Seriously:
HALF-TERM GOVERNOR BREAKS HER SILENCE…. As tempted as I am to simply ignore former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin’s (R) latest statement, I suppose there’s no point in pretending it’s not of some interest to the political world this morning.
Palin has been unusually quiet since Saturday’s massacre in Tucson, and as interest in the toxicity of political rhetoric has grown more intense, her role in cheapening and dragging down our discourse has generated a fair amount of attention.
Today, Palin broke her silence issuing a video, which is nearly eight minutes long. It’s a standard tactic — the right-wing media personality can’t subject herself to questions or muster the confidence to deal with cross-examinations, so to communicate, Palin’s forced to hide behind statements others write for her, and then upload them. It’s not exactly the stuff Profiles in Courage are made of.
In any case, the statement/video is about what one might expect. Palin, speaking from Alaska with an American flag over her right shoulder, has no regrets and no apologies to offer. Instead, she’s concerned about “blood libel.”
“If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
I don’t imagine Palin actually knows what “blood libel” means, but historically, it’s referred to the ridiculous notion of Jews engaging in ritual killings of Christian children. More commonly, it’s a phrase intended to convey the suffering of an oppressed minority.
In other words, Palin is apparently feeling sorry for herself, again, using a needlessly provocative metaphor that casts her as something of a martyr.
Benen uses the phrase “half-term governor” at least three times in his post. That right there indicates that maybe he’s not being entirely neutral and objective.
I like the “breaks her silence” jab too. On Saturday, soon after the news of the shootings broke, Sarah Palin posted this statement on Facebook:
My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today’s tragic shooting in Arizona.
On behalf of Todd and my family, we all pray for the victims and their families, and for peace and justice.
She then went about her business. Various people have been criticizing her for not saying more, specifically for not admitting it was all her fault, apologizing and promising to never show her face in public again.
Of course if she had been giving interviews she would have been criticized for trying to steal the spotlight for herself.
Apparently Benen hasn’t got the memo that Sarah was dogwhistling to her fundiegelical supporters when she used the words “blood-libel.” He thinks she’s just a stupid girl who was using words she didn’t understand.
As for the flag reference, I wonder what Benen thought when candidate Obama gave his Greatestest Speech on Race EVAH with about 10 American flags behind him?
That’s it for another episode of “Look over there! It’s Sarah Palin!“
Filed under: Palin Derangement Syndrome, Palinpalooza, Sarah Palin, Worst Media EVER!!! Tagged: | Palinpalooza, Sarah Palin
The hypocrisy is mind-boggling…..
Asshat.
Hillary 2012
Just because this guy is an idiot doesn’t Palin an innocent.
Draft Hillary.
No one is innocent — haven’t you read your Dostoevsky?
But if you mean to imply she is guilty of the shooting, even tangentially, you are mistaken. Read up on paranoid schizophrenics.
http://www.talkleft.com/comments/2011/1/12/143636/247/30#30
Riverdaughter was quoted over at TL by a commenter !
It’s expected that a JournoList would be biased. If it was an AP story, the “half-term governor” would have been strategically placed in the middle of another negative remark.
Is he one of them…a Journo-List I mean.
It’s because she was finished politically once she quit as governor, haven’t you heard? /snark
She’s risen from the grave more times than Dracula.
The Westboro church isn’t going to picket the Tucson funerals after all ::
Phelps’ Tucson pickets called off
Apparently Gallagher has invited them on his show before to keep them away from some high-profile funerals.
If they want to protest against homosexuality they should picket the Castro District in SF
I’d pay to see that.
I guess it’s a sign of their cowardice that they’re not doing that.
I’d organize a whole bus tour to go see it.
They should man-up and do it.
Gay bashing ain’t so easy when they outnumber you.
And baby, drag queens are BUFF.
Actually, they’ve been by many a time. I went to Metropolitan Community Church for more than a decade, when it was the “little pink church in the Castro” over on 18th (IIRC).
Phelp’s band of kooks used to show up fairly regularly at funerals. We just ignored them, other than to sweetly invite them to use the toilets, come in for a thought-provoking sermon, or enjoy some treats at coffee hour.
In fact, I sort-of adopted the hospitality crusade as my own. They had to keep saying “no, thank-you” to me over and over. I think it drove them a little crazier than they were already!
I LOVE it, Erica! Bully for you!
killing with kindness is one of my very favorite weapons.
Thanks, all. I did get a deliciously perverse pleasure from being so damn nice to them and then watching them squirm. Sigh…those were the days…
ROFLMAO!
