Dispatches from the Culture Wars

I had the same reaction when I first read this at Sullivan's blog, particularly the last paragraph.

Posted by: Michael Heath | July 3, 2009 9:58 AM

So what's the explanation for her support among Palin Democrats? (Hint: has something to do with breaking up the rackets in the GOP and DNC)

Posted by: Claire | July 3, 2009 10:13 AM

Herod stated:

I am amazed that Palin continues to repeat the same lies even though they were discredited long ago.

This is the core of the argument Ed provides here; the more she digs in defending lies that have been exposed, the more confidence she garners with social conservatives that she'll defend their discredited lies. I too was amazed prior to reading this argument on her repeating known falsehoods, but this provides a compelling cogent reason on why she would defend and continue to distribute known lies. That and she's delusional along with the likliehood she doesn't expose herself to detailed arguments discrediting her false assertions. All of which are known social conservative attributes.

Posted by: Michael Heath | July 3, 2009 10:23 AM

There are no Palin democrats. Its like the myth of the Reagan democrat. They transferred over to the repubs based on racism a long time ago.

Posted by: iRobot | July 3, 2009 10:33 AM

I'm a liberal (of the UK variety) but...

> This is the core of the argument Ed provides here; the more
> she digs in defending lies that have been exposed, the more
> confidence she garners with social conservatives that she'll
> defend their discredited lies.

Do people think that these folks actually come from an attitude where they *know* that what they are saying is lies and they push them anyway? Surely it's more credulous to say that they are just seriously deluded (and with enough closed-group re-enforcement that's easy to become).

Posted by: David Durant | July 3, 2009 10:49 AM

Ramel stated:

I fear this argument falls flat when you remember that palin isn't a liar - she's an idiot.

Ramel - one can be both and Palin's lies have piled up to an unprecedented number. Andrew Sullivan documents a mere portion of her lies and is up to 30. She broke a record in my lie count I do for presidential/VP debates where I counted dozens of lies. Palin is a liar, in fact she's the biggest liar I've ever encountered in politics.

Posted by: Michael Heath | July 3, 2009 11:00 AM

We've made it to 11 comments and not one Palin fanboy comment yet? I'm depressed. (I don't think the "Palin Democrats" thing counts, especially if they were referring to the Republican funded and controlled group that said they were democrats voting for Palin. I want to see the drooling fawning from those who think with their "schwing")

Posted by: Badger3k | July 3, 2009 11:11 AM

This is based on religion, which asks it's followers to believe the outrageous. The more outrageous a position, the more in conflict with reality, the more it's a test of one's faith, and therefore the more it must be believed.

So the more outrageous Palin's lies, the more utterly divorced from reality, the more her followers will cling to it.

Posted by: Comixchik | July 3, 2009 11:17 AM

David Durant stated:

Do people think that these folks actually come from an attitude where they *know* that what they are saying is lies and they push them anyway?

Ed stated:

David Durant is right. As I said in the post, this all operates subconsciously.

I would say David has a strong point, but I think it's more conscious than we might first assume. I would not go as far as Ed, in fact my experiences argue against it being totally unconscious.

I live amongst a large amount of social conservatives and have plenty of experiences seeing them try and extricate themselves from situations in order to avoid their false assumptions being tested (occasionally from me though I tend to stick to climate change rebuttals only). I believe their faith in their world view, while very hard and impervious to the truth which discredits it, is also consciously known by them to also be extremely brittle, thus the need to avoid challenges to their world view and why they love Palin and Hannity so much.

Therefore, I'd argue there is a continuum in play regarding the degree of conscious/unconscious in play; where most of her disciples have at least some degree of conscious understanding she's a liar. I know this for a fact for at least some since I've exposed them to her lies where their subsequent response weeks later is that she's a breathtakingly refreshing politician given her 'insightful honesty'. I saw the exact same response after we'd validated Bush's lies to take us into Iraq; someone close to me who is up on the news (Fox News version) defended him in 2008 as one our most honest politicians in his 71 year life. This is where I start to argue for delusion, but not total oblivion.

