In what possibly constitutes the world’s first self-nomination for an Agincourt Award, I’d like to chew over the dimilarities and sifferences between the resignations of Mark Latham (2005) and Sarah Palin (2009) from their respective positions:
Similarities — both had…
- Suffered an ignominious poll defeat in the white-hot spotlights of their nation’s highest-profile elections, from opposition.
- Announced their decisions abruptly, apparently surprising even their closest confidantes.
- Given rambling kiss-off speeches in part blaming the meeja for their downfalls.
- Conducted their election runs in fangs-out, balls-out, fairly raucous fashion by the standards of these things.
- Secured their nomination by wafer-thin margins, but delighted their partisan backers with their early performances.
- An aura as the ‘dark horse’, exotic or ‘fresh new face’ pick out of a field of the usual suspects.
- First been hailed by their respective sides as the messiah-in-waiting upon their nominations, followed by creeping disillusionment at their performance and competence while in the hotseat.
- Long(ish) careers in politics prior to their nominations, including as town Mayors embroiled in allegations of financial malfeasance or incompetence.
- Tended to polarise the electorate with enthusiastic backers or coruscating detractors.
- Been considered the ‘bogan outsiders’ of their own political culture, but for that reason were considered by their boosters to represent the authentic voice of their political movement.
- Paradoxically, also laid claim to being some kind of ‘glamour candidate’ within their own political cultures.
- Attracted the attention of law enforcement agencies for fairly serious indictments or investigations at times in the distant and not-so-distant past.
- Put their family, especially their children, front-and-centre in the early part of their campaigns, and then reacted angrily and tearfully when the meeja began to focus on their children and spouse. Cue Latham “wouldja [gulp] lay off my family?”
- Met more than a couple of the diagnostic indicators for Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
- A different number of testicles than the average for their gender.
Differences:
- Latham’s proximate cause for resignation was pancreatitis whereas Palin is in rude health.
- Palin’s hair is better than Latham’s bye-bye buzz-cut.
- Palin’s ultra-religious and Latham’s atheist.
- Latham had a fairly distinguished (for a politician) record of academic achievement prior to and during his political career, including the publication of ponderous tomes and attendance at what passes for an Ivy League college in Australia. Palin’s college record showed a fairly disjointed series of enrolments and dropping-out of utterly undistinguished institutions.
- Palin had actually won an election to executive office at a state level.
- Latham enjoyed the patronage in his formative years of his Party’s living Saint Whitlam, whereas Palin was not inculcated into politics until relatively recently.
- Latham was of course the leader of his campaign, whereas Palin was a none-too-comfortable Deputy.
- There is evidence that Latham can read (to his children, at the very least) and write (poisonous political memoirs).
- Palin has not comprehensively burned her bridges for a comeback.
- Liverpool is warmer than Alaska.
- Palin can shoot moose from helicopters and ride a snowmobile!
Did I miss anything?
Palin has realised that it is not Russia that she can see from her house but her chickens coming home to roost.
I dunno Merc,
Mark Ambinder writes a great piece about Sarah Palin that closely describes a recent Australian experience with a dodgy redhead.
Some sort of hybrid beast, Latham/Hanson DNA spliced in a lab.
Russia that she can see from her house
Tina Fey said that Shaun. SP actually said that you could see Russia from land here in Alaska, which I think is probably true.
Just for a laugh, why don’t we try to restrict comments about SP to those that are factual?
I really have to admire the gall of the whiny wingnuts blaming the whole thing on those bastard lefties who have driven poor Sarah from office with their awful personal attacks. These are the same people who have spent a year screeching that the current president is a secret Muslim terrorist sympathiser with a forged birth certificate; people who even avoid calling him by his correct name so they can constantly display the visceral hatred and contempt they feel for him.
There’s speculation in the US that Palin needs a few days with her lawyers – and a tax lawyer – before she can expand (carefully) on her reasons.
It’s still an utterly inane thing to say.
WTF? I laughed at the rest of the snark, Merc, but this is as bad as calling Coulter a tranny just because one doesn’t like her opinions.
There’s plenty of legitimate snark to be made on things that are actually true and relevant – why this cheap shot?
Does this mean a woman in high office can’t be a Real Woman? I’m sure there are many people out there who think this.
“There’s speculation in the US that Palin needs a few days with her lawyers – and a tax lawyer – before she can expand (carefully) on her reasons.”
You mean this?…
Hockey Mom Hogs House.
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/03/palin-hockey-arena-scandal/
(via confessions @purepoison)
I’d forgotten she existed.
tigtog, Helen — yes I know it was a cheap shot. Just muckin’ around. Didn’t mean anything by it other than a nonsense throwaway line. Right, I’ve used up my annual quota of bad-taste commentary, ‘k?
“There’s speculation in the US that Palin needs a few days with her lawyers – and a tax lawyer – before she can expand (carefully) on her reasons.”
No doubt another empty slur that will amount to nothing, like all the others. Including the 15 vexatious, party paid, meritless ethics suits she’s had to deal with over the last twelve months.
If she wants a new career, she could make a rich living by suing idiots for slander. There seem to be a lot of them, and they’re not the types to control their mouth.
She can see the end of her political career through her window.
This is a fascinating story. Yes, for us she is too much like Our Pauline (only with more coherent rants) in her assault on basic professionalism, but don’t forget how uniquely US American she is. But Latho? There’s little resemblance there. Latham left the public eye for good when it was time.
Eugene McCarthy once said that running for US president was addictive. His career arc as a presidential political figure started when he overnight became the darling of a grassroots movement; he quickly peaked after forcing great things to happen; he left the senate, and within several years was running as a third party candidate (one who was deemed such a threat to the Dems he was kept off the ballot in New York for the closely fought election of 1976). Pat Buchanan had a similar experience in the ’90s.
If only Palin could flame-out as brilliantly & independently as those two.
However, those gents had to leave major party politics because the inmates hadn’t truly taken over the asylum. Palin is fleeing south to a party in an era where that has actually happened…
Speaking of which:
“tigtog, Helen — yes I know it was a cheap shot. Just muckin’ around. Didn’t mean anything by it other than a nonsense throwaway line. Right, I’ve used up my annual quota of bad-taste commentary, ‘k?”
Yes but Mercurious, you forgot to mention sexist. Therefore your last line I have quoted up there should really read. “Right, Ive used up my annual quota of low blow sexist commentary which Ive just tried to pass of as nonsence throwaway just muckin around bad humour, k?”.
k?
Yeah well Craig @ 16, her attorney van Flein would say that! :0
“yes I know it was a cheap shot. Just muckin’ around. Didn’t mean anything by it other than a nonsense throwaway line”
We should be grateful, Mercurius, that you didn’t reprise that awful anecdote about Senator Rosemary Stanton from Latho’s memoirs. Or the bit about the bet between he and Joel Fitzgibbon about who could bed the most Liberal staffers.
And you forgot to note that there’s no record of Latham ever having claimed to have taken out entire migrating herds of moose with a hand-held short-range ballistic missile while riding a snowmobile and clad in a stars ‘n stripes bikini.
Good point, AdamTucker@18.
I’m thinking the dike will flood and Van Flein’s efforts to put the finger on the press, in this case, will be in vain. What is it about right wingers and corruption?
Or the bit about the bet between he and Joel Fitzgibbon about who could bed the most Liberal staffers.
Were latham and Fitz ever in the Navy?
Casey @ 17. Exactly.
Mercurius appears to have put unwarranted effort into the wording and content of this puff-piece so he’s hardly likely to have not thought of the implications of his subtle as a conga line of suckholes “nonsense throwaway line”.
And why anyone would put such effort into comparing a Republican V-P candidate and a ALP Opp Leader and still manage to not mention their respective political differences, or similarities as the argument may be, is stranger than fiction.
Mercurius might then just as well have said: here we have two people driven above all by personal ambition pursuing the seductive possibilities of political power which in both cases eluded their inept grasp.
Oh wait, he didn’t even say that either.
A “Higher Calling” maybe the Faux News anchor speculators were onto something.
[JUNEAU, Alaska – Outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Saturday laid the groundwork to take on a larger, national role after leaving state government, citing a "higher calling" with the aim of uniting the country along conservative lines.