To clarify: Laughing at My IQ’s post not katiebirds
BlueLyon has a great post up today:
http://bluelyon.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/100-to-1-odds/
Basically, Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, respected psychiatrist and one of the foremost experts on paranoid schizophrenics, says Mr. “The Government is Controlling My Grammar” is a textbook case paranoid schizophrenic, which anyone who saw his youtube posting could have guessed.
And, in case Mr. Benen doesn’t know this, I’ll repeat myself again: schizophrenics listen to the voices inside their head, not external stimuli. And, in case Mr. Brenen is like a fb friend of mine who actually asked “but what if the external stimuli feeds their voices?” let me explain this: That isn’t how it works. A red ball, a glass, a barking dog can “feed” their voices. In other words, nothing and everything can “feed their voices” because their brains do not work like non-psychotics’ brains work. And finally, if Mr. Brenen thinks that the fact that this guy was obsessed with a politician makes this tragedy political, I remind him that John Hinkley shot Regan because he was obsessed with Jodi Foster & wanted to get her attention. It wasn’t political, and neither was the tragedy in Arizona.
I realize that schizophrenics only make up 0.3% of the population so Mr. Brenen is probably luckily enough to not know one personally, but I suggest maybe he eat a bottle of Metamucil so that he *might* be able to extract his head from his ass & point his ire at the inadequate medical attention that allows people like Jared Loughner to slip through the cracks instead of trying to pin the blame on Sarah Palin.
Wow, you didn’t use “fuck” even once.
Are you feeling okay?
hehehe
LOL.
My rage is so white hot that people have so little understanding about mental illness that I forgot myself.
Fuck, Fuck, Fuck.
That is a good post, Angie. And your comment is great too.
Honk and honk
HONK!!
Love. As a psych person, this schizophrenics are being triggered by Palin shit is making me crazy.
By the way, just so you all know, it wasn’t politicians, movies, rhetoric, or even video games that caused this. It was, of course, wait for it, the internet. I just noticed a few random people start to say related things, so I thought I’d jump out ahead and start the meme officially. You heard it here first.
What’s the difference between a meme and a trope?
One is completely silent and wears white makeup and gets stuck in invisible boxes. The other is a disreputable strumpet.
Okay WMCB, you don’t owe me just a keyboard– I need a whole new MacBook. Dayum but that was wonderful!
meme is rounder and more symmetrical, so I like it better. Semantics, who cares.
Easier to spell too
You can get hurt on so many pointy letters you know.
that’s anti-semantic!
Prize of the day for humor, right there!
LOL!
Everyone’s a comedian.
yeah well Sarah Palin INVENTED the internet
True story.
(sigh) I miss SOD. Hope she comes back soon.
Me too. She and I even suffered through the same crazy bad drive in movie separately at the same time once.
Me, too. Where is she?
family stuff
Wow, Sarah is getting “crucified” for using the words blood libel.
Such an obvious trap, and their falling right for it. Silly media.
I’m surprised nobody is trying to sue her for blood libel.
I think she used the term correctly, What’s the deal did Jews copyright the term or something? Does a person have to ask permission before they use the word correctly and if so who from? What other words are not permissible?
You have to consult the book of rulz.
Legal Insurrection (wingnut warning):
Professor Jacobson is Jewish, btw.
not according to NBC and Andrea Mitchell’s report… get with the program, Palin is toast, her political career is over.
And we can tell by how they’re not ever going to talk about her ever, ever again.
Sarah Palin’s career has been pronounced dead about 100 times just this week.
Andrea Mitchell also suggested Palin was just stupid. Yep, stupid and evil. That’s the kind of attack that lost Reagan the 1980 election.
Andrea Mitchell is the one who needs to retire, like her husband.
The blogosphere is afire accusing SP of using “blood libel”. She should have said that she, having committed no crime, was crucified like JC. LOL.
I can’t wait to see how she’s going to double down.
When I think of proggers these days, I have an image of a confused puppy chasing its tail…round and round.
Oh man, that was the obvious punchline to a comment about both words that I made earlier on RDs post, and I totally missed it. I better pay more attention next time.
Thank you so much Angeinc for linking to Blue Lyon’s post today. I’ve been waiting and waiting for this energy being spent on blame to education and awareness of MENTAL ILLNESS.
Its a complex and misunderstood disease that I bet every single one of us has dealt with. Maybe personally or through a family member. I can tell ya it is horrible and help is hard to find when it goes unrecognized. We’re paying the price for it and I hope we will change the conversation to it.