Posted by: Michael Heath | July 3, 2009 11:34 AM

Mr Lynne - Having read the Authoritarians (Thanks BTW for Altemeyer link), I think partially it's to do with rigidity and poor self-analysis.
Authoritarians hate change, uncertainty and the ambiguous. For them, everything has to be in a nice, clearly, B&W labeled boxes. Palin can lie to the faithful and get away with it because:
a) They don't actually ask themselves "is this true (or even vaguely likely)?"
b) They certainly don't want to know that their leaders might be wrong and have to change their minds (remember "This lady's not for turning'?)
c) They don't want to have to ask "why was I sucked in by this steaming pile of bovine excrement?"
d) They can't ask themselves "if this is not true, how can I trust anything leader (or party) X says or does, now or in the future?"
They PREFER that Palin lies, even if they suspect they are lies, it's less stressful for them. They'll just create a rationalisation (eg "evul librul mainstream media bias"), and continue to slosh down the buffalo cookies, because NOT doing so is just too terrifying for them to even consider. - DJ

Posted by: DingoJack | July 3, 2009 11:43 AM

I fear this argument falls flat when you remember that palin isn't a liar - she's an idiot.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Here's the thing, though - Palin's lies go beyond those of the dishonest politician or the delusions of the true-believin' fundy. Of the - is it up to thirty-three? - lies Andrew Sullivan catalogues, most are immediately and easily disprovable, and in many cases, there was nothing for her to gain by lying or lose by telling the truth. A good example of both: saying "We don't have closed-door meetings" almost immediately after coming out of one that lasted more than an hour.

I know the term gets thrown around a bit too lightly, especially in regards to politicians, but she shows every sign of being a genuine pathological liar.

Posted by: Seraph | July 3, 2009 11:52 AM

I agree that Palin's fundamental dishonesty resonates strongly with the American right, but I also think that her personality and physical appearance cannot be discounted either. The American right generally takes a highly regressive view toward women; on the other hand, whenever a woman speaks to them in their language (and they perceive her to be physically attractive), RWAs appear to be more receptive to her than to a male right-wing counterpart. Call it the Ann Coulter Effect, if you like. And let's face it: Palin is downright nasty. That's got to win her points among the ranks of the right.

Posted by: Sadie Morrison | July 3, 2009 12:21 PM

Seraph also notes the thing that most bothers me about Palin, in that a lot of the things she lies about are ridiculously trivial. She gave an interview with a running magazine recently, for example, where she said she was out jogging with some secret service guys and she fell and cut her hands. She says in the interview that her immediate response was to get them to keep it a secret, and they supposedly haven't breathed a word about it since.

I mean, what? You're faced with two options: either Sarah Palin really did tell members of the secret service not to tell people she fell over while running, which is insane, or she's just made the whole anecdote up for some unfathomable reason, which is also insane. It shows the mindset of someone for whom lying is such an ingrained habit that it becomes the first option, no matter what the problem is.

Posted by: Der Bruno Stroszek | July 3, 2009 12:49 PM

It is worth remembering that being a liar and nothing more isn't enough - otherwise they would idolize Bill Clinton. The person must be a christian liar, telling falsehoods that fit "the correct" (in their eyes) world view. I think this is why there was overwhelming support for her, but only lukewarm support for John McCain: he wasn't quite wacky enough for them.

Posted by: dean | July 3, 2009 12:59 PM

Palin/Bachmann '12

The dream ticket for both the Right and the Left!

Posted by: Gary J. Bivin | July 3, 2009 1:42 PM

The ability to assert the patently absurd with absolute confidence is the key to Palin's success with a certain mindset. All of this operates subconsciously, of course, but it operates very powerfully. It is the ability to remain blissfully ignorant of one's own cognitive dissonance.

I have to think that the same thing could be said of some on the loony left, though.

It's hard coming up with a crazy leftist pundit or politician to rival Sarah Palin, though. In fact, I'm trying to think of any big-name loony leftists out there. Rosie O' Donnell? She's controversial and says some dumb things, yes, but I can't think of her having openly lied a bunch of times.

Posted by: Adrienne | July 3, 2009 2:36 PM

I fear this argument falls flat when you remember that palin isn't a liar - she's an idiot.

As Michael Heath points out, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Consider, for example, the histrionic personality or the histrionic style: attention-seeking, envious, seductive, dramatic, calculating, ruthlessly manipulative--they will use lies to control others and to get whatever they desperately want (and they desperately want something all the time). The cognitive style of this type is dominated by repression and denial. Disturbing or disruptive facts aren't just glossed over; the entire cognitive style is dominated by vague or diffuse apprehension of information. There is a lack of detailed cognition and a lack of concern with logical coherence across the board--a situation that makes lying easier because such an individual has no genuine or deeply held convictions. Convictions aren't possible when denial and repression are pervasive mental operations.

