement, can we really rule out the possibility that soon the elites will throw unpopular journalists or deep thinkers to the fires? The use of scapegoats has always been helpful to power intent upon consolidating itself; and those who dare to speak truth to power can meet a sorry fate in any century. As America moves further into a retrograde direction, one wonders if the call of heresy will once again place thinkers in danger? Mr. Rich belongs to the jet set and prizes his position, no doubt. Unless and until The Fairness Doctrine gets reinstituted, the chance of having genuinely diversified bold voices in media remains remote.
"Rick Hertzberg, for example, is now a lover of white phosphorous drive by drone killings as is Mr. Rich who in supporting Obama is supporting this." –(Fenner)
–Precisely. The priorities are unnervingly scrambled; everything is unmoored and unhinged in a free floating amorality.
Fluff and palaver is more important than the barbaric actions of the terror state, which are in turn, applauded by respected pundits of ostensibly 'liberal' persuasion.
"Lover of white phosphorous, indeed!" There are many and they are proud in their convictions.
As always in America, dread and blood ride high in the saddle.
–(Jill Bains)
Sioux Rose,
That you introduce the concept of 'narcissism as cultural metaphor' is prescient here.
While it is not new, it is always an important tool or prism to frame thinking and to engender understanding that goes a bit deeper than the usual chorus of dry political explanations.
That this now almost 'genetic' narcissism is coupled with a solipsism so profound it seems a harbinger of, and a prophecy for imminent catastrophe.
That it would, or will happen sooner– rather than later–is really besides the point.
Having said that, there remain no cogent arguments to vote for Obama in a head to head contest against the harpy without descending into unprincipled incoherence.
–(Jill Bains)
"and almost anyone can be a puppet"
To keep USans noses to the imperial grindstone through the century, the elites' master plan calls for a diverse, colorful series of puppets to parade through the oval orifice. Next in line for this mega-insult is a female. After that, a gay. Then a catholic, latino maybe. Then a native american. All these groups will have to suffer the mega-insult of this exploitation, by the elites, designed to distract the people from the class oppression, to preserve elite rule.
The people can of course slough off elite rule. They are learning how, and will soon.
"...but the political environment is quickly deteriorating and I am afraid almost anything can happen." –(kivals)
A prescient comment that in time will seem prophetic, were it not so obvious.
In America, the event horizon of the future is always when it stops merely 'imitating' itself an actually 'becomes' itself.
One must always prepare for the very worst in America as its very 'logic' belies that.
–(Jill Bains)
The reason we're supposed to accept for the over-the-top coverage given to Sarah Palin by our "lefty" media stars is the mere mention of her name brings viewers, listeners, sell subscriptions etc.
This is just an excuse.
Rich, Olbermann, Stephanie Miller etc. simply want to avoid having to report that Barack Obama is a complete fraud, failure and criminal.
So they fill up their shows with the predictable nonsense that Sarah spews.
I kinda agree with you here.... why does anyone waste time talking about this cartoon character?
It is all part of the false dichotomy, black and white, two-party, simple world view: the only choice you have is D or R, who are all part of the same socio-economic class and exclusive clubs. This MSM BS plays right into the game, and sadly, very few so called progressives can see it.
Well, I think Rich is correct. The populist anger over the prefered treatment of the elitist bankers is an overriding theme. Like what has happened most often in the past this rage is usually most effectively chanelled by the right. Think about why this is so. The party in power does not prosecute or shame the bankers who have caused this suffering. There is no justice. Things don't get better. The average American can see that the rich bankers are well connected socially with the powerful political figures who are supposed to represent them. They are still getting favors. No one is standing up to them. Think twice before you call her a fool. Without a word said she presents the message: "I'm on your side, I know how you feel. I know that you are confused like I am about how this has happened but make no mistake--I'm not one of those elite well spoken bankers, so friendly with your Congressman or Senator, who have done this to you."
And what is Geithner's message about the bailout? Something like, "I didn't like it but it was a neccessary thing to do." Who do you think will win the battle for popular approval when it is being framed this way?
Tammons - Good point. SP is fast becoming the face of the Tea Party.
"SP is fast becoming the face of the Tea Party." –(EuroDan)
In the ever widening vacuum of credibility and moral abasement left by the Obama regime, one ONLY wishes that SP was becoming merely "the face of the Tea Party."
One must never forget this is America we're talking about.
–(Jill Bains)
"Who do you think will win the battle for popular approval when it is being framed this way?"
–(tammons)
–Correct.
I believe the election of Palin is what most Americans, disdainful of education and suspicious of expertise, deserve. Read Charles P. Pierce's "Idiot America."
Yes but I still live here.
Hey, while we are giving free publicity to this scumbag, we can cheerlead for Cheney. After the sycophantic punditry is through with this BS, it will be time to bring Cheney back in to the news cycle.
I found this article not only redundant, but completely wothless and added NOTHING to political discourse.
I find it disappointing that so many so-called progressive articles appear here that are nothing but mainstream BS
Why am I not surprised?