A day after surprising even her closest friends by announcing she would step down as Alaska governor more than a year before her term was up, the controversial hockey mom was still keeping details of her future plans under wrap. But in a statement posted on Palin's Facebook account, she suggested that she had bigger plans and a national agenda she planned to push after she resigns at the end of the month.]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090705/ap_on_re_us/us_palin_resigning
Well, Biffa wanted Australian politics to be more like America’s, and Woman Who Reads EVERY Newspaper obviously wants US libel laws to be like Australia’s.
There’s your similarity.
Roo Paul @ #12, you obviously know less than nothing about Quentin Bryce.
Oops.
Ruby Slippers is my stage name.
It’s hard to tell at this stage exactly what her reasons for going are. There is a considerable possibility that it is for some kind of personal reasons. However if, as seems most likely to me, she is doing this just as a springboard to a presidential tilt in 2012 I would have thought that this would be a major burden. How hard would it be to come up with an attack ad asking if she will just quit when the going gets tough. Let alone the mockery that could come from the all powerful late night comedians.
I agree with the US media talking point that her ‘base’ will love her no matter what, often in an inverse relationship to everyone else (as much as any leftist Australian could know how the Conservatives in America will respond.) But surely this isn’t the kind of move to be played by someone hoping to defeat
the messiahthe least naughty of all the naughty boys.What really seems silly is that her term was up in 2010, surely if she went out then that would leave a good two years to focus entirely on 2012 even taking into account the insanity of American politics and the supposed need to start campaigning now.
@16 – I agree Casey.
A measure of how inappropriate the snark is might be its ability to underpin the sort of distasteful and offensive comment Pavlov’s Cat mentioned @ 24, which I’ve now deleted.
I realise this whole post was tongue in cheek Mercurious. But my point was really about that how women politicians are judged in sexist terms and stereotypes, and how that is passed off as “just jokes Joyce” when people are called on it.
In th eleadup to the election last year, Shakesville actually ran a sexism watch on Palin:
http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2008/08/sarah-palin-sexism-watch-1.html
And, I might also suggest that there is very little humour to be found in testicular cancer.
Are you sure? Andrew Denton made a pretty fair fist of being funny about various childhood cancers back in the early 1990s.
I’ve never found Andrew Denton remotely funny!
… and if I recall correctly, that humour was in the context of attending a camp where kids had cancer, and they themselves were laughing about it.
No doubt we will get the usual “left are humourless” label and there’s probs a Catallaxy thread on us as we speak, but to be honest, I think a lot of judgement has to be applied to drawing lines when it comes to satire.
Mark I think the Catallaxy mob are still trying to recover from their somewhat embarrassing ‘Did Rudd mislead the parliament?’ item, which includes gems in the main post such as ‘These are extraordinarily serious allegations and, on the news I have seen, it doesn’t look good at all’ and ‘Insiders this morning had Paul Kelly being very short and sharp – Wayne Swan has a case to answer and it’s up to him to show that nothing untoward has happened. Kelly had a finely attuned ear for political currents and this indicates that Swan is in trouble’, not to mention stuff like ‘The department should also be told that if anything happens to Grech professionally wise they will look at that as political tampering of an innocent public servant trying to do his job as honestly as possible’ in the entertaining comments.
Plus this bit of insight: ‘Anyone see the public servant who made the accusation. He looks really credible and seems even frightened of his own shadow. That poor dude isn’t lying.’
I guess that’s what happens when you rely on News Ltd as your primary source.
BTW ‘Julie Novak on The Gretch that stole a Prime Minister?’ links to ‘Page not found
Sorry, the page you were looking for in the blog Free Market Liberal does not exist.’
I bet a few other people also wish they could de-exist their thoughts on the story
.
“•Met more than a couple of the diagnostic indicators for Narcissistic Personality Disorder”
.
” but to be honest, I think a lot of judgement has to be applied to drawing lines when it comes to satire.”
So the jokes at the expense of the mentally ill are not cool either?
Yea I didn’t think so – why rely on such a description when it is so callous and inappropriate?
Without a diagnosis (and it would be impossible for Mercurious to get one regarding the individuals lampooned ) why does he go for the lame excuse they must be suffering from a God complex ?
If you disagree with their politics fine just don’t start explaining the differences by way of their being mentally unwell.
OK – What the hell did Roo Paul@12 say about the GG that warranted deletion of the comment.
The public has a right to know!
Murph, NPD is not a God complex. And if you’ve encountered it in people you know well, one can spot the lack of reflective self-awareness and the “it’s all about me” behaviour fairly easily in others.
As for the sexist comment in the post, I gave into a mistaken and childish urge to make inappropriate comments. Sorry for the offense, lesson learned. I’m sure nobody else here ever succumbed in a moment of weakness to the urge to write rude words in the dust on the rear window at the back of the bus.
It was sexist, I’ve been called on it, and there’s been smacks before bed and no pudding either.
*runs off to room with tummy rumbling*
*shouts “poo! bum! wee!” into pillow*
Mark, you’re quite right with regards to the Denton cancer thing.
With regards to comedy and drawing lines, I would agree that judgement is important when it comes to comedy, but I would also suggest that very few topic are outright impossible for a skilled satirist to find humor in – and, as you’ve mentioned, the identity of the joker matters greatly.
Victims of various maladies are themselves well-known for their no-holds-barred approach to jokes about their condition, as that Denton special showed, and Crohn’s sufferers have their very own special brand of toilet humor…
In my view recent Republioan Party candidates for high office come in two breeds: Idiots and Monsters.
They are deliberately selected by the GOP royalty from the Idiot/Monster gene pool for very specific reasons.
Never seen so many sensitive souls, or is sunday moaning day. Palin certainly has a set of three considering she really played her VP candidature as though she was chosen on merit rather than purely sexist reasons. Palin makes Pauline look like a professor. At least Hanson asked ‘please explain’, Palin doesnt even realise she is stupid.
Ah yes, Blah Blah Blah. Great show. I still chuckle at his one about Helen Keller accidentally reading the cheese grater one day, and thinking it was the most violent book she’d ever read.
Yep. Palin’s political career, such as it was, was based upon the Republicans’ pandering to sexual double standards and to gender stereotypes.
When was the last time the Republicans spent $300,000 on a male candidate’s outfits? Why was this expenditure deemed to be an efficient use of GOP funds?
Maybe Palin wasn’t smart enough to recognise her role in this recent exercise in political slapsitkc. On the other hand, if she was a willing participant in that toe-curling exploitation of lubriciousness and the male gaze, then the metaphorical significance of cohones, meaning sheer affrontery, is appropriate.
Come down and eat your pudd, Mercurius.
Not so fast. Sheer affrontery? Cohones? I am no grammarian but as I understand it, in order for a metaphor to work the two dissimilar things have to have an underlying similarity. Therefore the tenor, being the sheer affrontery you describe, and the vehicle, being testicles which you say represent it – should have some underlying similarity. But she does not have cohones, not at all. So your metaphor fails. The tenor has no vehicle to carry it to any meaning because there is no underlying similarity between testicles and sheer affrontery you see.
If you say someone is a night owl then the tenor is the idea that they stay up all night, the vehicle is the figure of the owl who is a night creature.There lies the similarity between the two dissimilar figures. The vehicle of the figure of the owl can carry the meaning of someone who stays up at night or does not sleep.
The imputation that she does have testicles is just a projection of woman monstrous. If there is a metaphor there Katz it is a deeply sexist one which works, with the vehicle and tenor reversed -: The vehicle is the testicles, the tenor is the idea or rather the insult that she is not really a woman because of her deception of men, and of the masculine fear that she can hoodwink men with her fetching looks and $300,000 wardrobe. And that she does that in a calculated way. And here is the sexism: Any woman who does this is not a woman. She is really a bloke in a skirt. Its just plain sexism Katz. And, well geez. I cant stand Palin but I detest the idea you blokes think its appropriate to attack her using gender stereotypes.
And this, when you have so much else that is very valid to work with? Please.
He stays in his room.