Instead of convictions, these people present with postures. They're sometimes called "as-if" personalities because they do everything as-if they held real convictions. Not only do they make false statements with an air of confidence, but they make inconsistent statements and flat out contradict themselves from one occasion to the next. Their postures are nothing more than devices to get whatever they are craving and, since they have no real convictions, they don’t care if they’re statements are false or whether they are consistent from one moment to the next.

I would add that although they do tell lies with an air of confidence, the falsity can be palpable. Quite often, they show awkward glitches in their performances because their presentation is nothing but a contrivance. So you might see ill-timed winks and phony smiles that do a poor job of masking anger.

And if you do succeed in poking a serious hole in their posturing, they escalate. They may become enraged, make wild threats of revenge, they blackmail, they throw tantrums or plead and cry desperately. All of it is disingenuous—it’s just a matter of upping the ante and using the primitive means they have at their psychological disposal to get what they want.

What happens when these people are exposed, but exposed in a situation where they can’t escalate—say when an interviewer corners them on national television? Without their usual defenses available, they might look like a defenseless deer caught in the headlights. Of course, they would rage about it afterward.

Posted by: Dr X | July 3, 2009 2:43 PM

I love reading Jonah Goldberg's response to Palin over here...

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/07/riding-the-populist-tiger.html

...especially when rebutting a few foam-spitting emails by Palin zealots after Goldberg had the audacity to suggest she go away for a while, and read up on a few issues before approaching 2012.

But most amusing (on Goldberg's blog) is his insistence that Palin did "nothing wrong" on the campaign trail in 2008, and was a victim of (wait for it) the liberal media establishment who I guess was responsible for Palin embarrassing herself time and again on camera.

I don't know who scares me more: Palin's small (but loud) cadre of cult-like followers, or Palin herself.

Posted by: CHV | July 3, 2009 3:12 PM

especially when rebutting a few foam-spitting emails by Palin zealots after Goldberg had the audacity to suggest she go away for a while, and read up on a few issues before approaching 2012.

Note that that's the solution for Brother Billy Bob -- others in the racket make sure he just drops off the radar so that the Faithful don't get all stressed out on cognitive dissonance.

Sarah didn't take the hint. Looks like she ain't gonna, either -- which IMHO has all kinds of interesting implications.

Posted by: D. C. Sessions | July 3, 2009 3:28 PM

A Sullivan reader dissents from the reader who Ed posted about in this thread.

While interesting, I find this argument intriguing though not persuasive and once again, not at all mutually exclusive relative to her attraction to social conservatives given her unabashed propensity to lie [the reader never claimed otherwise, just thinks its a stronger factor regarding her appeal].

Posted by: Michael Heath | July 3, 2009 3:49 PM

There is a mix of things at work here:

1. Shared worldview. People who share Palin's professed worldview (right-wing Christian) identify her as one of them, and while they preach against sins like lying, fornication, etc., in private they are pragmatic enough to know that none of them is perfect (much to the annoyance of the rest of us!). So long as they believe that Palin's heart is in the right place, the other stuff is not important to them.

2. Benefit of the doubt. We all do this to some extent. There is little doubt that liberals (including me) are willing to give President Obama much more leeway with lies and broken promises than we did President Bush. We still want to believe he will come through for us in the end. That's only natural. The same thing is at work with Palin's supporters, the only difference being how far that benefit of the doubt extends (i.e. much further in her case).

3. Demonizing the opposition. Even I was startled by the speed at which the right-wingers went off the deep end as soon as the election results were in, in their demonization of Obama. Now, to the Palin supporters, he little less than pure evil and everything that he does needs to be vociferously opposed and stopped. Thus they believe that Sarah Palin at her very worst would be enough to prevent the country from ruin, so what are a few foibles here and there when compared to the God-given mission she is on to save America?

4. Black and white tinted spectacles. The more conservative you are, the more likely you are to live in a binary world. It's so easy -- it's either wrong or it's right. There's no awkward grey area to fret and worry over. One of the reasons many right-wingers love "24" and hate "Battlestar Galactica" (BSG) is their differing approaches to character development and world building. "24"'s Jack Bauer may be a flawed individual, but there is never any doubting his motivation and his patriotism. He can *always* be relied on to do the right thing in the end and thus even his criminal actions are justifiable as a means to an end. BSG presented a much murkier (and more realistic) world where flawed characters would muddle through not even knowing themselves if they were doing the right thing. Were they terrorists or freedom fighters? Was Admiral Cain a hard-headed hero or a cruel despot? (The wingers really hated that one). Thus again, like Jack Bauer, if Sarah Palin is caught in a few lies and broken promises, it doesn't matter. They know her motives are pure, even if she doesn't always play by the rules.