Sarah's book is such an excellent example of the influence of corporate media culture on Americans. As she shamelessly name drops her long list of Hollywood celebrities to boost her appeal to the masses, she is clearly also in awe of these less educated, reality side-tracked, ordinary people whose only claim to fame is their ability to entertain. This is all done in the context of writing a book that is ideolgically free of opinions and thoughts that should (for a politician) be the primary concern for citizens. Instead she plays the "I'm so comfortable in the famous peoples club" to the max. Too many ideologically bankrupt Americans will consider this a good reason to vote for her in 2012.
"She looked good on Oprah", "Katie Couric thinks Sarah is cool", "Sarah understands Hip Hop" and other stamps of approval will sweep across the celebrity obsessed voting block, all but ensuring that the public interest can yet be ignored once again. Strike up another victory for corporate America and the dumbing down of the general public.
Obama has broken all of his promises. Transparency? Visitors logs to OUR house, the White House, are still secret, as under Bush. The AfPak wars are increasing, and we are fortifying Colombia to go after Venezuela, Bolivia, El Salvador, and any other country which wants economic independence from us, or who has leaders elected which are not CIA-approved. Remember, we got Bush twice in fraudulent elections....and Obama, a two-year Junior Senator appoints Cheney's Dark-Side General McChrystal to run the war in AFghanistan...all the while, trying to convince Progressives that he is running a "kinder and gentler war", so that the Progressives will feel good about the re-branding of our National Security State under Obama, and their consciences will be eased by their silence, or muted protest, or their "demands" that we leave Afghanistan on a "timetable". We see how well the timetable withdrawal the Democrats championed worked in Iraq. Sure, Guantanamo will not be closed as promised. Instead, we still have hundreds held there, while a few are tried in show trials. This is classic Modified Limited Hangout...give them a bone, and they will forget the big story. The big story is the secret torture prisons in Eastern Europe, and the thousands tortured, and murdered there, and in Iraq prisons, and other facilities. Does ANYONE not think that Obama is not simply the slicker face of the same National Security State which has been in place since 1947? Americans should look at the reality of their country with unvarnished, non-rose colored glasses. Only then is change possible. War continues, and increases in the Middle East, and there are still 128K troops there. Obama said he would remove all COMBAT troops...but Progressives heard in their heads that he would remove ALL troops. These words are Psyops, and are designed to fool you. In reality, the Vatican-sized "Embassy" in Iraq will be protected by 58K troops...we have not left South Korea, and we will not leave Iraq...as Alan Greenspan said in his autobiography "Why don't they just admit that they invaded Iraq for the oil?"
I don't believe she will get much traction vieing for Prezz, as the "Queen of Goobers" was booed by her own "subjects" somewhere in "Gooberville" this past week
Two quickies:
First, also what remains unmentioned is that Palin is going through a textbook Midlife Transition. The crazier, female version of the Midlife Crisis - go ahead, read up on it, you'll see. The only thing left is to dump Todd, which I'd argue has already happened...
Second, FR should know better. The R-nut Party is all about 'frontmen' used to cover their wholly f**ked up agenda. SP is just the latest - and the second she's served her purpose, it'll be dancing with the stars, then oblivion.
Just look at how fast they declared Bush the name never to be spoken in public...
Jeevee
This country has rarely lived up to its stated ideals, proudly propagandized as "The American Dream". Why can't we wake up and take ACTION for TRUTH and RIGHTEOUS BEHAVIOR?
Are we doomed to be obliterated by this capacity to be fooled by our GREED and obsession with national fairy tales?
Much-lauded Thomas Jefferson was a wino, deeply in debt, who had a loyal slave mistress who bore him children that he sold into slavery. Look how his WORDS are used as an example for Americans and for people everywhere on this tiny, valuable planet.
Obama has broken all of his promises. Transparency? Visitors logs to OUR house, the White House, are still secret, as under Bush. The AfPak wars are increasing, and we are fortifying Colombia to go after Venezuela, Bolivia, El Salvador, and any other country which wants economic independence from us, or who has leaders elected which are not CIA-approved. Remember, we got Bush twice in fraudulent elections....and Obama, a two-year Junior Senator appoints Cheney's Dark-Side General McChrystal to run the war in AFghanistan...all the while, trying to convince Progressives that he is running a "kinder and gentler war", so that the Progressives will feel good about the re-branding of our National Security State under Obama, and their consciences will be eased by their silence, or muted protest, or their "demands" that we leave Afghanistan on a "timetable". We see how well the timetable withdrawal the Democrats championed worked in Iraq. Sure, Guantanamo will not be closed as promised. Instead, we still have hundreds held there, while a few are tried in show trials. This is classic Modified Limited Hangout...give them a bone, and they will forget the big story. The big story is the secret torture prisons in Eastern Europe, and the thousands tortured, and murdered there, and in Iraq prisons, and other facilities. Does ANYONE not think that Obama is not simply the slicker face of the same National Security State which has been in place since 1947? Americans should look at the reality of their country with unvarnished, non-rose colored glasses. Only then is change possible. War continues, and increases in the Middle East, and there are still 128K troops there. Obama said he would remove all COMBAT troops...but Progressives heard in their heads that he would remove ALL troops. These words are Psyops, and are designed to fool you. In reality, the Vatican-sized "Embassy" in Iraq will be protected by 58K troops...we have not left South Korea, and we will not leave Iraq...as Alan Greenspan said in his autobiography "Why don't they just admit that they invaded Iraq for the oil?"