There are many more themes to Palin than some recognise here,including a repeated fact by oil insiders that there is more oil in Alaska then even the Bushites raptured on about.! And I think Ken Lovell seems to be misunderstanding many who are anti Obama, for valid,conspicuous reasons with his contradictions.I don’t want to be a spoilsport but the leading person about wether Obama is an American citizen is a Democrat,not a Republican,and has been in awful fights of a Damocles Sword type before. Cynthia MacKinsey of the U.S.A. Greens suffering recently again protesting Israel human Rights violations is not a case,to lend a friendly whisper to Obama surrounded by Israeli friendly advisers and money morons.Keeping people in Australia artificially stupid about goings on in America is so mainstream Media,I would of thought some here would dig deeper,before it is too late.
Mercurius is not alone in implying that cohones represent effrontery. This is a metaphorical figure in wide circulation. Mercurius is the latest of millions to have employed this figure.
This is simply factually wrong:
Check out how many times Sarah Palin has been declared to be a “ballsy lady” or a “ballsy woman”. According to Google it is in the thousands. These references are mostly designed to be complimentary. They certainly do not seek to portray Palin as monstrous. The “balls” being referred to in these passages are testicles.
It is therefore incorrect for you to assert that any reference to Palin’s alleged possession of “cohones” or her supposed “ballsiness” necessarily categorise Palin as “monstrous”. Popular cultural tropes deserve more nuanced appreciation than that.
Mercurius deserves a double helping of dessert to ease his unnecessary upset.
Katz, now you are saying it is a compliment?? You should have the double dessert just for the chutzpah. heh.
I was kinda on the fence, agreeing with both sides of the debate until this:
and Casey’s entire comment at 41 made me think that Casey wins on points.
Coupla thoughts about Palin…
1. Full-term governor or not, I doubt she really ever had (has?) a serious future in national elected office. She doesn’t seem capable of handling the Big Issues, but I don’t think it’s because she’s at all stupid, my suspicion is that deep down, if truth were told, the national issues probably aren’t genuinely of interest to her. National politics pulled up to her doorstep, she didn’t go looking for it. The moment was an odd one; who knows why she agreed to the McCain ticket? All of a sudden on short notice she was getting way too much attention she hadn’t energetically sought out. (I’d been hearing good reports on her as guv long before the VP opera.) Recall how she got into politics in the first place, it was out of a sense of genuine civic umbrage at the way her local government was handled: it wasn’t power-hunger or crackpot ideology. Her early years and resume don’t really suggest a hungry scheming political juggernaut like Hillary etc., though maybe she’s turned into one, who knows. I wish there were more citizen-candidates like her, instead of the usual aluminum-skulled mercenaries. She might still make a good galvanizer in some non-elected office, like president of the RNC or some such. But actual President? Nah.
2. The notion that her selection for the ticket was somehow a bit of tawdry sexual theater (Katz @ 40) illustrates just how many thousands of miles away from the US scene you good folks really are. The election cycle was soaked to the gills in identity politics: first Mormon this, first black that, first female the other, Mr. 9/11 Guy, even a few candidates who (shocka!) weren’t dynastic legacies. McCain was facing a number of strategic problems, among which he was a grouchy old man in an electorate that has a sweet tooth for optimism and youth. Everyone was trying to figure out how to flank Obama’s buzzword of “change” (watching Romney try was priceless): Palin had a reputation as a reformer (hey, maybe we can repackage ‘change’ as ‘reform’?), plus she had appeal on the please-not-Bush-again score which McCain lacked, but as we saw it was quite an uphill climb regardless. And there was a lot of conservative sourness/lack of enthusiasm over McCain because of his push for the appallingly stupid immigration bill; I suppose Palin’s image was partly his play to camouflage himself on that score. All things considered she was a pretty crafty choice, but the tacticians blundered badly on handling the details, and as the Dolls used to say, In too much too soon. Recall that this woman, with only a handful of months on the national scene, held her own in debate against a guy with 30 years in the Senate who had himself run for president more than once. And considering the pure disaster of Bush, McCain’s bungling the GFC Moment, the MSM’s nonstop Obama worship, and the general disrepute of the GOP, 52/48 is, well, an interesting split.
3. Palin did perform one truly valuable national service, in that she forced the Left to remove its mask and show the country just what an ugly, hate-contorted face it really has. The Left has been Gollum slobbering over its Precious, and the Precious had to be protected at all costs. The moment Palin distracted from Barry-worship with a bit of genuine charm, the Left stood as one and shrieked “Thief! Baggins! We hates it, forever!” A truly astonishing spectacle that non-zombies won’t soon forget.
Katz, I think you’re missing the point. I’d be willing to bet that everyone who has called Palin ‘ballsy’ is a man. That is, men think saying she’s got balls — ie is like a man — is a compliment. Spot the flaw in this reasoning.
Thomas Paine at #38, classic unconscious sexist putdown, dude. Mercurius is called on his sexism (which he readily admits and apologises for; I think he ought to be allowed to come down now and have an after-dinner mint) — and some bloke leaps up and says scornfully that the caller is being oversensitive and therefore the argument is dismissed. I think you should go to your room.
Casey @ 41, your mastery of the mechanics of metaphor brought tears of happiness to my eyes. If only even just one of the students I tried to teach it to had understood it that well.
j_p_z @ 46. (re point 3.)
Perfectly put.
@47 – yep, Dr Cat, fine rhetorical/discourse analysis from Casey!
@32 – Ken:
Indeed.
Contemporaneous post @ LP:
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/06/20/kevin-rudd-ute-man-so-hes-done-for/
The poster was accused of being “drunk”.
Mind you, was interesting to see Bernard Keane from Crikey join the beat up… Not his finest moment.
Palin forced her daughter to a shotgun wedding just to pursue her political career, described herself as a bulldog in lipstick (and extended the metaphor to her female supporters), ran on an anti-feminist platform, and consciously played up her manly traits, particularly the gun-toting and murdering ones. Even for a republican female candidate she showed an unusual amount of classically “masculine” traits and consciously portrayed herself as being like an all-american father figure. In the context of this conscious, deliberate attempt to seize macho territory by a confirmed anti-feminist scrote, I think it’s okay to accuse her of having more than 0 balls. If I may up the outrage: she asked for it.
Anyway, the conceit in this case juxtaposes her against a macho man who has one less ball, so it kind of weakens the classic stereotype.
Similarly, those Republican toilet traders who campaign on anti-gay platforms get to have homophobic jokes made about them when they’re found out.
Also, people accuse Ann Coulter of being a trany because she looks like a trany, not because they don’t like her opinion. The more classic insult for Coulter, which links her political beliefs to her personality, is to accuse her of not actually being human. The trany insult is just a cheap smear on her looks, for shits and giggles. It’s funny because she likes to pretend, and her supporters love to claim, that you can be a conservative monster maniac and be a pretty woman. But she’s not actually pretty – she looks like a woman dressed as a man pretending to be a woman – and her non-prettiness very specifically contrasts with the claims she and her supporters are making. So run with it!
I have plenty of tolerance for discouraging use of sexist and insulting language in normal life about real people, or about people who actually care about, you know, people and stuff. But for people who aim to destroy the planet and all that is human and good about ordinary social life, if they try to use identity politics to position themselves electorally, we should be willing to slip in the odd rejoinder based on that identity. It won’t kill us!
sg, you might like to think again about all this. Why is Coulter’s appearance so central to any discussion of her politics and influence? Why do you feel so concerned to insist that she’s not *actually* “pretty”?
Just askin…
Note also reinscription of tranny meme. Not that it has anything to do with actual trannies.
Mark, it’s not central to anything. I didn’t say it is. Like I said, the main personal attack based on her politics is the claim that she’s not actually human, that she’s a mad bloodthirsty vampire, etc. – all jokes based on her politics and the morality underlying her love of killing Arabs. Her appearance isn’t central to anything. But her and her followers like to ham this aspect of her personality up, along the lines of “see, lefties are ugly, we’re babes” and “it’s not nerdy or weird to be conservative”, and using her supposed mainstream good looks to place her in a mainstream context she definitely doesn’t occupy. So, if as a part of a list of 16 things about Coulter someone happens to want to say that she looks like a trany and she’s ugly (whether or not it’s true), they’re simply engaging with a part of the myth-building that she herself is doing.
