Dispatches from the Creation Wars

I don't understand how a brain with only one synapse can still misfire.

Posted by: GVHD | January 12, 2010 9:49 AM

And that's now Fox News Contributor Sarah Palin.

*shudders*

Posted by: senor | January 12, 2010 10:07 AM

What a petty little person Palin is. She had the opportunity, after the 2008 election, to become one of the leaders of the Republican party. Instead, she decided to go the talking-head route, and, like Beck and Limbaugh, argue for her political positions without taking any responsibility for the implementation or the results. How cowardly.

(On a side note, Palin believes in a variant of Christianity in which women aren't supposed to rule over men; do you think that had anything to do with her retirement from public office?)

To be honest, I'm delighted that Palin will be on Fox News regularly; it'll give her an excellent opportunity to make more mistakes like "O'Biden" and embarrass her party further :)

Posted by: mad the swine | January 12, 2010 10:20 AM

Here's hoping that by bailing as governor and transparently chasing the $$$ she's become unelectable.

Sure, she'll have the opportunity to stir a lot of shit on Fox, but talking-head power rarely turns into personal political power. Rush and Glenn aren't going to get elected and neither is Sarah.

Posted by: Moon Jaguar | January 12, 2010 11:04 AM

Here's hoping that by bailing as governor and transparently chasing the $$$ she's become unelectable.

Anybody who bailed as a governor SHOULD be unelectable. Period.

That some people still want her to be President shows what unmitigated idiots those people are.

Posted by: gwangung | January 12, 2010 11:24 AM

Sadly, Palin is probably electable. In today's political climate, one very plausible scenario has voters figuring "We need someone different, and Palin is different, therefore we need Palin."

Worse yet, this scenario works equally well for Glenn Beck.

Posted by: xebecs | January 12, 2010 11:30 AM

In her own mind, and considering that many in her own party despise her, I wouldn't be at all surprised were Palin to run for the presidency in '12 as a third-party candidate under the Conservative Party (AKA: teabagger) banner.

She'd have a captive audience who'd instantly rally around her cause yet in the general election would only drain off votes from the established GOP nominee (a la the recent NY-23 race), and grease the rails for an Obama re-election.

In other words, if her critics think Palin is a political loose cannon now, they ain't seen nothin' yet.

Posted by: CHV | January 12, 2010 11:40 AM

I can sympathise with her. I accidentally referred to her as an O'Tool.

Posted by: rpsms | January 12, 2010 12:00 PM

And that's now Fox News Contributor Sarah Palin.

I guess it's kinda like bein' a politician - except you have no actual responsibilities!

I can't see Palin being offered up as a sacrifice, per MTS's scenario #2. The party is too full of true believers to make a calculation like that. They might be willing to endure another Goldwater debacle, seeing as they believe he was necessary for Reagan's victory 16 years later. Or, if that requires too much patience, the third party route would be tempting.

Posted by: Scott Hanley | January 12, 2010 12:26 PM

mad the swine @ 11:

I have to disagree with you, at least in part. It's possible Palin thinks she'll be able to leverage her popularity into a national political position, but I doubt that's possible at this point; given her track record for saying stupid shit, putting her on TV on a regular basis will ruin her chances with all but the lunatic fringe. If she picks up a Republican nomination in 2010 or 2012, it'll be because (1) the crazy teabag base has taken over the party, or (2) the party thinks that winning a/the election is a lost cause, and doesn't want to waste an electable Republican in a losing race.

I made the point she's unelectable so I concur with your points, there is no disagreement. My primary point in this realm is we shouldn't look at her unelectabilty at the top of ticket which I too previously noted and merely write her off as an entertaining novelty. I instead fear her getting nominated as VP.

Posted by: Michael Heath | January 12, 2010 1:03 PM

gwangung--bailing as a governor should make her unelectable, and it probably does as president. Whether she'd try for veep again I don't know: but Nelson Rockefeller was appointed as vice president after resigning as governor of New York, back in the 1970s. Granted, an anomalous situation: an unelected president (elected only as a member of the House of Representatives) selecting an unelected vice president.

Posted by: Vicki | January 12, 2010 1:25 PM

I have not seen any serious fact checking at Fox. Nothing will change regardless of who is speaking.

Any fact checking will take a (way) back seat to spin meisters doing the following dance: "What did Obama/Dems do today? How can we present that in the worst possible light?" Fox does this now on a regular basis without regard to their clearly bogus 'fair and balanced' motto. Paloon is just another hook to keep the drones in line.