Sure there are left-wingers who will not hear a bad word about their leaders either, but I don't see them as being anywhere near as numerous and unpersuadable as the Palin crew -- and they certainly aren't as politically powerful as Palin supporters could be when 2012 rolls around.

Posted by: tacitus | July 3, 2009 4:12 PM

"It's hard coming up with a crazy leftist pundit or politician to rival Sarah Palin, though."

Yeah, Cynthia McKinney tries but Palin has set the bar pretty high.

Posted by: Shay | July 3, 2009 4:30 PM

"Sarah Palin Resigning As Alaska Governor"

I guess she figures the "lying idiot" strategy is a winning one. Steve Benen pretty much sums up my feelings on this one:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/018921.php

Posted by: Sean Micheal | July 3, 2009 4:51 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090703/ap_on_re_us/us_palin_resigning

What in the hell is she up to?

Posted by: Sadie Morrison | July 3, 2009 4:59 PM

FourSquare wrote:
Or you could take Mayor Villaraigosa in Los Angeles. He's *completely* disassociated from reality. He might be tough to acquire, though. The local rich developers like their little puppet, so they may fight you for him unless you can offer them a better alternative mayor, like a potted plant or a cardboard cutout.

Re: loony left equivalents of Sarah Palin...

Ah, yes, Villaraigosa is pretty awful. Former member of racist MeCHA, supports illegal immigration, and a very publicly humiliated adulterer to boot! What a combination! At least he won't be running for CA governor in 2010, hooray. Maybe he and Sanford can get together to commiserate and share sob stories while hiking on the Appalachian Trail.

Yes, McKinney is pretty damn awful too, but at least she never came within any reasonable distance of the Vice Presidency. Unlike the good ol' fashioned god fearin' lady in Alaska.

Posted by: Adrienne | July 3, 2009 5:01 PM

If she's doing this to run for President, it's beyond bizarre, and likely shows how utterly deluded she is if she thinks this will help her.

Or maybe one of the GOP movers and shakers got to her and is arranging for her to drop off the radar, in hopes of reducing the net damage to the Party in 2010.

Time will tell -- Palin doesn't seem to inspire her camp to much in the way of lipsealing.

Posted by: D. C. Sessions | July 3, 2009 5:16 PM

In Palin's speech, what bothered me (other than her drifting all over the place, and her annoying accent - "You betcha!") was her seemingly cavalier attitude toward her commitments as governor when she was elected to fill out a full four years, not two and a half.

Even if Palin does go underground for a while in order to polish her image, I think this decision may haunt her politically should she opt to run in 2012. After all, if Palin cannot meet her full responsibilities during four years as governor, why the hell should anyone consider her for president?

Posted by: CHV | July 3, 2009 5:36 PM

Ha, Azkyroth. I love that cartoon.

But really, since we are talking politicians and politician has-beens/wanna bes, you know there MUST BE loony ones on both sides.

So did John Kerry really eat boiled baby heads?

Posted by: Adrienne | July 3, 2009 5:47 PM

What, you think that the left was claiming she was a transsexual or something?

Posted by: Skemono | July 3, 2009 6:05 PM

The problem with the original comment is not, per se, the comment, because I think the substance is genuine enough, and does indeed "nail" the fundamentalist mind. However, the fact that all of this operates on a subconscious level, suggests to me that the real problem for these Religious Right types who probably form the base for a Palin candidacy is what psychologists call "cognitive consistency" v. "cognitive dissonance". For many fundamentalists, claiming "my kid isn't gay, s/he just hasn't found the right man/woman yet" isn't lying, because on some level, they truly believe this. But the cognitive dissonance is there, and there's lots of it,not just about gay kids, or evolution, or, well, take your pick. Basically, in order not to be overwhelmed, they have to explain the "dissonances" away, somehow. And yes, that's pretty much what Palin does.
Anne G

Posted by: Anne Gilbert | July 3, 2009 6:44 PM

@53: "if Palin cannot meet her full responsibilities during four years as governor, why the hell should anyone consider her for president?"

That is the really scary part. The comment presupposes rational consideration on the part of the fundie Right. They won't. Expect to see her pop up again in 2012. Her handlers may even have managed to polish her presentation to better hide her idiocy.