The trany thing is particularly useful for this because of course the conservatives need to pretend that – contrary to the truth of them being a bunch of sexually repressed toilet-trading losers – they’re wholesome heterosexual normals. So of course it’s natural to imply the opposite, and just dandy that their poster-girl happens to look like a man in a dress. Which is objective fact. It’s also objective fact that conservatives hate men in dresses (except when they’re doing it, of course).
This is what satire and piss-taking is all about.
Also I didn’t reinscribe anything about tranies. Someone up at comment 50-x brought it up.
This is what satire and piss-taking is all about.
Satire and piss-taking are best when they are funny sg. It seems to me that you’re too wound up and emotionally involved to be rational, let alone funny.
Wow! pop psychology, PeterTB. Is that self-satire or just stupidity?
Please pay attention. I didn’t say it was a compliment. I said other people said it was a compliment.
And you would lose that bet.
I’ll plead guilty to some of this. I was referring only to Palin’s brief career on the national stage, not to what she may or may not have done or represented in remote Alaska. Blame the need for blog comment compression.
IIRC Palin was more or less foisted upon McCain by the Republican machine. This conservative clique threatened to withdraw support unless McCain accepted Palin. The Republican Right had their own reasons for wanting Palin. And I have no reason to dispute Japerz’ presentation above.
But the live part of this thread debate isn’t about Republican motives, but about Republican tactics and methodology. I suggested above that this methodology revolved around a reframing of sexism, sexual double standards, and reinforcement by slightly different means of traditional gender identities.
As Japerz says, the 48/52 split achieved by the Republicans in the direst circumstances that they have faced since Nixon’s resignation suggests that the Republican methodology was not ineffective.
Ah-ha! The discussion of far more complex, interesting and serious matters has allowed me to pounce with a piece of pedantry.
Insofar as it makes sense to attribute ‘government’ and ‘opposition’ roles to Presidential elections without an incumbent standing, Palin was running on the side of government. The Dems wewre the opposition.
Katz, I don’t think our clear-eyed American correspondent was making an argument about the realities of US electoral cycles (sure, j_p_z has enough nous not to declare Palin could/should be president, but notice his habit of treating American progressive opinion as sub human? George Will he’s not).
Anyway, for those of us not prone to hysteria, Palin is a very good example of how the electoral college has turned into a nightmare for conservative Republicanism—demographic change now prevents them from putting together a coalition of voters using the Gingrich/Rove era strategies. That 52.9/45.7 split might as well have been 60/40 if the GOP keeps on losing swing states, the Hispanic vote, the college educated vote, women, etc.
Interesting fact: Of the four candidates and their spouses from the ‘08 tickets, all the Democrats have post graduate degrees, while only Cindy McCain on the Republican side has an MA. S. Palin and J. McCain have BAs or the equivalent, Todd Palin a high school education. What do you wanna bet that contributed to the Dems winning a majority of voters who earn more than 200K a year?
The doctrinaire SoCon values (backlash! G_ddam Lieberuls!) that Palin appeals to are just not going to win anymore. Hell, those values are now stronger within her party than they had been under the last 4 Republicans who won the White House. It’s a case of everything being ratcheted up regardless of the fact that that political ideology has been shown to no longer work.
Bring on the Morman nominee for ‘12, I say. It’s best for America that their opposition bottoms out, so they can then begin the process of rebuilding a functional two party democracy.
sg @ 50
Since when is gun-toting and murder a definition of masculinity. I think there is a stronger relation to power, and if power is synonymous with masculinity i think we have a problem. Palin’s aim was to portray herself as an idealised American mother, a “hockey mom,” perhaps looking to be the partner/daughter to the “American dad/father” of McCain. I don’t think she would be too concerned about an anti-feminist set of beliefs, more like an anti-feminist ideology, i.e. anti-Democrat/Socialist/Daily KOS/
MSNBC“Liberal MSM”/”blame-America-first-crowd,” truly one of the most elaborate and bizarre straw characters ever.That said I would also like to express my general agreement with j_p_z @ 46. There is however no way, as far as i am concerned, that Sarah Palin’s gender didn’t play any role in her selection what so ever. I can accept that it was far from the only thing but not that it was incidental. I am also fascinated by how incoherent Sarah Palin’s unscripted performances are. She jumps from topic to topic, sometimes directly contradicting herself from one sentence to the next, perhaps owing to her lack of knowledge and interest in national issues. I think she is the first politician made entirely of sound bites.
It is beyond me why anyone but the firmly rusted on would have voted for McCain/Palin. I can only assume that there was serious doubt about the Democratic brand, perhaps the low levels of Republican identification since the election is a sign that people have woken up to how thin their platform is/was.
Here’s a lefty who doesn’t get the Palin hate, particularly from feminists, either.
I really don’t get all the deep pseudo-analysis of Palin and the reactions to her. She’s a nutjob in the same mould as Bush only worse. Her gender and family are immaterial; she’s unintelligent and appallingly ignorant and grossly unfit to hold executive office in a country that habitually uses force to impose its will on the rest of the world. After seeing what Cheney and company could do to the world in eight years with Bush as a frontman, the thought of Palin being president is terrifying. That’s not ‘hate’, it’s rational self-preservation.
Thanks for telling it like it is, Ken @ 62. I’m disappointed – surely the purpose of a thread like this is to heap scorn on the appalling Palin. It still amazes me that she should be the subject of any kind of conversation other than derision. If this ignorant whacko Holy Roller can run to be VP, I should apply to be God. Do people really think it’s alright for a VP candidate to respond to questions at debates and interviews with winks, folksy baby talk and babbling incoherence? She’s dumber than a pile of dinosaur crap, and mean to boot. I’m still worried sick that she could be POTUS one day. Somebody please do something. Or at least let fly with some ridicule.
I’ve got some strong opinions about Sarah Palin and my thoughts on her unfitness but given the amazing misogynist musings I’ve had the displeasure of reading here and elsewhere I think I’ll refrain.
In fact, such crassness (from the left no less) pretty much makes her more immune to criticism.
I’m afraid that this is democracy folks – a political party can put up for election any crazy nutjob without a coherent idea about anything if they want to.
If the people are likewise stupid enough to elect this person, it’s not really the candidate’s fault that at least half of the population prefer their politicians to be as moronic as they are.
One thing that you can be assured of however is that Palin’s apparent stupidity would be tolerated more readily were she male. So for once I agree with tssk that there is an element of misogyny about all this.
*tssk and adrian walk off into the sunset holding hands*
Peace then reigned in the kingdom for 3, whole, generations.
joe2 @ 66, that’s a bit harsh.
Next you’ll be saying people who defend Ms Palin from strawman `misogynistic’ assaults are nothing but concern trolls.
Or that Leftwing contrarians are perverse and stupid, stupid, stupid.
That would be harsh.
LOL @ 66. Hey, why the hate towards concern trolls? You just want to push us back under the bridge. Typical.
“the 48/52 split achieved by the Republicans” may not have eventuated if the Democratic Party had had a comfy white guy at the helm, someone a bit like … I don’t know, our Kev. Or maybe if Kerry had not run against a warred up Bush GOP but against a shagged-out clueless Bush GOP. The point being that as a black man Obama is starting with a considerable handy cap. I think Palin was basically an attempt at metooism by the GOP while at the same time tickling the tummy of the fundy base.
I’m sorry Adrian, but that’s just not true. You may have noticed another presidential candidate in the last 8 years whose lack of intellectual achievement has been a source of considerable derision, even coining the phrase “bushism”. You’re really clutching at straws there.
thewetmale, *I* didn’t define murderin’ and gun totin’ as manly. The republicans, and a couple of strains of feminist theory, are fond of this definition. Did you not notice the way they tried to ridicule the Democrats with their pretty woman candidate who was more manly than Obama? That’s a crazy mishmash of weird misogyny right there. Not to mention their ongoing scorn for Obama because of his education and good looks, and the continual suggestion that women only voted for him because they’re stupid and easily led by a handsome black man – which is why they needed a woman veep to win women back, because women vote on identity without thinking.
