Sarah Palin

Disclaimer: This post is not an endorsement of Sarah Palin or her politics. If you are allergic to Sarah Palin, proceed at your own risk. This is an attempt at an objective dissection of episode 1 of SPA.
It's not too late to look away.
You've been warned.

(Before I begin: I want to analyze this tv episode the way I do book reviews, and one of guidelines for that is I try not to read the author's mind. I have read a lot of authors say that there's nothing they hate worse than a reviewer imputing authorial intent that they know is untrue. So I try to focus only on what is presented to me on page or on-screen, in the current work and sometimes in past works, and as part of an existing cultural conversation.) Read below the fold...

Updated Disclaimer: This recap is not an endorsement of Sarah Palin or her politics. This is a lefty blog. It is a starting point for a discussion of her campaigning/marketing strategy and I hope to do a future post on that.

Disclaimer: I like Sarah Palin (political stances aside) so I have a favorable bias.

Recap:
Sarah Palin's Alaska starts off with Sarah supervising 9 year old Piper and cousin McKinley make cupcakes. Piper, like all 9yos (including mine), waits until mom isn't looking and licks the whisk ... and the spoon. Sarah says "Don't put it back!" --too late. Piper, apparently, also calls her mom "Sarah" when she wants to catch her attention. Piper tells the camera that her mom is addicted to the Blackberry. Read below the fold...

At last, at last! Sarah Palin has admitted she is not a feminist. She's a "conservative feminist." As you'll see, this is an important distinction indeed. Read below the fold...

I took a little flak last Friday for focusing on the sexism (which some didn't see) in Wesley Clark's fundraising letter about Sarah Palin, instead of focuing on how scary, scary, SCARY! she is and how what she said about targeting Democrats for death was wrong. Well, whatevah, because I write what I want to write. But some other things came up in discussion about right-wing populism, the TEA Parties and the nature of media distractions, and I thought they were worth more exploration. Read below the fold...

Earlier this month, an RNC marketing document was discovered. In this appalling Power Point presentation, voters were divided into categories depending on the amount of money The Party expected to be able to suck out of them.

Perhaps in an attempt to recreate the flood of cash Obama received from small donors, the marketing presentation out lined the motivations of these “visceral” donors as “fear”, “reactionary”, and “extreme negative feelings towards existing Administration.”. In what I believe to be a classic case of not being able to see the forest ‘spite the trees, it just may be that the RNC bit off a bit more than they could chew. Read below the fold...

“The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

Read below the fold...

What is it about Barack Obama? He seems to bring out the absolute worst in every single Democratic (and Republican) politician, even those who are no longer in the Beltway Boyz Club.

Take General Wesley Clark, who, if I remember correctly (and I usually do), was denied an invitation to Obama's coronation - er, nomination celebration in August of 2008. Now, Wesley Clark is someone that I always found appealing. He seemed intelligent about foreign affairs, practical, down-to-earth, decently liberal, and for a military man, most appreciative of peace and how important it is to keep it.

But is Wesley Clark, in the age of Obama, above using misogyny to fundraise for the Party Formerly Known as Democratic? Read below the fold...

Okay, maybe I'm snarking just a tad. After all, no one could have predicted that an enormously popular Republican ex-Governor would end up as a pundit on Fox News. It's not as though it's ever happened before! Yes, get ready, America - it's Sarah Palin, on the teevee! Read below the fold...

She's just going to scare the old folks to death.

Via Big Tent Democrat:

Really bringing the stupid - the new leader of the idiots - Sarah Palin:

As more Americans delve into the disturbing details of the nationalized health care plan that the current administration is rushing through Congress, our collective jaw is dropping, and we’re saying not just no, but hell no!

. . . The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Read below the fold...

FDL (Emphasis mine):

Alaska's Frost Lady is part of Eminem's stimulus package.

Gov GILF has a new fan in rapper Eminem, who includes Sarah Palin in a wish list of ladies with whom he'd like to be intimately involved. Palin joins the rapper's hit list of simulated sexy celebs like Lindsey Lohan, Kim Kardashian, and Jessica Simpson in the video for "We Made You." Fame, it's a bitch.

Read below the fold...

She picked a woman who was on the board of Planned Parenthood to be on the Supreme Court. Read below the fold...

While a number of the more cowardly VRWC mouthpieces in the MSM have abandoned the usual the Republican lockstep approach to candidate support solidarity while they try to climb on the Obama gravy train, others in the Party see this schism as a chance for purification and an opportunity to seize the apron strings of power. Read below the fold...

Is Sarah Palin fully qualified as Republican Party candidate for Vice President?

Yes!

While controversy has swirled since her VP nomination over the question of whether or not Sara Palin is qualified, her recent performance and statements have done much to calm fears that she would not be able to step in immediately and be as effective as the current officeholder. Now the Alaska legislature has added the final piece of the puzzle and the naysayers have been vanquished. Read below the fold...

Political Animal has the goods. Kathleen Parker is as conservative as a pundit can be, and often writes disturbingly disinformative, if not downright dishonest, things. But, sometimes, even Parker finds a nugget of gold amidst all the dreck: Read below the fold...