Posted by: Gray Gaffer | July 3, 2009 7:57 PM

After a couple of rhetorical go-rounds with a creationist Christian, his son asked me not to use such good arguments any more because the dad's faith was very important to him. And the old guy was honest enough to realize that "Darwin didn't know such-and-so" didn't say anything about our knowledge today.

Posted by: Monado | July 3, 2009 10:28 PM

I was thinking more about Palin's resignation this afternoon. The Vanity Fair article talks about Palin's career-long pattern of disposing of friends and allies once they have outlived their usefulness, and perhaps this is what's happening here.

I would not be at all surprised if she thinks that now that she's had a taste of the national stage, she has more important things to be doing (like running for president) than running a tiny state (the population of Austin, TX) in the backwaters of America. To her, Alaska has outlived its usefulness, and thus now it's time to throw it overboard, as has been her way all along.

Why be stuck in meetings with state legislators nobody's heard of working on stuff usually the remit of mayors in other parts of the country, when she could be striding across the national stage with the Republican glitterati, starring on Fox News, and dispensing pearls of conservative wisdom on the right-wing talk show circuit?

Alaska you are dead to her now. (Not that it's necessarily a bad thing for the state!)

Posted by: tacitus | July 3, 2009 10:49 PM

Black and white tinted spectacles. The more conservative you are, the more likely you are to live in a binary world. It's so easy -- it's either wrong or it's right. There's no awkward grey area to fret and worry over. One of the reasons many right-wingers love "24" and hate "Battlestar Galactica" (BSG) is their differing approaches to character development and world building.

Cite?

I love it. You accuse someone of black and white views, and then spout a black and white view about "conservatives". You just exploded hypocrisy meters across the globe.

Posted by: Wister | July 3, 2009 11:01 PM

At 10: 56, hairlip posted the following comment:

When you're being told that what you want to believe is the truth, you simply have no ability to doubt. It doesn't matter what the truth is, just what you want it to be. That's why Faux News can keep on making stuff up, and never have to apologize - the true believers will never make any effort to find the truth, in fact they will do the opposite, and keep their heads buried deeply in the sand. Hmmm. That is "really" mindful of the Messiahs campaign. And so it goes.......

At 11:05, he/she commented thusly:

Vanity Fair's article is nothing more than a "hit" piece with "un-named" sources throughout being cited by the Author. It is as believable as a fairy tale. However, all the lefty loonies just relish this kind of journalism and cannot wait to cite the yellow journalism and capitalize on it with their bobbing head cronies.

Do we have concrete evidence of multiple personality disorder here?

Wister: please demonstrate what exactly was black-and-white about Michael Heath's assessment. A generalization, perhaps, but that does not equal "black-and-white."

Posted by: Sadie Morrison | July 3, 2009 11:15 PM

I think you're all wrong about Sarah The Impalinator. She's resigned because Michael Jackson was killed by the CIA and she needs to get to Neverland before the mothership comes ba--... oh, nevermind, my meds just kicked in.

Posted by: democommie | July 3, 2009 11:21 PM

Tacitus:

I do not disagree with you. I wouldn't be surprised if Palin bought a second home in Virginia in the near-future to be close to her new PAC, and began spending a lot more time there than in Alaska.

Being ambitious is hardly illegal, but Palin seems to be stepping over a lot of people on the way and turning off once staunch supporters.

Check out the following quote from Reihan Salam, a right-wing blogger and now ex-Palin backer dated from this past April:

[i]“Palin's campaign antics can be forgiven. What can't be forgiven is the ham-handed way she's tried to build her national profile since she returned to Alaska. She's abandoned the bold right-left populism that won over Alaska voters -- and me -- in the first place in favor of an increasingly defensive and harsh partisanship.... One can't help but get the impression that Palin is a clownish, vindictive amateur.... What I'm wondering is: Has Sarah Palin undergone some kind of secret lobotomy?”[/i]

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_07/018921.php

I can only wonder what Mr. Salam's response was to Palin's resignation today. Ten bucks says it involved picking his lower jaw up off the floor.

Posted by: CHV | July 3, 2009 11:25 PM

Ignoring the gnats buzzing around, there are now rumors that issues and pending indictments concerning Palin's house might have been the trigger for her resignation:

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7280

Who knows if it's true, but it would certainly explain the hasty resignation today -- her spokesperson was in New York, not exactly where she needs to be at a time like this.