Posted by: MikeMa | January 12, 2010 1:36 PM

I hope they save some room for Liz Cheney! She also lies, e.g. qualifies, to be on Fox.

Posted by: Rodney | January 12, 2010 1:48 PM

I'd like to see her debate Joe Mama.

or Geof Mehoff

or maybe Mike Hunt.

(OK, it's a bit juvinile)

Posted by: Chilidog | January 12, 2010 2:11 PM

For anyone feels confident that Palin or any other wingnut is unelectable, let me remind you that we actually elected George W. Bush the second time around.

Also, sort of related:

http://overcompensating.com/posts/20091123.html

Posted by: catgirl | January 12, 2010 2:15 PM

This deal gives her potentially hundreds of hours of air time between now and 2012 to say something irretrievably stupid on tape.

She has already done this many times and her supporters don't seem to care.

Posted by: catgirl | January 12, 2010 2:46 PM

She debuts tonight on Papa Bear.

Posted by: Naughtius Maximus | January 12, 2010 3:42 PM

While I agree that Palin is largely unelectable, I maintain my long felt concerns regarding her ongoing impact on the Republican party and politics in general. Palin, and demagogues like her continue to push the GOP to the radical extreme right. While that does mean that they are unlikely to be elected in a general election, it doesn't mean that we don't end up with radical, far right ideologues in congress, local government, etc. To make matters worse, the more they shift the GOP to the right, the more what is liberal, moderate, or conservative becomes bent, warped, and twisted. Only in the terms of a fringe right-wing nut like Palin is Obama a "liberal," by any rational definition, he is a moderate, some would argue even slightly right of center moderate, but in this insane new world of the GOP, moderate is liberal.

Continuing in that vein, the fear I have is that the more she (and psychopaths like her) shift the GOP to the right, the more conservatives will be seen as rational moderates, generally shifting our whole political spectrum unhealthily to the right, allowing for more abuses of civil rights and civil liberties, leading to more poorly constructed fiscal and monetary policies, and generally compounding on the problems already facing us. Of course their response to this will be to claim that the conservatives, who we are now calling moderates, are actually liberals, and try to force the whole mess further to the right, further screwing us all over in the process.

Of course we could speed up the whole process and have her elected as the VP under a "moderate" like Romney. If you're looking to send me a letter after that fiasco, feel free to send it to my PO Box on Mars because even the moon wont be safe enough from that hell hole.

Posted by: dogmeatib | January 12, 2010 4:28 PM

This morning I awoke to two unfortunate facts: (1) My cold was still symptomatic and (2) Palin was still in the news. I tweeted the following:
"My cold is like Sara Palin. I just want it to go away but it won't."
My usual tweeps responded in completely predictable & appropriate fashion, but a "stranger" calling himself patriottweeter sent the following:
"Quite judgmental of you... However, I believe you to be jealous of Sarah Palin...Have another donut it will make you feel better...."
I just do not get what these people see in her. Even if you want a right-wing idealogue, there must be better choices- like someone who can remember their opposition's name... or can list a newspaper or magazine she has read when Kary Couric asks...

Posted by: Pascale | January 12, 2010 5:14 PM

And I whole-heartedly concur with dogmeatIB's assertion specific to his point that her popularity forces the elected Right to the right. In addition, Ms. Palin will continue to greatly influence the outcome of legislation, just like she currently has since arriving on the scene.

In short: her career path isn't Cheny or Bush, it's Limbaugh.

Posted by: D. C. Sessions | January 12, 2010 6:11 PM

The teabagger convention echo chamber will now be media-free. As a result of that isolation, I smell a third party run in 2012 and who better to head that ticket but Ms Paloon?

Posted by: MikeMa | January 12, 2010 6:15 PM

@17

Heartfelt Belief...that's divided from the mean old real world by crossing the Common Sense River right?

I think Palin is actually trying a totally new approach to politics here. Her base is totally unconcerned with anything as trivial as facts, voting records, and legislative results. As people in here have poked fun at, Palin makes her hay with "common sense", moral certitude, and just plain "knowing" right from wrong. Was it 27 degrees in Dallas at the kickoff of the Cowboys-Eagles game Sunday while Pittsburgh had 6 inches of snow? Well, up yours Al Gore! Obviously, global warming is a hoax. Is natural selection make you furrow your brow as you struggle to understand the beautiful workings of nature? Nevermind, because it gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling inside to say GODDIDIT! Has Sarah been proven wrong time and time again with a 5 minute online search? Well, that's just the mean liberal media picking on a sweet little country gal!