There are soooo many colours of racist, misogynist claptrap in this positioning of Palin that it’s dizzying. Yet when you employ their own framing to insult this evil woman in a language they understand you’re guilty of “misogynist musings”, even if it’s only 1 point in a list of 36, and relates directly to the myth they built. It even apparently renders her immune to criticism, essentially rendering her immune from satire because given the way she’s been sold to us any satire is going to look and sound misogynist.
“I’m sorry Adrian, but that’s just not true.”
You’re probably right sg. I don’t know what happened. I’ll try not to agree with tssk again.
“handy cap” actually I didn’t mean deft head wear …
For the record, and in case anyone still cares, my main misgiving about Palin was nothing to do with her politics, policies, appearance, personality traits, gender, religious beliefs, family circumstances or background.
For me, the *huge* red flag was all in the mangled syntax, circumlocutions, vagaries and sheer incoherence of her speech. I never saw in her published statements any indication that she could think her way from point A to point B. Her speech seems to consist of a series of isolated dot-points and code-terms that perhaps meant something to her in-group, but were a cipher to the rest of us. Anybody whose language is so woolly cannot possibly be thinking in a joined-up fashion, and that’s gotta be a real worry when you’re putting yourself forward to be, as the well-worn phrase goes, “one heartbeat away from the Presidency”.
This is a perfect description of both Dan Quayle and GWB.
Apparently, either the Republicans have little choice but to plump for such characters, or they actively seek them out.
oh come on Adrian, don’t be so sullen. I gave you a comparison with GWB. If you think I’m wrong, explain to me how the treatment of GWB is not a counter-example and don’t try and pretend that I was just attacking you.
Mercurius’ satire – “she has balls” – would be misogynist used against Julie Bishop or Pauline Hanson, who (to the best of my recollection) never made an issue of their identity as women or their level of feminineness or their sexiness (though weirdly the media did for PH). But when someone consciously tries to sell themselves on a gender identity while using gendered insults for their opponents, I don’t think it’s necessarily any longer off limits. In this case the satire bears directly on the claims Palin made about herself.
The risk here is that the right can play really strong identity politics to try and shore up wavering constituencies, and the left can’t satirise it because the satire might in some other context be misogynist. These people don’t need the double gift of using identity politics to shore up their vote and rendering themselves immune to satire and criticism by doing so.
Mercurius #73. “…*huge* red flag was all in the mangled syntax, circumlocutions, vagaries and sheer incoherence of her speech….”
Er… that doesn’t put her at any disadvantage. The candidate who actually won, sans teleprompter, is far more incoherent than she.
OK. I’ll elaborate more on my issue with some of the tone. There’s just more than enough material there to work through without buying into the whole gender thing. Sure the Republicans were using her as an alternate Clinton (in a rather clumsy “hey ladies, we have women you can vote for too.”)
True, I haven’t read anything as hateful as what was thrown at Gillard pre last election (how many women were turned off voting for the Coalition when those nasty rumours about Gilliard being barren were thrown about. Not to mention the stupid faux debate about her kitchen being too clean.)
It just jars with me and it trivialises the debate. It also sets one up for an easy rebuttal.
Geez sg, I was not being sullen, or thinking that you were just attacking me!
I was agreeing with you FFS.
Keep this up and I’ll change my mind again.
sg @ 70
Fair enough. I personally didn’t pick up on the “Obama is feminine so he is weak” angle but i accept that that’s the basis of your points. I can understand then your wanting to satirise this caricature.
I agree with Merc @ 73, there’s so much fail in just the interviews she did with TV types that it hardly seems necessary to go anywhere else, the fact that SNL used the exact text of an interview as satire says it all.
I apologise to tssk and adrian for giving the impression @ 67 that I thought there was something ‘off’ about their opinions.
Sometimes it just takes a real sad, deluded bugger to come along and put everything in perspective.
Off topic….Tina Fey did an awesome job sending up Sarah P. I know I laughed.
So many ninnies, so little time…
Well at least I’d say that Ken Lovell and sg would probably get call-backs at the Laugh Factory, if they could just tweak their microphone-fart SFX a little more. The rest of you — well, everyone’s a winner when you think about it, provided you don’t think very hard.
For Mercurius and his huge Palin red flag: you may want to go back and really look at Obama’s campaign speech in Germany. If you can bear to. This is a man who claims to be a constitutional scholar yet who doesn’t seem to understand what the phrase “a more perfect Union” (viz., better than the Articles of Confederation) meant.
Or he could just be a lying sack of shit. Either way, I get it. Hope you do too.
There’s been a lot of hurling about of the word ‘misogyny’ at anyone (especially feminists!!11!!1) who criticises Palin for anything at all. By zombie logic such as this, one would be more than justified in calling JPZ’s remarks about Obama racist. Live by zombie logic, die by zombie logic.
JPZ, are you planning to continue your nasty out-and-out insults of people here until someone snaps back and then flounce off in high dudgeon again?
Oh, a confected outrage I hadn’t heard of. And an intellectually subtle one, too.
I must look into this case.
A Lincoln-off between Chicago U adjunct professor Obama and some blogger who reckons the constitution allows for torture but prohibits stimulus packages.
Both. Sides. Evenly. Matched. (?)
Ooh I hope so! I like my dudgeon like my olde worlde German – higher than Cheech Marin.
Flounce!
Heh.
Dr. Cat: “are you planning to continue your nasty out-and-out insults…”
Gracious, Doc. You might try taking off the 3-D glasses, and have a look around at the world of nasty insults I discover each time I visit this site. I’m just a-pokin’ back at the pokeweed, I am. Perhaps when you say “nasty” insults, what you really mean is “effective” or “true”.
FORTUNE: If you come around the pool-hall, bring some money to spend.
Excellent link thanks Peter@61. The reactionto SP is mind boggling – and ongoing in this very thread.
Go figure.
But Japerz, so far as I know you are the only serial flouncer [FLOUNCER!!] on this site.
Did the Hustler ever flounce [FLOUNCE!] even after his thumbs were broken?
To mix sporting metaphors, it ill-behoves a pedlar of contumely to plead a glass jaw.
Katz: oh pish-tosh.
If you’re not careful, soon you’ll be saying things that make actual sense.
And that just won’t do for a lefty, chum. It simply will not do.
Now where did I leave my Don Rickles vocoder? Oh yeah that’s right — underneath everyone else’s.
Someone was saying.
Why is jpz mimicking Iago accusing Desdemona – of all people – of spite and hatred?
The gall of the man.
Peter and Peter, you don’t seem to have noticed the continual fight against sexism in putdowns of SP and Ann Coulter on the part of the US blogosphere, notably Shakesville (“because that’s what feminists do.”) I hope that is from ignorance of the topic and not some attempt to cherry-pick feminist commentary to make them look bad.
Totally agree with Mercurius (comment 73): “For the record, and in case anyone still cares, my main misgiving about Palin was nothing to do with her politics, policies, appearance, personality traits, gender, religious beliefs, family circumstances or background.” The woman is a genuine fruitloop. If you listened to her interviews, as opposed to her prepared speeches, she made very little coherent sense. If you knew the first thing about her self-acclaimed expertise on oil resources matters, she was a bullartist and her “facts” were nothing of the sort. Tina Fey was hilarious in her sendups, but the worst part was that most of the lines were virtually direct quotes. It was no end of amazing that she was even chosen in the first place, even as a supposed sop to women voters (what an insult). It may well be inappropriate to talk about testicles, but I did wonder at the time if someone was thinking with his testicles when he chose her as running mate.
Oddly enough, Japerz, making sense to you is a legitimate grounds for euthanasia in Holland, which is a more enlightened country than either yours or mine in these matters.
Have you ever considered moving to Holland? You could depopulate that nation of the entire Right in a matter of weeks.
Well here we have the first comment of genuine interest in some time.
Elise: “If you knew the first thing about her self-acclaimed expertise on oil-resource matters, she was a bullartist and her ‘facts’ were nothing of the sort.”
Well a strong claim but OTOH I haven’t the expertise to doubt it.
Let’s hear more substantiation of this claim, if you will — unlike my lefty colleagues I am not afraid of facts coming to light, and if you should happen to prove me wrong about anything at all, I shall be glad of the correction, and won’t stoop to calling you a racist or whatever for not genuflecting to some orthodoxy or other.
So, what’s on your mind?