Maybe for your next article you can do a hard-hitting story about the shortage of graham-crackers in elementary schools. This story is so main-stream and bland as to be worse than irrelevant. Don't be distracted by this, people, and remember that the Democratic Congress recently voted for 106B to continue Bush's War's, really the National Security State Wars, and that President Obama signed off on it..while calling Afghanistan a War of Necessity. 48 million on food stamps in this country...now, there is a story. The destruction of the Middle Class and Manufacturing...now, there is a story. Now, Palin is no gem, but, ask yourself, when ALL of the Media jumps on a person, what function are they serving?
1. To distract you from Real Issues
2. To distract you from any portion of her message which might be real
If I wanted hard-hitting, analytical, investigative journalism, I would not be reading the NYT. Might as well turn on CNN for your infotainment.
People in the Media know what they are supposed to talk about...and what not. They are not supposed to talk about the entirety of the Black Budget...or even admit it's existence. They are not supposed talk about the actual number of Iraqui dead, or the actual number of displaced persons in that country (4 million out of 27 million..as a result of our illegal invasion). They must not question the official 911 Commission report, or risk being called Holocaust Deniers (as Zbigniew did on the Rachel Maddow show). No, the Mainstream Media will not talk about what we are doing to the democratically elected Hugo Chavez (contrasting his elections to that of George Bush (Both Elections). Chavez does not send troops to his neighbors...he is in solidarity with Evo Morales of Bolivia, their native-born, duly elected President. No, there is a whole host of subjects which will not be discussed in the Mainstream Media...instead, we read the below story about Venezuela...how bad it is, they are down 4.5% of GDP from last year...while we are in a Depression, and a tail-spin. While Ford invests 2.6 Billion to build cars in South America...but, not here.
This is self-censorship...people know where the boundaries are...and, if anyone slips up, they are Rosie O'Donnelled right off Mainstream Media (The View).....
Ironically, the unvarnished, unspun, non-modified limited hangout news can be seen on Al Jazeera, Russia Today, and read in Fidel Castro's writings....not for nothing did Hugo Chavez say to President Obama as a parting comment when he saw him......"Are you are you a prisoner?" (of the Military Industrial Complex, CIA, the National Security State)
I do not think we are getting enough Palin news. This is a very important story and the MSM has failed to give it enough attention as GOING ROGUE is much too important; intelligently written; and is full of truth and enlightment! And this is especially true since the pistol,packin, mama from Alaska will probably be our next President in 2012.
One thing is true---if you have not read a book in its entirety, do the right thing, and refrain from comment on the manuscript.
At the same time, I remember what Irish Revolutionary John Mitchel said about those who wrote autobiographies---"if they were so important" they would not be writing an autobiography.
For autobiographies are often written by very inconsequential figures.....
Now, a post-presidential memoir is quite different.....
Since I have not read the ghost-written "autobiography" I will not try to give any opinion other than to say many fine books are on the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble and Borders books.
One cedrtainly does NOT have to read an entire book to know it's crap. If a chapter of a book is pooly written, then the book cannot be well written. There might be some well written chapters, but the book as a whole cannot be well written. If a teacher is grading a student's test and the student has gotten the first five questions wrong on a ten question test, the teacher knows what the student's grade will be.
People in the Media know what they are supposed to talk about...and what not. They are not supposed to talk about the entirety of the Black Budget...or even admit it's existence. They are not supposed talk about the actual number of Iraqui dead, or the actual number of displaced persons in that country (4 million out of 27 million..as a result of our illegal invasion). They must not question the official 911 Commission report, or risk being called Holocaust Deniers (as Zbigniew did on the Rachel Maddow show). No, the Mainstream Media will not talk about what we are doing to the democratically elected Hugo Chavez (contrasting his elections to that of George Bush (Both Elections). Chavez does not send troops to his neighbors...he is in solidarity with Evo Morales of Bolivia, their native-born, duly elected President. No, there is a whole host of subjects which will not be discussed in the Mainstream Media...instead, we read the below story about Venezuela...how bad it is, they are down 4.5% of GDP from last year...while we are in a Depression, and a tail-spin. While Ford invests 2.6 Billion to build cars in South America...but, not here.
This is self-censorship...people know where the boundaries are...and, if anyone slips up, they are Rosie O'Donnelled right off Mainstream Media (The View).....
Ironically, the unvarnished, unspun, non-modified limited hangout news can be seen on Al Jazeera, Russia Today, and read in Fidel Castro's writings....not for nothing did Hugo Chavez say to President Obama as a parting comment when he saw him......"Are you are you a prisoner?" (of the Military Industrial Complex, CIA, the National Security State)