Her announcement was bizarre--a presser read by Mark Levine while Sarah Palin was on the phone with his show. Weird. Then later, she told Greta that she didn't want to make a big deal about her announcement like that of Chris Christie. She is a piece of work, that is for sure.
David Frum routinely annoys me, and has since he bragged about coining the "axis of evil" phrase for Bush. But he is a rarity these days--a semi-rational Republican, and he has perhaps the best takedown of Palin I have read:
Sarah Palin was the ultimate taker. She abandoned her post as governor of Alaska to cash in on lectures and TV. She squeezed her supporters for political donations and spent the money on herself. To adapt an old phrase, she seen her opportunities and she took ‘em.Ouch. Not only about Palin, but about those who cheered her and told me how they loved her values.
In the end, she exploited, abused, or embarrassed almost everyone who had believed in her. Most embarrassing of all: she was never even a very good con artist. Everything that was false and petty and unqualified in her was visible within the first minutes of encountering her. The people she fooled were people who passionately wished to be fooled.
7 comments:
Of the Palin supporters I know, I don't think any of them thought she was going to run, so I doubt they felt fooled.
Perhaps not, Steve, but they have certainly been fooled that she is a genuine person and genuine conservative. They have been fooled because they want to be fooled. But she did say that she decided to drop out after much prayer. So that helps. That isn't code at all for her base. :)
Sigh.
Don't overestimate the brains of a Palin supporter. I know a couple. One is also a Glen Beck fan who followed him on his overpriced trip to Isreal.
They are predominently stupid snake oil buyers.
Of the Palin supporters I know, I don't think any of them thought she was going to run, so I doubt they felt fooled.
Ah, steve's amazing powers of situational bias.
How about this? A quote from that article:
"Peter Singleton and Michelle McCormick left their jobs, homes, and families to move to Iowa to campaign for Sarah Palin. Wednesday evening they found out they didn’t have a candidate."
Here's the worst part of that article: that the fools didn't feel fooled, despite the fact that they left everything behind to campaign hard every day of the week for a candidate who backed-out days later. That is the hallmark of the Palin supporter.
It is so wrong that I find that so damn funny. I know we all project what we want v. what is on celebs and politicians. We want them to be how we want them to be. Perhaps that is true of me too, but I can't think of anyone that have truly followed, read about, etc., who turned out to be such an empty suit. That is what makes her followers so unhinged and cultish. They have seen the same stories we have about Palin's absolute idiocy (or they haven't seen them on purpose), but they just ignore it and blissfully talk about her values.
Anyone who sent her money proves PT Barnum right.
I don't know if it is situational bias as much as it is just anecdotal. I don't know that many people that really liked her. I think some of them wanted her to run, but weren't going to jump on the bandwagon until she made a decision.
That being said, I am never surprised at how stupid some people can be, especially when it comes to politicians and celebrities (I would put Palin in the 2nd category).
"Peter Singleton and Michelle McCormick left their jobs, homes, and families to move to Iowa to campaign for Sarah Palin. Wednesday evening they found out they didn’t have a candidate."
Those people are idiots, but I doubt they are the only ones that have campaigned and were later let down by someone that decided not to run.
Jon Stewart did a bit on her bowing out of the race. He pointed out that her pac (SarahPac) sent out a request for donations for the possible run 2 weeks ago. Her daughter indicated (and this may not be true) that Palin had made up her mind a while back, but was waiting for the right time to announce. If these two things are true, and remember that SarahPac is run and operated by Sarah Palin, then it is possible that she sent out a complete lie to get more money--which then she can use to go on vacation. As Stewart pointed out, if true, this is not just crazy, but Nigerian Prince scam-worthy.
I feel bad for the people who really see her as a moral, principled person, but also don't feel that bad, because they had access to the same information--they just ignored it because they wanted her to be the good Christian woman they imagined. And we should note, it isn't just those who might move to Iowa to work on her campaign. It is my christian friends who talk glowingly about her good Christian values. It is the same people who talk about moral values who cannot name an instance when Palin treated anyone other than her friends and sycophants with anything other than derision and hostility. And those same people never even thought to look at that, because their version of Christianity doesn't ask for accountability from anyone other than the drug user, homosexual, or possibly the person who likes porn.
In other words, the problem is not Palin. She is, as Frum put it, a taker and a grifter. The problem is the people who can't and won't even look at that.
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