Like the traditional RWDBs, JPZ, you seem to think that insulting the likes of Palin — who does not, I think it’s safe to say, read this blog and who is public-figure fair game, as is Obama — is somehow the moral and logical equivalent of directly addressing us ordinary bloggin’ folks, who you know will be reading your comments, en masse as ninnies and (on previous occasions) worse. It’s sad that you’ve got some el weirdo bee in your bonnet about Obama, but your baiting and trolling about it here, trying to make someone bite and finally resorting to insulting the troops — something for which you have form — is just perverse. And about as effective as saying everyone here is a poopy-head.
And it’s really quite remarkable, as Phil implies at #91, how accusations of hate-filledness levelled at ‘the left’ seem always to be flecked with poisonous foam themselves.
And if the comment is the “first one of interest in a long, long time”, what are you doing reading this thread? Are you a very sad person who has nothing whatever to do?
Since jpz and others of like or related mind have zero interest in discussing her politics, surely the main thing, let me rip. I quite liked Palin. No, not her politics, of course, but I thought her winks and fixed smile *were* winsome and brave. Hell any woman who can do that even halfway convincingly in US presidential politics gets a big tick from me.
I liked also that she was given, or perhaps just brazenly seized, the freedom to be her fruity self. A hopeful sign I reckon. People sneer at her incoherence but ignore the fact of her astonishing fluency, something few people are capable of on a national stage with a billion eyes dissecting. I really don’t get the accusation that she was deliberately mannish. I thought she was as feminine as, well, which Greek goddess shall I choose?
Heh. Medium, meet message.
Nobody flecks foam at the Left like the Left. The best frothed invective is internecine, and JPZ, you’ll be wise and get yourself a Leftist union ticket if you want to join in the three minutes’ circle of hate—a more perfect union ticket, in local 1787, if it’ll make you happy. Leftist jobs for leftists, as Gordon Brown might say.
Sorry, who called who a misogynist? As far as I can tell with the old ctrl-F function in my browser this has been strictly an sg vs. adrian vs. everyone else how’syerfather.
We’re all in the gutter, Helen, but some of us are flouncing at the stars.
Greek goddess? Well indeedy. Jinmaro used to say stuff like that. Those were the days …but since Japes psycho alter is roaming about tonight, all personae dramatis, raving about Middle Earth or something, lets throw that into the mix, at least before someone shoots him with a tranquilizer and he gets sent back to the hellmouth. Sarah Palin – she does not have testicles – no, rather she is divine. Havng begun life on this thread as a defective female she is now the numinous. I wish I was the numinous. I would send JPZ to Twisty’s site for all eternity. The thing is JPZ: Obama will be around for another term yet, no matter how many people you insult here.
I have been moderated. Serves me right for invoking Her name.
Well I believe the word mysoginist was used by SG about 485 times. He was lecturing on why it was ok to put lipstick on a pitbull, or something.
misogynist, that would be.
Hi Helen @ 97 — so, this is the ledge you’ve crept out onto, eh. Is it warm enuf out there? Do you need a blanket?
It is (or was) the middle of the night here in North America, as I write these words to you. Why would that be? Is it possible that there could be more than one reason for a grown man to be awake at night?
If you’re genuinely so damn curious about my personal motives for blogging you may inquire via the usual email routes. Of course you may encounter some partisans who throw things in your way. Not my problem, honeychile.
Now shut up, apologize, or else continue your exploration upriver without my help.
cheers,
some fuckin’ guy
j_p_z please come back to the podium to receive your OzCar for Best Flounce in a Stoushing Role! Don’t forget to thank your agent, your spouse and chilluns.
Well, she does have a certain pizzazz. But doesn’t every
divadrama queenreally extravagant performer keep the zing going until the very end? The very straight, very male Tony Curtis is wonderfully fluent like that, even in his dotage. I don’t see how he would ever have made a good leader of the free world, though.Meh, it hasn’t been the same for us Left in this country since Gough buried class warfare. You should credit j_p_z with at least believing in a really interesting & vibrant philosophy, Liam. I know I do.
It takes conviction to label vast swathes of the American populace kulaks based solely on their opinion of a future ‘Dancing With The Stars’ contestant.
Honeychile? Oh goody.
Japerz, the thing is – about Helen and you. She make you nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full o’ rocking chairs it seems. I dont blame you. She is tougher than a one eared alley cat. Tough as whit leather too. If you paid her a dollar for every time she make you run like a scalded dog, why you be so poor you’d have to borrow money to buy water to cry with.
I understand. I do. But somethin’ tells me you be sorry as a two dollar watch in the mornin – oh honey, honeychile…
Nickws #80. You may be right that the winning candidate in the election is a “sad deluded bugger” However I don’t agree. Though She not only (sans teleprompter) is more articulate than he, she knows what jurisdictions border her own.
She at least knew Alaska is adjacent to Russia. What was the successful candidates excuse for not knowing that Kentucky borders his own state of Illinois? (Never mind that simultaneously he thought Arkansas DOES border Kentucky, when it is Two states away).
Was Mark Latham ever asked if he knew which states border NSW?
“when those nasty rumours about Gilliard being barren”
OT, but I think the phrase used was “deliberately barren”, and deployed by a fellow MP. What a charmer!
The woman is not physically barren – perhaps by an accident of medical history or personal biology, but deliberately refuses to procreate.
What was Casey saying about metaphor? All the loaded associations of drought-ravaged or poor soils, or of benighted animals; but still a choice made by a harsh, cruel woman. Pish-tosh indeed.
This was nastier than any rumour of a medical/biological state, IMO.
SATP, at last you allude to what I was getting at about Palin. You say she is fluent. Yes I agree she is fluent, but it’s in a language I don’t understand.
Take for example a couple of quotes in isolation:
From her resignation speech…
Can anyone please, please tell me — WTF does this mean? I don’t think the statement is actually content-free. There seems to be some depth of feeling involved, and some sense of…something but it’s so inarticulate, so imprecise, so disembodied, I just can’t work out what she’s getting at. There’s a missing signifier, or signified, or some damn thing just…missing.
SATP, you lampoon Obama being inarticulate without a teleprompter — Palin was inarticulate with a prepared speech.
As for the teleprompter, did you swallow a Fox news talking-points sheet or did you come up with that all by yourself? Every politician since the Nixon-Kennedy debates has used teleprompters. At least the words Obama reads are his own. The teleprompter-attack line is just classic Rove playbook tactics: attack your opponent’s strengths directly and try to turn them into a weakness. Newsflash SATP, the Karl Rove playbook hasn’t wont an election since 2004…
But what would I know Steve? Obama reads a teleprompter and is President of the USA. Palin’s a quitter whose prepared words defy parsing. Way to go, your team!
Ambi: that was Renaissance man Bill Heffernan with the ‘deliberately barren’ line re: Gillard.
My “team”? Are you suggesting Mercurius that I have a political stake or agenda in the USA? That I back one candidate over another?
If you have read any such thing into anything I have written, then it is no surprise you don’t understand speech by politicians who don’t speak in the “op-ed ese” language.
I suggest the lead opposing candidate to Sarah Palin is hopeless without a teleprompter for a very good reason. Because without one he is an incoherent mumbler.
Don’t like this observation? Perhaps you could convince him to join toastmasters.
“We’re all in the gutter, Helen, but some of us are flouncing at the stars.”
When Oscar wins, we all win.
Liam please tell Ninnie, Please that once again he’s missed out on a nomination in Hollywood, but the academy is still ruminating over this year’s nominations for the Wilde statuettes (they weep).
*****
Yes, Merc. A Renaissance man indeed. Any other achievements? Hang on, I reckon he was the pre-Turnbull whizz-kid who used fake Commonwealth Car records to attack a High Court judge….. So versatile and a real charmer. Good mate of John Howard, they used to say.
Mercurius on Sarah’s rhetoric:
I think that while it’s formally a resignation speech, it’s more importantly a taking-up-the-fight clarion call. Sarah wants to do good works for wider causes and jest cain’t do thet fr’m Anchorage. She has a calling. She has ideals and a national stage to stride. Her boots are made for walkin’.
Note that she wants to build UP her country and assist its people.