You are welcome glennmcgahee! In case you missed it, I wrote yesterday that my aunt is a disorganized schizophrenic. My family takes care of her, but it pisses me off that most people like her can’t get the help they need until they do something to harm others or themselves.
I have held off on commenting a lot on the whole “what to do about the mentally ill” discussion, because I find myself unable to do so without writing 27 paragraphs in way too much detail. I lived it all my life, with my Mom.
She should’ve given an interview. Heck, Fox would be more than glad to give her a softball interview. She looks cowardly hiding behind facebook and twitter and prerecorded statements.
I dunno, she doesn’t look cowardly to me. She reminds me of the third little pig, sitting in her house of bricks while the media big bad wolf is huffing and puffing in vain.
Nor to me. She seemed calm, cool, and collected.
Unlike Steve B., who seems at best hasty and at worst ridiculous accusing her of misusing ‘blood libel’ and then defining it as “a ridiculous notion…” There’s nothing ridiculous about making unfounded accusations that a person or persons is responsible for blood letting or death of another.
wearing lipstick I presume
No, She looks incredibly powerful. She trumped Obama’s speech which was no doubt covered by every network and she didn’t need the power of the Old Corporate Media to do it.
She was better off doing this on her own terms and platform. If she had done this on Fox, the left and maybe some on the establishment right would have attacked her for trying to incite more violence and mayhem on national media. Basically most mainstream media online and offline right now sux cock.
Accusations of defensiveness are impossible to recover from- there’s no way to defend yourself from them. And that’s what her giving an interview now would look like: defensiveness.
The “logic” of that post is mind-boggling. Sarah Palin has to “hide” by posting a statement to her Facebook page. Yet, even though he wants to ignore the statement, which would less her impact, he chooses to increase his own traffic by posting it because everyone is so interested in politics. Classic.
Tonight, former half-term Senator and current half-term President Obama will give a speech. Will there be one memorable word or phrase in it?
Not as good as “blood libel”.
nope just the usual droning of banal platitudes held together by a couple of umms and a few let me be clears
So, Benen ran a Palin story to increase his own traffic? Who got played here?
There will be memorable phrases in it, but we have to wait until the “state” tell us which ones they are. Then we can go around saying them and saying how it was the greatest speech evah. Or you can just watch MSNBC. They always give you the correct things to think.
Watch for the ultimate Obotian praise:
“I was moved to tears just reading a transcript.”
I got a tingle, all the way up my ass.
Oh wait, no that’s just diarrhea. No, wait, that was his speech after all. Hard to tell the difference.
both just run on and on
It may be memorable watching him struggle to access any real, innate compassion, and secondarily, to say his words in a way that seems authentic.
But if that’s not enough, we may be amused by his attempts to stay awake despite great boredom, cause, you know, it’s not about him.
Course, we could be entertained by counting how many times he tries to make it about him.
So, all in all, I predict it will be memorable “enough.”
I heard Lardball on MSNBC talking about the expectations for the Best Speech Evah tonight. I assume the Obots’ great expectation is that Obama doesn’t actually move his bowels or noticably drool during it. it makes it easier for them to edit a good snippet that way.
Washington Monthly is unabashedly liberal so expecting Steve Benen to not be biased is like expecting The Condlfuence to not be retarded.
That’s “fucking retarded.”
I was quoting Rahmbo
I’m shocked I tell you, shocked.
TBogg…now there’s someone with a stick stuck a yard up his ass.
Oh so delicate. Especially given the news revolving around mental illness.
If he comes back he can play in the spam filter with Lambert.
After a day, i decided to follow my own advice and stop replying to incendiary dialogue.
HONK!
He TBogg — ever heard the expression it is better to keep silent & be presumed an idiot then to open your mouth & remove all doubt? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Did we hurt an Obot’s feewings?
Do they have feelings?
Obot? no way! He called The Washington Monthly* “unabashedly liberal,” which means he prolly thinks O is a one o’ them damn Socialists…
* RW Moonie-owned paper, or used to be, right?
LandOLincoln — that is the Obot’s idea of a “double-fake” — call something that isn’t “unabashedly liberal” unabashedly liberal so we think they aren’t Obots. That is the extent of their 11th dimensional chess moves, btw.
AHA! Gotcha. Thanks, Angie.
Washington Monthly is left of center, not the Washington Times moonies. Sorry if I missed the snark.
Thanks, Three Wickets, for straightening that out. Looks like I/we got the two confused.
