Tag: Sarah Palin
The Reagan Legacy: Can We Talk?
While folks born from the late ’70s on reflect fondly on the 100th birthday of Pres. Ronald Reagan, I wanted to inject a little reality on the subject of the Gipper.
As someone who was already around when he was in office, I have a different view of the golden age conservatives now see as the greatest in our country’s history, except of course, for the halcyon days of 3/5ths personhood and what-not at our country’s founding. Reagan gave us:
- Voodoo economics, aka trickle-down economics, aka supply-side economics, aka tax breaks for the rich
- Tripling the national debt within two years (see “voodoo economics”)
- Just Say No
- Creating a new demographic of Americans: The Homeless
- A 4,370-piece set of dishes (19 pieces per setting), costing $209,508
- Bombing Libya and killing 60 people, including Leader Muammar al-Gaddafi’s 15-month-old daughter
- Ketchup as a vegetable in public school lunches
- Lt. Col. Oliver North
- Selling arms to Iran and using the money to overthrow the government of Nicaragua
- Using astrology to plan presidential trips, functions, speeches, etc.
Verbatim
We’ve watched her morph from the hockey mom into a multi-media extravaganza that knocks on our door every day to sell something, without any invitation…The books, the reality TV, the family psycho-dramas, the never-ending internet “thought bubbles” could just be enough to drive even those who like her over the edge.
— Gloria Borger, CNN Senior Political Analyst, in a column titled, “Why America is Growing Tired of Palin”
Palin’s Approval Rating Is Shockingly High
38%
Sarah Palin’s approval rating in new polls from Gallup and CNN. Given her amateurish performances of late, and the level of toxic vitriol she has spewed in the past two years, this number is at least 15 percentage points higher than it should be. On the other hand, Gallup put her unfavorable rating at 53 percent. In the CNN poll, it was 56 percent.
Sarah Palin Really Should Seek Professional Help
Sarah Palin needs help – I don’t mean psychological help. (She probably needs that, too, but I am apathetic about her personal or psychological well-being.) The professional help she needs is political.
Oddly, and Fox Kremlin watchers take note, she didn’t include Glenn Beck among the victims, perhaps a sign that she is distancing herself from him because other crazed would-be assassins have cited Beck by name as the inspiration for their violence.
As I wrote last week, she has surrounded herself with political neophytes whom she can dominate, rather than experienced professionals, whom she can’t, and the neophytes are enabling her self-destruction.
In the early hours after the gun attack on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on Jan. 8, experienced aides — or, really, anyone with common sense — would have advised Palin to, pardon the war metaphors, hold fire, keep her powder dry and not go off half-cocked before details about the tragedy were confirmed.
Instead, her team of know-nothings panicked, apparently in reaction to an early erroneous report on Fox that Giffords had died. They were desperate because they knew that sooner or later the folks at MSNBC would re-broadcast an interview with the late Rep. Giffords from March in which Giffords herself laid blame at Palin’s feet:
Palin Inspires Very Bad Songwriting
Oh my goodness.
Surrounding Herself with Amateurs Has Put Palin’s Future in Jeopardy
Here’s a little bipartisanship for you. I, a bona fide member of the unprofessional left, agree with Jennifer Rubin, a conservative columnist for the rightward-tilting Washington Post op-ed page and who until recently wrote for right-wing Commentary magazine, that Sarah Palin is facing a career crisis of her own making, and that the crisis is a result of her decision to surround herself with amateurs and sycophants rather than seasoned political pros. Rubin writes:
It has been reported that that she is exceedingly insulated from experienced voices by a mini-staff in Alaska and her husband … A case in point is:
Rebecca Mansour who especially personifies the amorphous yet fervid network of Palin World. Mansour said . . . “I majored in English and history and minored in philosophy, but I’ve never been a Beltway person, so that does confuse people.”
And this person is “Palin’s primary speechwriter, researcher, online communications coordinator and all-purpose adviser.”
It was Mansour who went on a righty radio show hosted by former liberal (and current gay Stockholm-syndrome victim) Tammy Bruce last weekend to road test a new lie about the infamous crosshairs map Palin’s camp released last spring on which Giffords’ district was targeted, along with 19 others:
In the End, Palin’s Followers Will See Her as Tucson Tragedy’s Ultimate Victim
Glad the news media is quickly recognizing who the real victim of this week’s shooting is: Sarah Palin.
– Teresa Kopec, via Twitter.
It is fair to say that, upon learning about the assassination attempt on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on Saturday, most regular Americans assumed that a deranged tea partier had been pushed over the edge by one anti-government, anti-Democratic Party dog whistle too many from the GOP’s Fox channel personalities and hate radio propagandists.
That’s certainly what people close to Giffords assumed. On Saturday, as he rushed to his daughter’s side at the hospital, Spencer Giffords, 75, was asked if Gabrielle had any enemies. “Yeah,” he replied, “the whole tea party.”
Over the ensuing three days, it has become clear that the alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, suffered from delusions, at least, and, at worst, was in throes of mental illness that was untreated, perhaps even undiagnosed.
It is equally clear that Loughner planned the attack and specifically targeted Rep. Giffords, a Democrat, because she was a member of Congress. When police searched Loughner’s home, they found an envelope on which he had written, “I planned ahead,” and “My assassination” and the name “Giffords.”
And witnesses say Loughner ran through the crowd at the congresswoman’s event in Tucson and opened fire when he spotted her talking with constituents.
What is still murky, however, is whether or to what extent the toxic political environment, which is especially acute in Arizona, home to nationally known Republican hatemongers Sen. John McCain and Gov. Jan Brewer, played a role in his rampage.
Rude Pundit: Hey Right Wing, How’s That Ginning Up the Masses Thing Working for Ya Now?
For those of us following the coverage of the mass shooting aimed at Rep. Gabrielle Giffords who are sick of the false equivalency arguments (“But what about Daily Kos?”), the bending over backward denials (“They were surveyors marks, not gun scope sights”), and pleas by the right not to rush to judgment (like they do with every ginned up news cycle concerning the NPRs and Van Joneses of the world), The Rude Pundit offers some relief. He is calling out the same folks as the sheriff of Pima County did — those who earn a living inflaming the American people.
Rude Pundit: ‘Gosh, it’s just wrong to lump you all together, to stereotype you all as criminals in waiting. Like, you know, you have done with Muslims since September 11, 2001’
He goes one further, though, by including the viewers and listeners and readers who indulge those leaders, who drive up their ratings, and who ultimately pay their salaries. And if you are among them, The Rude Pundit leaves you nowhere to hide.
Following are excerpts from what could have been called, “Dear Right-Wingers: We Reject Your Every Attempt to Evade Blame” but which is, instead, the much better titled, “Dear Right-Wingers: You Are All Muslims Now.”
How you must have heaved in relief when you saw that it would be quite easy to portray Jared Lee Loughner as a raving psychopath, an effort that’s helped a great deal by the apparent truth, which is that Jared Lee Loughner is a raving psychopath…
Now, ah, yes, now, lovely right-wingers, you could defend yourself. You could work yourselves into a huff about how unjustly you were accused of driving this obviously disturbed individual into an act of calculated, cold-blooded violence. But that’s because you’re sitting there in your shit-filled underpants, thinking, “I don’t believe in violence. I don’t approve this. I hope the government doesn’t try to crack down on us.”
So, welcome, assholes, because you are Muslim now.