This is a far cry from Richard Nixon’s self-pitying “you won’t have Dick Nixon to push around any more!” after losing the race for Govenor. (But he bounced back later.)
No, this is more like Richard’s “Checkers” speech: them’s fighting words, she ain’t quittin’, though some nasty folks would like to see her quit.
She ain’t givin’ up thet moose-huntin’ licence!
“One thing that you can be assured of however is that Palin’s apparent stupidity would be tolerated more readily were she male.”
This appears to be correct. I mean, has anyone else read Biden’s incoherent ramblings? Comparatively little press. Then again, as sg says Bush copped it pretty hard for his intellectual shortcomings. And who can forget the relentless Quayle jokes? Wait a minute…
BBB
“Her boots are made for walkin’” but she’s anchored down in Anchorage.
Hey Ambi, you know it’s kinda funny
Texas always seems so big
But you know you’re in the largest state in the Union
When you’re anchored down in Anchorage
Yeah, but give the lumbering bastard credit. He had to dig it up from its grave and prop it around on sticks in front of a drugged, drunk, self-satisfied audience busy frotting, smoking clove cigarettes and reading Nation Review.
Did he ever represent it?
Mercurius @110 I have the depressing feeling lots of people would be puzzled reading your comment. “What do you MEAN, what does she mean?” they would say. “She means what she SAYS.” And their attempts to paraphrase would be as garbled and incoherent as the original.
The problem is that the Palins and Bushes and Jeremiah Wrights and so on of this world don’t use language as a series of words arranged with some care to convey a precise meaning. On the contrary, language is like music: it’s a MEDIUM to convey general feelings and attitudes. That’s why we see more and more bizarre use of CAPITALS and *punctuation*.
Didn’t you ever want to insert LOL in a verbal conversation, or a cute smiley face to show you were pissed off without saying so? The function of language is changing dramatically, thanks to texting and social networking and other wonders of the IT age. It’s still a means of communication but not in the way it was when people could actually parse sentences to uncover a precise meaning. Like, who has TIME for **that** any more?!?!?!:).
Should have read Katz’ comment first.
Anyway, let’s face it: the Republicans can afford to put up idiots because all that is necessary is for them to mumble a few key phrases to do with God and family values and blah blah blah and all of sudden there’s 50 million votes. You don’t need to be a person of serious policy to be successful within the Republican Party. At the same time, Teh Left and the media that Teh Left typically consumes are loathe to highlight the comparatively rare cases in which stupidity manages to ascend the heights of the Democratic Party, as in the case of Joe Biden. I suspect this is because members of Teh Left like to imagine themselves to be of the intelligensia and therefore will often simply ignore cases where their favoured candidates and office-bearers say things that (ought to) shatter the illusion that the Right has a monopoly on incoherence: “You are the possible. That is not hyperbole. You are the possible. We are the possible. And we have at once finally come to it. So seize it. Seize it. Because if you do not, it will slip from our grasp and determine the world you live in while you sit idly by.” Classic.
BBB
I disagree BBB. In general the left are more than eager to eat their own when stupidity is displayed.
Mercurius @ 105 — Heh heh, that’s a decent enough crack, I’ll pay that one. We’ll make a champ outta you yet, kid, just you wait and see.
Casey — eh, not so much. Pass the No-Doz, please.
Zombie Jack @117
That’s a very fine brief rendition of the early 70s and late 60s in certain inner suburban Australian cities. Much more accurate than the smug, superficial descriptions we are prone to read in magazine or newspaper articles.
cheers
OT
RIP Robert McNamara, latterly peace activist
Katz @74
They actively seek them out.
Bush Jr and Palin are not very smart yet electorally appealing, and are completely indoctrinated true believers into the belief that America is a beacon of liberty for the nations, a promoter of human rights and democracy etc.
In this way they are perfect tools/sockpuppets for Cheney, Bush Snr, Rumsfeld and the financial backers of the GOP.
Ambigulous @ 114
You are correct. Palin was NOT delivering a resignation speech but rather a ‘here I come Republican faithful’ speech.
Palin was the sole ray of light for the Republicans in the last election. She galvanized their core constituency in a way that the somnolent McCain was incapable of doing, though she turned teh uncommitted vote to the Democrats.
Immediately after the election the GOP realised that, in Palin. had a very valuable asset on their hands. The question is how to deploy her effectively. Palin is a free spirit and resented the control that the McCain campaign handlers put on her and in the end just told them to get stuffed.
I believe the GOP will use her as a kind of roving Republican ambassador to rally their core vote. She will be kept away from election campaigns because of her tendency to alienate the uncommitted vote. If she really does have tax or other legal problems this will be another reason to keep her away from the electorate-at-large and merely used as an internal Republican asset.
Steve>Pub doing his `I know you are, but what am I?’ routine in response to me unkindly calling him a “sad, deluded bugger”: You may be right that the winning candidate in the election is a “sad deluded bugger” However I don’t agree. Though She not only (sans teleprompter) is more articulate than he, she knows what jurisdictions border her own.
She at least knew Alaska is adjacent to Russia. What was the successful candidates excuse for not knowing that Kentucky borders his own state of Illinois? (Never mind that simultaneously he thought Arkansas DOES border Kentucky, when it is Two states away)
{snip} I suggest the lead opposing candidate to Sarah Palin is hopeless without a teleprompter for a very good reason. Because without one he is an incoherent mumbler.
Oh, Steve. You are setting yourself up for people to label you a sufferer of `Obama Derangement Syndrome’ all the way through to January, 2017.
You reckon anyone in the bar will be interested in hearing how Ms Palin is a wronged yet incredibly articulate lady in 2017?
And Bingo Bango Boingo—wot a load of intemperate BLAME EVERYBODY! rot you have there. I actually kind of admire the people who wish to try and defend Palin. As ridiculously thin as their arguments are at least they aren’t saying “f_ck you Jack, I got mine” as a debating point.
Zombie Jack Renshaw—Cobber, I should have specified that I reckon Gough made working class sectionalism untenable as the guiding principle of the political wing of the Labor Movement (a nice not-too-abstract thesis, if I may say so). Well, that’s the argument every labour history scholar desperately never wants to ever have to address. Look over there, Chifley ratting us out by sending troops into the mines!!!
Eek. Every word between “…deluded bugger” and “Oh, Steve” is the work of Steve>Pub.
Reading for comprehension ain’t your strong point is it Nickws? You seem to assume I have some sort of partisan politcal angle, one that I will allow to trump facts. Projection is such a tricky thing, very risky to judge others by your own standards.
Facts too much for you, so you try personal insults? Keyboard bravado seems to come quite easily for you.
My apologies for assuming you had manners. I assumed you were referring to the topic at hand via insults, rather than your interlocutor.
I’ll take personal insults as your concession that your comment was ill researched, wrong, and that I hit the nail on the head. Cheerio!
j_p_z (comment 95): “Well a strong claim but OTOH I haven’t the expertise to doubt it. Let’s hear more substantiation of this claim, if you will…”
I’m not sure this is the forum for a technical dissection of Palin’s claims, and I don’t have the transcripts of her comments to hand any longer, regarding US oil self-sufficiency and Alaskan oil supplies and production capabilities.
Blogocracy was good enough to indulge a thorough dissection at the time, which I gleefully provided, with internet references to relevant data. You may still find the discussion online, if they haven’t deleted the site. It is of relevance only if you are concerned about accuracy of claims about US foreign oil independency, and about a potential VP giving wildly misleading information to the public. It’s of no relevance at all to those who would rather admire her lippy, and compare her figure to greek statues…! I believe the US once before elected a President who had more looks than brains, so there is a precedent there.
I’m intrigued to find out which one you mean, Elise. Just in my lifetime, there’s been Bush Jr, Reagan, Ford (oh wait, that was by default) … shit, the Rethuglicans sure can pick them.
Out of sheer curiosity, what exactly, DI(nr), do you think was thuggish about Gerald Ford? Do you really believe R. Reagan was brainless? If so, why? Where do you stand on the looks/brains ratio w/r/t the incumbent? Again, why?
More on the rest of this fascinating thread later. So youse know to avoid it, I suppose.