Palin (or more likely, her handlers) know this all too well and have sought to exploit it. Her time in actual political office could only harm her chances; the more time she has free to offer up jingoistic platitudes without having to worry about actually implementing these idiocies into policy, the better off she'll be in her base. It's an extremely shrewd (and, terrifingly, plausible) approach to politics; she might very well be able to leverage her constituencies total self-denial and willful ignorance into political office, without the messiness of actually holding prior office.

As an aside, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh earlier and happened to catch a bit of Glenn Beck on Fox News (it's good to keep an eye on these people) and was struck by how their shows are a constant stream (from me) of "Well, actually...", "No, that's not quite accurate...", "What it REALLY said was...". It's all trivial stuff that could be refuted by 2 minutes on Google or by opening a newspaper and yet these people are either too stupid or too shameless to stop spreading factless memes around and their listeners/viewers are too insular, stupid, stubborn or willfully ignorant to check up on simple factoids. As an example, Glenn Beck went on a tirade about the Fed announcing today that it had made $46B in profits this past year and how that wasn't "evil" but apparently private bank profits were "evil" (not sure who called them evil, but in Beck's world, that doesn't matter - another interesting thing about this movement is its propensity to attribute positions and statements to the opponent's side and then attack those positions without the opponent having ever taken them). In fact, I knew that the Fed hadn't kept its profits, but had instead turned them over to the Treasury. How did I know this? From a 10 second blurb during Limbaugh's show ON FOX NEWS RADIO! I mean...Christ, people.

Posted by: Ryan | January 12, 2010 7:05 PM

Ok, did anyone else watch the link to the video @ Gawker that Ed has above? It looks to me like the "O" in "O'Biden" has been dubbed in.

Posted by: Steve | January 12, 2010 7:25 PM

CHV @ 41 stated:

Palin's influence on the US political landscape is extremely overblown, as her greatest rhetorical skill is no greater than yelling "fire" (or rather "death panels") in a crowded teabag. [emphasis mine]

And the Senate responded to the ‘death panels’ shout-out by immediately removing the language that subsidized doctors getting paid to review advance directives with their patients and insured those directives were executed by all health care givers as mandated by patients. Over-treatment for end-of-life care is one of only a handful of reasons health-care costs are sky-rocketing and the trend will only get worse. Rather than now having a serious adult conversation and debate about end-of-life care and what the government should subsidize and what patients should pay out-of-pocket, Ms. Palin has created bipartisan support for taxpayers spending outrageous money for treatment patients do not even want. I’d argue it’s currently a third rail. In addition removal of this language in the Senate Bill if it over-rides the House language will cause less patients to get the care they desire than if Ms. Palin had stated nothing. The net effect is government will be over-spending and patients will get treatment they never desired and the taxpayer will foot the bill.

CHV @ 41 stated:

Secondly, no VP running mate can ever be allowed to upstage the person atop the ticket (be it Romney or whoever). Otherwise, there's no point in that top candidate even being there (i.e. McCain).

By the time a VP shortlist (not done during the McCain campaign but normally) is used to pick a VP candidate, the Presidential candidate has a pretty good idea on what their chances are. The key to Republican victories is normally a large turn-out of older populists and lower turn-out of everyone else. Ms. Palin is extremely attractive to older populist voters. Given what we know today, I’d argue most GOP candidates that won the nomination for President would consider picking Ms. Palin planning to inventory her in a remote location similar to how President H.W. Bush did with Dan Qualye or Nixon did with Spiro Agnew or Carter did with Mondale. It’s a bit of a quirk for most VPs in our lifetime to be active participants in a presidency like VPs Cheney and Gore. Just like Sen. McCain did in 2008, the VP pick is normally a choice that focuses primarily but not exclusively on how it helps win the Presidency. The Cheney, Lieberman, and Palin picks are all prime examples. In fact Ms. Palin was a purely political pick based on her demographics.

CHV @ 41 stated:

But my conclusion about Palin's future falls directly in line with her having just signed on with Fox: she's all dessert, no vegetables. Or in other words, Palin wants a quick payday without "actual responsibilities," not the hard trench work that politics entails.

Oh I agree except I think she might still entertain fantasies of getting the top job or a cush job that leads to the top job, i.e., Fox News then the Vice President job and then a shot at the Presidency. In addition that such a perch has already recently proven to continue to greatly influence what comes out Congress. We live in new times and she’s example of the paradigm shift. Presidents and VPs have broad latitude on how to define roles and responsibilities for the VP; Palin as a media-type pundit acting out from the office of the VP could provide valuable political cover for a President. Given the enormous influence pundits have recently inherited coupled to Michael Huckabee’s gig on Fox, I think the future could very well be presidential aspirations that are attempted by way of media punditry.