Has anyone else noticed that when the topic is Palin over at MSNBC and the rhetoric is heated, Gloria Borger gets all bent out of shape, physically. I mean she sort of gets all jerky and such. I wouldn’t point it out if she had some disorder of course, but she only does it when the topic is Palin. I think she’s working hard to keep her head from exploding. But it’s just a theory so far.
Borger’s knickers get twisted. That’s why.
Could be. Not a bad theory. I’m still going with keeping her head from exploding.
If your knickers get really twisted it can plug up Uranus resulting in an exploding cranium.
I might have to watch more just in the off chance it will happen.
Wait until people find out that Sarah Palin is really a closeted lesbian who had an abortion when she was sixteen.
I heard she eats babies.
That’s blood libel. Literally, in that case. therefore, it will be on the blogs shortly.
I don’t know how much longer MSNBC people will have jobs. They’re going to need live circus acts pretty soon to hold up their ratings.
As if dogwhistling never occurs on the left. Obama’s campaign was one extended dogwhistle to guilt-ridden 70s survivors–people who, as children, were swept up in the desegregation controveries, and who never quite sorted out the contradictory cultural messages.
You forgot the sexist dogwhistles to the fauxgressive misogynists like Tbogg.
I think it was the younger generation, the under 30 who wanted to fix, in their mind, the sins of the past, and of course the über educated. One has to have a PHD to have that much guilt. Oh, there’s another group, the professional left.
I just assumed the “professional left” were male strippers who, you know, dressed to the left. Am I wrong about that?
Those in the professional left work for organizations, such as the Washington Monthly.
Ah, so I was right, they are male strippers.
Yup. Totally for sale.
There’s a certain generation (mine-ish) that grew up with a split personality of nihilist cynicism and hippie-envy. Those are your Obots, there.
“Palin’s forced to hide behind statements others write for her”
but she comes up with “blood libel” all by her widdle self
She’s got a much better speechwriter than Obama. True to her voice and meaning and emotion, well constructed. Curious who it is.
I’d like to know that myself. Whoever it is, they are very good for her.
The CSM was part of the media connecting imaginary dots.
As portrait of Jared Loughner sharpens, ‘vitriol’ blame fades
Talk about a day late and a dollar short.
Thanks for the link, Dario.
If the progressive media were taking a law school torts exam on this fact pattern they would have failed miserably.
It’s “Duty-breach-causation-damages” not “duty-breach-damages”
You know what’s funny? I was watching Greg Gutfeld on Fox talk about how political rhetoric is actually a safety valve, rather than a pressure cooker. People like to complain and the inability to do so is what nakes groups of people revolt.
That got me to thinking that as television viewing has increased, it has only made people less active and more sedentary. The people who watch this stuff on TV or listen to the radio or read it on the internet are all sitting down at the time, possibly eating snack food. The vitriol is doing more than eating away their souls, it’s eating them away. The natural response seems to be even more sitting, not getting up and planning a physical assualt.
Loughner didn’t watch TV.
So Palin calls the constitution “our sacred text”?
Holier-than-thou much?
Zogby (a Lebanese Christian and on-target as usual) calls it idolatrous and blasphemous before he goes on to discuss the deeper (political) purpose.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/faux-faithful-abuse-const_b_806180.html
So was the Bible
“So was the Bible.”
Can I get an AMEN to that? LOL!
Meh. I use that sort of phraseology myself at times, and have heard many fellow liberals do so. How often have we opined that free speech or freedom from unreasonable search and seizure was “sacrosanct”?
sacrosanct definition: inviolable, must be kept sacred
It’s a little squeamishly hyperbolic, but not out in lala land, and to call it “blasphemous” is just grasping at rapidly dissolving straws. Zogby ain’t building a raft to float the left away from the shitpile they dug themselves into with THAT thin timber, I can tell you that.
It isn’t sacred but it isn’t idolatrous and blasphemous either. They’re both idiots.
How’s about it’s (the Const.) sacred in a secular way?
Sacred cannot be secular, imo. So likening it to something like God goes too far. But it is entitled to reverence and respect. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise, but unlike things that are, in fact, sacred, we can change it if we want to — and we have added 27 amendments.
Meanwhile, Zobgy can pretend to be all erudite by calling it blasphemous, but I bet she likes to be able to speak out against the government, and the fact that he can’t be arrested without probable cause (all rights she would NOT have had pre-constitution when the king could have you thrown in a dungeon on a whim because you insulted him).