“And Bingo Bango Boingo—wot a load of intemperate BLAME EVERYBODY! rot you have there. I actually kind of admire the people who wish to try and defend Palin. As ridiculously thin as their arguments are at least they aren’t saying “f_ck you Jack, I got mine” as a debating point.”
Pfft. Not being either a Republican or left-wing is ‘I’m alright Jack” material is it? Wake up.
BBB
I see a consistency of the reasoning all though this thread and this is perhaps based on the complication of an error.
Mercurious , NPD is also referred to in plain language as having a God Complex – it is not a trivial condition likely to be observed among friends at a party. It is one of a range of personality defects – paranoid , anxious and a few others.
They disable the sufferer in the more severe forms .
Please refer to learned texts to check this if you need but my point is that nothing is gained by dismissing those who don’t agree with you by failing to recognise they can have a different point or view or opinion or set of prejudices and instead deciding that they are ” nutjobs ” “fruitloops” or any other term disparaging to the metally ill.
Blogs try to claim they make a difference – I suggest you need to keep trying.
Where to start, japerz? I don’t think I said any of these presidents were thugs, btw, just that the party they fronted has become thuggish.
Ford certainly wasn’t a thug (although Nixon was) – he appears to have been a thoroughly nice man, although not the sharpest knife in the drawer. After all, Johnson is supposed to have said he couldn’t fart and chew gum at the same time, and we certainly thought he’d played a few too many football games without a helmet.
Reagan was either extremely stupid or a sociopath, given his economic policies. This is a conversation for a different thread, btw, so please don’t start on what an economic fucken genius he was.
Bush Jr? A stupid thug.
I rest my case.
David Irving and j_p_z, which President took the cake?
Well, it was put forward in a discussion on Blogocracy in the lead-up to the US elections. Well before our time, IIRC. Unfortunately, I forget the gentleman’s name – a regrettable weakness, I’m bad with names. He apparently was a fine figure of a man, with an aristocratic bearing and fine manners, but almost no understanding of complex problems related to running a country. He was apparently coached into getting the job, by people who stood to gain subsequently by being his mates and “life support”. Unfortunately that wasn’t enough to protect him from public scrutiny, which soon enough decided he only LOOKED Presidential. He was a one term wonder, apparently. Sorry again, I have forgotten his name.
More seriously, has anyone noticed that the Chinese have absconded with the entire RIO iron ore marketing team in China? What good does that do in the negotiations? What good is kidnapping the team?
Well, umm … what happened to their laptops? Presumably those laptops would have rather useful and highly confidential price negotiation information, including probably emails back to head office on what terms RIO might accept? I seem to recall a quickly hushed-up story that the Chinese absconded with Rudd’s laptop as well. And to think people were seriously thinking and saying that the Chinese now played by normal commercial rules? All new western thinking from an independent Chinalco, and no old games by the Chinese communist party? Cough, splutter…as you were…
C’mon, give Palin some credit.
Not enough pollies are honest enough to admit the best thing they can do for their constituents is resign.
Comment 136 – Yep! I think it was Warren Harding (US President in the 1920’s) that was under discussion, as a comparison to Bush Jr.
You reckon Palin is “honestly” resigning because she thinks that she isn’t up to the job? WHAAAT? Didn’t you hear that woman speak about how she would be a GREAT Vice President, and even hint that she had aspirations on becoming President? That is not someone who thinks that she isn’t up to the job. Didn’t you hear her say what a great job she had done in Alaska, not once but repeatedly?
That thar woman does not see any flaws when she looks into her mirror. Half her luck! The rest of us normal beings can usually find plenty of flaws, unless we have just been hoeing into the bubbly.
I think commenter 136 had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he wrote that Elise. He may just have snorted expensive whiskey over his keyboard now.
Mindy, you are probably totally correct!
Hope his keyboard survives…
don’t be concerned Elise!
Murph, please go back and read what I said in the OP. I actually haven’t done any of the things you accuse me of, and I don’t have the attitude you so haughtily seek to apply to me.
When did I do that murph? I’ve read plenty of ‘learned texts’ on this subject and, having encountered this illness up-close, I don’t need you to tell me from a great height that it’s no party game. I know whereof I speak and all I said is that they meet more than a couple of the diagnostic indicators for NPD. That’s just a descriptive, even clinical, observation and had none of the derogatory overtones or undertones you ascribe. Methinks you do assumeth too much.
Being as knowledgeable about the ‘learned texts’ as you purport to be, you’d be well aware that meeting a few diagnostic indicators is a country mile short of a diagnosis, which only a professional can make. Like all spectrum disorders, probably as many as 1-in-5 people would meet at least 1-2 of the diagnostic criteria. I think even a casual non-professional observer could discern that for themselves. All the diagnostic indicators are is a sign that you could go talk to a professional to see whether there is in fact a diagnosis to be made, or if they’re just false alarms. But, being as well acquainted with the ‘learned texts’ as you are, I guess you knew that.
Murph, the internet is full of people ready to question the mental health of those with opposing views. I’m not one of them. I never have, and I never would. Don’t over-ascribe that particular predilection to me, thank you.
But on another note, being overly-precious about mental illness helps nobody, least of all those with a mental illness. Greater awareness and understanding goes a long way towards destigmatisation and losing the “shame”. And that means frank discussion, like the one we’re having. Reacting with the ‘hush-hush’ tone like you do actually feeds the perception that there’s something shameful about mental illness. We don’t think there’s anything shameful about catching the flu or breaking a limb, so why be so precious about diseases of the mind?
The nutjob and fruitloop were contributions from others and I was commenting on the tone in the thread.
The inclusion of a the term NPD sufferer to describe Mark Latham or Sarah Palin or any public persona just grates as does dismissing those who actions you disagree with as being mentally ill.
I apologise if you read my comment as suggesting you used any other terms – that wasn’t the intention.
SATP, you’re obviously too delicate for the Internet—yet you insist on spreading ridiculous Internet urban myths about Obama. Something’s gotta give there, mate. Will it be your virtue or the badly considered, third hand agitprop?
BBB, aren’t you breaching your brave freethinking code by directing me to ‘wake up’? You don’t take sides, remember?
“This is a man who claims to be a constitutional scholar yet who doesn’t seem to understand what the phrase “a more perfect Union” (viz., better than the Articles of Confederation) meant.”
But you do not really mean to say you believe Obama was unaware what the phrase in the Constitution preamble meant when he used that line in Germany?? What else uspet you about the German speech? Or are you referring to the ‘A More Perfect Union’ Speech?
Now that speech has been hailed by some of your countrymen as the most significant speech on race relations in America for generations. It has been said to be his most important speech, a speech which greatly assisted his ascent to office. So I am bemused – why is he a lying sack of shit exactly?
“I think commenter 136 had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he wrote that Elise. He may just have snorted expensive whiskey over his keyboard now.”
Well, where I come from, it’s considered pretty infra dig to laugh at your own jokes or process excess ‘expensive whiskey’ through any channel but your urethra.
Now a few words in favour of Warren Harding for whom I’ve always harboured a soft spot. By all accounts he was a genuinely nice, affable and entertaining old bloke, he shrewdly read and reacted to the populace’s desire for “normalcy” and the corruption of his administration was actually pretty average by US standards. Certainly nowhere Reagan administration levels.
“Certainly nowhere Reagan administration levels.”
Insert “near” between “nowhere” and “Reagan”.
Philip Travers (Comment 42): “including a repeated fact by oil insiders that there is more oil in Alaska then even the Bushites raptured on about”
Bull. Total bull.
I’ve been to the oil conferences and seen the figures. Prudhoe Bay is unquestionably in decline. The total reserves are not enough to meet US demand, nor is the projected production rate adequate to make up the shortfall from other US production.
You should not be so credulous when oil company CEO’s talk airily about there being endless supplies. It is definately in their vested interest to make sure that the public doesn’t panic and decamp enmasse into oil alternatives. They need market demand to stay high, so that the oil price and company revenues are maximised.
The oil company execs don’t care about the upcoming financial shock to the economy from rapidly declining oil reserves, any more than the tobacco executives or the James Hardy executives cared about terminal negative outcomes to others. Perhaps this is an unfortunate result of a market economy and stratospheric remuneration to the execs, combined with the type of personality that often reaches these positions?