CHV @ 41 stated:

I think you're overestimating Palin's national influence as even the bulk of mainstream Republicans can't stand her.

I agree powerful mainstream Republicans can’t stand her along with about half of the party’s voting constituency. However who drives the Republican party has shifted dramatically since Ms. Palin hit the stage and this is not a coincidence. Even mainstream and apparently intelligent Republicans like Representatives Pat Ryan (WI) and Eric Kantor (VA) now kowtow to teabaggers, Rush Limbaugh, and Sarah Palin. And non-intelligent Congress-people have jumped from the crazy train to the outright delusional train (e.g., Sen. Grassley’s on the death panel train).

Sen. McCain’s biggest legacy in terms of his impact to the country will go down in history as being the person who caused the Republican party to shed many of its moderates and swing radically to the populist right in spite of his having far more in common with those that left the party or remain but find Ms. Palin “unqualified”.

CHV @ 41 stated:

Palin is simply George W. Bush in a dress (albeit without the Yale degree, and eight years as governor). And we all know how his presidency turned out.

I’ve studied both Ms. Palin and Mr. Bush pretty intently. I argue that Mr. Bush was the worst President ever* using the parameters of who individually was responsible for the most marginal success or damage to the country and its interests. The damage Bush’s caused will last at least generations (the obvious failures) and possibly for centuries or more (climate change record). Ms. Palin is a far worse candidate, not even close. In fact I’d argue that Sen. McCain would have been a far worse candidate than Mr. Bush. But let’s remember three things:
1) Bush won the Presidency in 2000.
2) He won in 2004 in spite of the fact well-informed critical thinkers could easily discern he was a monumental failure in nearly every measurable category. (It didn’t help that the Democrats ran a very mediocre candidate in 2004 who wasn’t even smarter than Bush in general intelligence. As a Republican in 2004, I held my nose and voted for Sen. Kerry, but jeez . . .)
3) The Republican party did not critically look at its contributions to what failed from 2001 to today and respond with a plan that might results in increased competency in terms of their ability to govern. Instead they are obviously seeking a type of ‘strong-man’ authoritarian messiah that other demoralized populists have historically sought. America’s version is Ms. Palin.
Therefore I’d argue that our failures and Ms. Palin’s continued popularity with the largest voting base on the Right argues strongly that we should not minimize Ms. Palin’s impact on the debate in the public square and its impact within the federal government nor should we count Ms. Palin out on running as a VP with a candidate who could have appeal to the middle and independents but requires support from the Right. The Right has in fact shows a sharp turn right into the type of positions that fit Ms. Palin to a tee; those positions are wrong, idiotic, have failed in the past and guaranteed to fail in the future; but that is what the base on the Right wants and she’s happy to give it to them with a wink and guaranteed surges in the loins.

*I’m cognizant of Presidents’ Buchanan, Andrew Johnson’s, Pierce’s, and Harding’s horrible legacies. I would argue that their failures were either merely in league with others with not much of a chance to turn the tide or not as harmful as W. Bush’s failures will turn out to be. I think opponents to my position have arguable points, where I would then argue Bush at least belongs in the worst three.

Posted by: Michael Heath | January 12, 2010 8:19 PM

Mr. Heath @ 48:

Thanks for your two cents.

I watched some of Palin's appearance on Fox tonight. Quite frankly, it was pretty unremarkable.

However, I did find it interesting when Bill-O pushed Palin hard to voice a solution for the current situation in Iran, and she couldn't offer anything new besides applying new sanctions, and avoiding a US military attack unless it was absolutely necessary.

Or in other words, Palin endorsed Obama's current Iran policy despite herself.

I also found it amusing when O'Reilly (who lofted several softballs at Palin) suggested that (via her appearances on his show) could immediately neutralize her critics like Steve Schmidt by giving "her side of the story," but neglected to note that outside of the teabagger movement, Palin's overall credibility is next to nil.

Posted by: CHV | January 12, 2010 9:55 PM

THE DANCE OF DEATH ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER;

youtube.com/watch?v=-NHUbdqNb1A

THE END OF ATHEISM:

groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/browse_thread/thread/a6147f423c8631f7#

Posted by: atheismisdead | January 13, 2010 2:47 AM

Ms. Palin going commando.

You mean a la Sharon Stone? That would certainly be a next step and follows on from all the winking but is the world ready for it.

Posted by: Matty | January 13, 2010 8:49 AM