Posted by: tacitus | July 3, 2009 11:41 PM

Hairlip:

Why are you assuming that Palin's loudest critics on her decision to resign today are liberals? Flipping around the cable news networks following her announcement today, Republicans were roasting her as much as anyone here.

Tacitus:

After the events of today, I guess anything is possible. I guess we'll know for sure if the FBI shows up at Casa de Palin in a few days, finds the place cleaned out, and later hears whispers of a pretty gringo lady running for office in Guatemala.

Posted by: CHV | July 3, 2009 11:53 PM

Help myself from what? Being honest?

If you didn't see conservatives on cable news smacking their heads today about Palin's speech then you simply weren't paying attention.

The woman is an effing train wreck.

Posted by: CHV | July 4, 2009 12:04 AM

As I said, ignore the gnats :-)

Posted by: tacitus | July 4, 2009 12:06 AM

Yeah, who ever came up with the right-wing myth that progressives sip lattes?

I hate coffee. Hell, I don't even like iced tea.

Posted by: CHV | July 4, 2009 12:16 AM

Why is she incompetent? Didn't know what the job of VP entailed, for starters. After being selected for the post by an old man with a dicky ticker who wanted to be POTUS. Made asinine comments like the one about seeing into Russia being quitabloe qualificatin for the job. Like telling half of Americans they were not true Americans if they didn't agree with her. And thereby swelling our ranks to 55%.

Scary? These folks own the owners of the voting machines. These folks vetoed the idea of any voting machine oversight. These folks want to put in jail anybody who points out the voting machines can be hacked by a teenager. Pwned in minutes. These folks mandated the switch over to computerized voting machines when every security expert in the world told them not to. Only their general incompetence lost them the country last time. You can bet behind the scenes they have some really bright minds with no ethics and immense vested interests working on how to do it right next time.

You bet I'm worried about that. My only defense is embodied in the person of the present POTUS because he determines the focus of the nation. And he is ignoring the problem.

Posted by: Gray Gaffer | July 4, 2009 12:56 AM

Indeed, haven't Jonah Goldberg, Charles Krauthammer et al been saying since the election that what Palin needed to be doing was study up on policy and the process of governance? I can only imagine that they would be critical of this decision. That being said, they should have realized that that advice was pointless, as 1) based on the articles I've read, she doesn't particularly like unsolicited advice, and 2) as this post is all about, her whole appeal comes from only knowing two things: Jack and shit. And Jack left town.

Posted by: Sean Micheal | July 4, 2009 1:00 AM

This post is a stretch. I was around these exact type of people for years. I regret it and disagree with much of what they stand for now, but in no way did I see them as being liars. She is not only Religious Right she is part of the Pentecostal/Charasmatic branch that is very cult like in many ways. The group think mentality is very present and anyone who questions things is certainly met with wrath. They are all so convinced they are right no one can tell them anything. But when people try and label them liars I defend them because it is not true.

My other issue is that many who rally around this thesis when it comes up on here and love books with inflamatory titles like "Liars for Jesus" remind me more of the "fundies" they hate than any other group I have met. The chief sign of this is that anything someone they do not like does right is ignored. I thought Tactius's comment about 30 back hit the nail on the head and was balanced.

Are some of these people ignorant and deluded? Yes. Are they all liars? No.

Posted by: King of Ireland | July 4, 2009 9:18 AM

No thanks. I've got better things to do than try to prove something to you.

Translation: you haven't accomplished squat in your life.

Posted by: William Z | July 5, 2009 3:14 PM

David Durant is right. As I said in the post, this all operates subconsciously. These folks don't actually think, "Wow, Palin is really good at lying." They think she's telling the truth. It's the ability to so confidently assert the truth of statements that are utter nonsense and contradicted by all the evidence that appeals to them, not because they recognize that those things are untrue -- they don't -- but because they seek a champion for their own views and she is able to defend those views with an air of confidence. And the more she's attacked for that, the better she looks to them.

That can be said of Obama supporters as well. That's what you get when people are blindly partisan. Their guy is right no matter how wrong he is. Unfortunately, that is a trait of many on both the right and left.

Personally, as a conservative, I think Palin is a lousy candidate. However, I like Obama even less.

Posted by: mroberts | July 5, 2009 6:35 PM

mroberts: your equation of Palin's blind partisans with Obama's staunchest supporters isn't just exaggerated; it's totally made up, probably to give yourself an excuse to go on supporting the Republicans no matter how insane or infantile they get.

Posted by: Raging Bee | July 6, 2009 11:54 AM