dajafi wrote:A quick thought about Palin:

Those few people trying to spin this positively for her, whether because they have some credibility at stake (Kristol) or because they see a pundit niche for contrarianism (Ambinder), are suggesting that she can spend the next 18-24 months building up chits with local Republican organizations and candidates and mastering issues before running in 2012. This strikes me as severely unlikely, given what we know about her: she doesn't do study or prep (read that Purdum piece, not even about last years campaign but in her two AK statewide runs), and--love of basketball analogies aside--she's just not a team player. In fact, she's probably the Allen Iverson of American politics.

Her best-case, I think, is a Fox talk show gig. And even that I'd give an O/U of eight months. She's nuts.

Why are you insulting Allen Iverson?

Look, I find just about all of this armchair psychology of Palin pretty distasteful and outrageously hypocritical. That said, I expect no less and I don't sympathize with her at all.

The chunk of America that isn't on-board for the Obama/Pelosi/Reid worldview and doesn't want a return to the Bush/DeLay worldview need alternatives, and Sarah Palin is not it. She needs to GO AWAY.

I think the whole Palin phenomenon brought out a very ugly underside of our society. She was savaged like no other politician I can remember from day one. On a personal note, I will never read another word of Andrew Sullivan the rest of my life and if there were ever any doubt that the N.O.W. crowd and its corresponding ideology were anything short of warped, that doubt should be removed in full.

Unfortunately, this ugliness was snowed under by her pretty amatuerish nature. But one should not excuse the other. Whatever her shortcomings and there are plenty, it's not like her political life before she went national was a disaster. She's at least as competent at her job as Pelosi has ever been at hers.

I find the whole arc of her story to be incredibly tragic in a number of ways. Especially if this her way of running for U.S. Senate.

Rightly savaged. She was a fraud with little to nothing going on. The fact that she was on a ticket for a mainstream party for the presidency was pretty disgusting.

She was savaged because she is an idiot. On soooo many levels. If it isn't the corruption, it's the fact that she is a fool. If it isn't the fact that she's a fool, it's the arrogance and willingness to play the victim at everyone turn. If it's not that, it's the fact that she's done next to nothing to deserve her station in life. She's George W. Bush without the pedigree. And she's brought it on herself with her attitude towards everyone not in her little world.

And I agree with Vox that the right does need an alternative if they don't like Obama, etc. Everyone deserves someone they can believe in. There are plenty of good alternatives on the right.... it's just they are having trouble getting traction against the kristols and Limbaughs of the world.

gr wrote:I think the whole Palin phenomenon brought out a very ugly underside of our society. She was savaged like no other politician I can remember from day one. On a personal note, I will never read another word of Andrew Sullivan the rest of my life and if there were ever any doubt that the N.O.W. crowd and its corresponding ideology were anything short of warped, that doubt should be removed in full.

Unfortunately, this ugliness was snowed under by her pretty amatuerish nature. But one should not excuse the other. Whatever her shortcomings and there are plenty, it's not like her political life before she went national was a disaster. She's at least as competent at her job as Pelosi has ever been at hers.

I find the whole arc of her story to be incredibly tragic in a number of ways. Especially if this her way of running for U.S. Senate.

I don't see how you see her as a martyr. She was in over her head with the VP nomination to such an extent that the McCain campaign hid her away from the press and she went weeks before doing the normal interviews of a VP candidate. When she did them, she flubbed simple questions and seemed able to do nothing more than regurgitate a half dozen canned responses, often inappropriate to the question asked. She fired up her rallies with some nasty rhetoric and tolerated far nastier chants from her crowds, some of which seemed to have the tenor of lynch mobs being psyched up to go liberal/negro hunting. If she were a viable candidate whom the press just went after, then their is really no explanation for the way the McCain staff handled her. It seems clear they quickly gauged her capabilities.

Be angry and resentful of libburls and the media all you want. But the key with Palin is this: in the end, there's simply nothing there other than surface pizzazz and contradictions. The anti-government populist outsider from the state that drew the most federal goodies and wrote $3,000 checks to every citizen. The good-government speak-truth-to-power reformer who flat-out lied, repeatedly, when indisputable evidence was there to call her on it. The gun-toting, can-do post-feminist who ran from any direct public scrutiny, presented herself as the biggest victim in public life, and finally quit when she felt things were too tough.

I'm not with Monkeyboy in painting Palin as the embodiment of what's wrong with modern Republicanism. (I reserve that for the more blatantly hypocritical Sanford and Ensign, homophobes who loved too much, as far as personal conduct, and to Boehner and Cantor as far as vapidness on policy questions.) But her rise and presumed fall is richly ironic in at least one sense: more than Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton, certainly far more than any woman on the left, she took grievance-based identity politics to a new level. Showy piety and loathing of "elites," plus her curves and winks and droppin' those gs, took her a long way.

I'm not really angry, Dajafi, if you mean me personally, since I really don't care about politics and politicians much anymore. I find the media to be distasteful for any number of reasons outside of the whole liberal bias arguement, which is one of those things that is probably true except when it isn't. Not interested in rehashing all that.

I wasn't referring to Charlie Gibson or any of the stuff she couldn't handle, more the very seedy Andrew Sullivan who's-your-mom nonsense and the feminist stuff, both of which I cited. I never said she was qualified to be VP. You guys are taking my remarks as too back and white, I think. I'm not, nor do I think I've ever, defended her as a politician. But I think some of the stuff crossed the line. It's easy to say she brought it on herself, but I guess I just don't agree with that.

gr wrote:I'm not really angry, Dajafi, if you mean me personally, since I really don't care about politics and politicians much anymore. I find the media to be distasteful for any number of reasons outside of the whole liberal bias arguement, which is one of those things that is probably true except when it isn't. Not interested in rehashing all that.