Well, I don’t believe in a transcendent deity (or any other kind) so I don’t recognize anything as sacred in that sense. Apologies if I’ve given offense.
But the ability to amend the Constitution is one of the most important parts of the Constitution. Those 27 Amendsments ARE the Constitution. When the House read the Constitution, they didn’t just leave out the uncomfortable slavery parts, they chose to read what is the Constitution of 2011, not the Constitution of 1789.
That piece of paper sitting behind glass in Washington is not the Constitution, the Constitution is the culmination of two centuries of refinement and dozens of Amendments.
LandOLincoln — No apology needed — you didn’t offend me. I actually didn’t express myself properly — I only meant that “sacred” is used too loosely so Zogby is *technically* right that the term is improper, but as WMCB points out people do it all the time & it isn’t a big deal, so Zogby is more of a dick to try to make a federal case about it.
So, the Constitution isn’t “entitled to reverence and respect?” I tend to disagree, since Congress swore an oath to defend it and all.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sacred?show=0&t=1294880911
Yes…“entitled to reverence and respect” is pretty much what I meant by sacred in a secular way.
Yep. I didn’t refresh at the right time.
She’s partly playing to the 70% of the nation that is Christian…not all fundies, not all right wing. Apart from that though, the proggers have been bleating against the Constitution in recent months…again reacting in knee jerk fashion to the reading on the floor, or to valid Scotus debates. Not sure how that will play to most of the nation though. Most people like the Constitution.
I’m both a big fat atheist and a Canadian, and even I’d agree that the Constitution is sacred. It’s an inviolable text that inspires awe and respect and that sums up the core values of a nation. Sounds pretty fucking sacred to me.
“The Constitution is not sacred” sounds like the proggers idea of a winning campaign theme.
Alan Dershowitz, certainly no conservative, has chimed in on the Palin use of the term blood libel and called it perfectly appropriate and definitely not anti-semetic. (Apparently some have tried to tar Palin with anti-semitism over this.) At this point, I find myself concluding that Palin is absolutely not just not stupid but actually a light bulb ahead of just about everyone on the left. Blood libel was deliberately chosen and is provocatively on “target”; like the phrase “death panels” it sends the pundit class into a titanic spin and then sits there on the horizon dominating. Very skillful to break her “silence” on the day of O’s next “best speech evah”. This woman has either political instinct or a media magic button—she knows how to suck the air out of the room.
Proggers can’t keep up with her. It’s both sad and ironic to watch because they created her. She would have most likely faded from the national scene were it not for the enormous energy proggers expended trashing her, which she turned to her advantage. She’s a pro at recycling. And progger activists are misogynists. When they recognize and correct that, they will become more effective.
If she had been allowed to return to her life, pre-VP race, I imagine she would be Governor of Alaska now. Chances are not considering a run for President.
I have been wondering about the fact that this tragedy occurred on 01.9.11. I have not heard any chatter about this and wondered if it has struck any of you that we have another 911 event?
Not at all, nor should it imho.
Giffords scheduled her no-security meet and greet a 5-minute drive from Loughner’s home. (He had to take a taxi.)
I doubt that she had symbolism in mind when she chose the date.
I don’t see anything especially objectionable in the post that was cited. At this point in her career, all I can think of to say is that Pain is loving every minute of being at the center of attention.
Has this guy been properly diagnosed?
Boo hoo hoo!!!
The republican victim chorus is in full howl over how unfair it is that their good name is being besmirched with accusations of violent rhetoric.
Funny thing that, because I remember how they gleefully lied about Al Gore and John Kerry in order to get the Texas Nitwit elected.
Now that they may be unfairly accused of pushing this guy over the edge they cry.
The vast majority of commenters here are not registered Republicans or right wingers. But then you knew that.
Perhaps I should have made myself clearer. I was referring to listening to the AM conservative blo-hards, not commenting about anything here on TC.
But this does bring up a point, if this guy were spouting some sort of Tree Hugging, Antiwar, Save the Little Baby Seals nonsense, the republicans would be demanding sack cloth and ash from any and ever Democrat of consequence.
The sad part is that they would get it.
This line should have had [snark]Tree Hugging, Antiwar, Save the Little Baby Seals [/snark] but I used the less than greater than symbols so it was deleted.
Interesting. Jake Tapper is facebooking this cartoon.
That is interesting. I’m a bit surprised.
I kind of love watching Taylor Marsh’s head explode.
VIOLENT RHETORIC! I MUST BE SILENCED!