I wasn't referring to Charlie Gibson or any of the stuff she couldn't handle, more the very seedy Andrew Sullivan who's-your-mom nonsense and the feminist stuff, both of which I cited. I never said she was qualified to be VP. You guys are taking my remarks as too back and white, I think. I'm not, nor do I think I've ever, defended her as a politician. But I think some of the stuff crossed the line. It's easy to say she brought it on herself, but I guess I just don't agree with that.

Didn't mean you personally, more the general "you" who buy into Palin's own preferred narrative that she's wholly a victim. Maybe there are no such folks here.

Douthat, who's (obviously) far more sympathetic to Palin than I am, puts it this way:

And now, seemingly, it’s over. Oh, maybe not forever: she’s only 45, young enough (and, yes, talented enough) to have a second act. But last Friday’s bizarre, rambling resignation speech should take her off the political map for the duration of the Obama era.

One hopes that was intentional. A Sarah Palin who stepped down for the sake of her family and her media-swarmed state deserves sympathy even from the millions of Americans who despise her. A Sarah Palin who resigned in the delusional belief that it would give her a better shot at the presidency in 2012 warrants no such kindness.

I'll just add that this last stunt, quitting in mid-term without some (known) scandal or new personal crisis, seems to reaffirm everything that people like me thought about her beforehand: totally unserious about governing or public service (think about the implication that she can "do more good" giving speeches and raising money than running a freaking state!), worst glass jaw in politics, and self-obsessed, paranoid and delusional way beyond the norm for a group, politicians, that has all those traits in abundance anyway.

I did have one thought in response to your post last night, though--the Pelosi comparison. Mildly dislike her (as I do) or detest her, I don't think it can be argued that she's not effective. That caucus is unified and passing their agenda. Of course, this was also true of the Republicans five years ago. And I wouldn't have called DeLay ineffective... just evil.

You make some good points Djaf, re: Pelosi. My analogy maybe flawed. I should think a little more on this, since people are asking my opion (and I have no idea why, but they do around here).

I of course agree with Douthat, as he's as reasonable a columnist as you can find these days who is still sympathetic to conservative concerns.

I think if Palin quit on her state to give speeches, she's a flat out nut. I'm not ready to say that though. Not for that reason, anyway.

gr wrote:...since people are asking my opion (and I have no idea why, but they do around here).

To give you some practice for when you open your bar

Phan In Phlorida wrote:

gr wrote:...since people are asking my opion (and I have no idea why, but they do around here).

To give you some practice for when you open your bar

Then I am definitely not ready

A scene from Mascots, a Washington, DC-based bar:

Drunk Guy (maybe somebody from this board):
So, gr, when it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious, what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you opened this bar to stay informed and to understand the world and be able to respond to our drunken outbursts?

gr:
I've read most of them, again with a great appreciation for the press, for the media.

DG:
What, specifically?

gr: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years.

DG: Can you name a few?

gr:
I have a vast variety of sources where I get my news. Obviously you've never been to backshegoes.com. Believe me, BSG is like a microcosm of America. So fuck you, pay your bill and go change your pants.

One special note regarding the above: We won't necessarily require pants.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u2qRXb4xCU[/youtube]

California is giving some people IOUs and some people cash. Here'swho gets what?

People who get California IOUs
--Grants to aged, blind or disabled persons
--People needing temporary assistance for basic family needs
--People in drug prevention, treatment, and recovery services
--Persons with developmental disablities
--People in mental health treatment
--Small Business Vendors

California pays in cash
--University of California
--Public Employees’ Retirement System
--Legislators, legislative employees, and appointees
--Judges
--Department of Corrections
--Health Care Services payments to Institutional Providers

So temporary relief recipients get IOUs, while all government workers get the cash. That doesn't seem like it's meeting the needs of the citizens, just meeting the needs of those with access to the political process. Carry on as you were.

They are likely giving cash to the payrolls and programs which require it by law before they are giving it to programs which don't. This is what happens when operating without a budget.

Since when are you a liberal anyway? All of hte above programs are commie programs. Shouldn't you like this?

I'm libertarian, most accurately. I'm pretty socially liberal though, and I hate when lawmakers abuse the law to carve out benefits for themselves or their supporters. But having read little analysis of the situation, it seems like a pretty weak cop-out for lawmakers to complain out a law forcing them to sacrifice others (ie. those on relief and doing contractual work for the government). Presumably, these lawmakers aren't powerless here.

It doesn't pass the sniff test, legal considerations notwithstanding, that the first people to receive IOUs are the ones most in need of cash-in-hand. And to top it off, these are many of the very same recipients whose benefits the legislature says cannot be cut to help balance the budget.

Caption contest:


"AIG... wrecked em? Damn near killed em!"

"Those C cups?"

"Here, I'll do my Joe Biden scowl."

Woman: "I'm a libertarian." Obama: "Do Not Want!"

Werthless wrote:Caption contest:


"AIG... wrecked em? Damn near killed em!"

"Those C cups?"

"Here, I'll do my Joe Biden scowl."

Woman: "I'm a libertarian." Obama: "Do Not Want!"