P.S. Inherit The Wind….your last post was spot on. Excellent summary. But I believe Palin, if she tries to push in the direction of a third party, will only further marginalize the right-wing fringe of an already marginalized party.

Sarah Palin was and remains:
1. A joke
2. An embarrassment
3. A symbol of a desperate party grasping for survival
4. A miserable mistake

I believe history will not be kind to Palin but she is a symptom, not the disease. History will be far more unkind to those Republicans and Republican advisors who failed miserably in the vetting process and chose her. In a country of a few thousand Republican politicians they chose HER? The barrel couldn’t have been that empty. Geez, what were they thinking - or were they too busy at brothels, flying to and from Argentina, tapping toes in cubicles or cooking books to pay attention?

A large portion of the remaining GOP lives in total delusion—like Jim Jones followers.

They refuse to believe that the GOP sank the economy, instead blaming Barney Frank for his actions in…1999—when the GOP had control of both Houses. They ignore Phil Gram’s midnight loophole that made Enron possible—the first 21st Century gaming of the system.

They refuse to believe that EVERY step Bush took resulted in abysmal failure and his ONE success, in Afghanistan, was pissed away because he pulled troops too soon for Iraq—a disaster.

They refuse to admit that Obama inherited his office with the nation in more dire straits than any President faced since FDR started in 1933.

They are DYING for Obama to fail.  They call him far worse names than we EVER called Bush—and almost all reek of racism.  They deny reality and will EAGERLY support anyone who feeds that denial.

They embrace angry failures like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coultergeist (where IS that b*****, anyway?), George W. Bush, Joe The Plumber,—and Sarah Palin.

This woman has demonstrated neither competence nor morals, just a mean, nasty, and potentially racist streak—preferring “Real Americans”—meaning White, uneducated, “Christian”, rural….rednecks.

She may well be the most dangerous person in America today.

Palin is a WASP Zelig - and if Woody’s reading this, what a fabulous plot awaits your expertise?

BEAUTY - IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

She was a small town beauty queen, elected by a cabal of corrupt businessmen. That is the beginning and end of all you need to know.

> But now it appears she doesn’t really know who she is. Or what she wants.
Hello. WAKE UP! Earth to Ellen Goodman. “Do more (internet) surfing.”

We know _exactly_ what she wants. She wants what all the Re-pugnants want. More money. No work. Less tax.

And here is Levi Johnston to tell us exactly how and what she wants. More money. No work. Less tax. MORE MONEY. Sheesh. And this a surprise, HOW exactly? -

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/09/levi-johnston-palin-resig_n_229182.html

This whole election “thing” is to guarantee that the Status Quo candidate gets elected, and right now, that candidate looks like it will be Obama.
A poll was done before McCain was nominated that said voters were least likely to vote for an old candidate.  One would think that those results would eliminate McCain.  But No.  To slim down his chances for election even further, McCain chose Palin as his running mate, and he also stepped forward to support the Wall Street bailout like Obama. (I think if he came out against that bailout, he would have won despite his baggage.)
The 2012 election will pit Obama against some half-assed Republican whose only campaign issue will be cutting taxes.  No “Morning in America”, and no inspiring theme.  Just unshackle the rich from their government tethers. 
Now, Obama has been, too say the least, a dud.  He’s proven that he’s not a Democrat in the traditional sense of the term.  He’s a magazine cover, paper thin and glossy.  He has proven to be the water carrier for the Status Quo, Wall Street banksters and the like.
The time could be ripe for a legitimate third party candidate, so Palin’s job is to split the third party vote, taking votes away from each party, mostly the Republicans, which, in short, will ensure that Obama gets a second term, and the beat will go on.
Obama’s attempt to appear statesmanlike seems to failing as well.  Amy Goodwin reported that Putin and Medvedev ignored him while he was speaking in Russia.  I think they know an empty suit when they meet one.
I wonder if Palin will disentangle herself from the dark age, evangelical ministers from Africa that she welcomed in Alaska.

Anarcissie, July 8 at 11:25 am #

Appearing to be stupid is hardly a disadvantage for a politician.
*******************************************

A very astute point.  But you left off the second half: You can only APPEAR to be stupid.  You can’t actually BE stupid! (Mitch McConnell being a case in point).

Nabnyc: You’ve got it wrong.  The media are sharks and they inevitably go after blood in the water.  Sarah “The Barracuda” has been bleeding since days after McCain made the biggest mistake of his life (short of getting shot down in Viet Nam).

Yes, Tina Fey’s impersonations were devastating, but the MOST devastating one was when Tina simply mimicked Palin gesture for gesture and word for word VERBATIM!  I thought Tina was doing a typical comic exaggeration—until I saw the Katie Couric interview.  To imitate a pol and NOT exaggerate and show it to be hilarious was unprecedented. 

The blood was in the water.  The sharks went after it.

Then, it turned out that Palin wasn’t only fumble-tongued (a forgivable flaw), she was both corrupt and vindictively mean—using her power as governor to try to ILLEGALLY ruin the career of her ex-brother-in-law.  She was also unforgivably ignorant.  Not knowing the PM of an obscure country is one thing (after all, Candidate Bush had NO idea that Musharrif was Leader-by-Coup of Pakistan), but her claims about world politics were just plain silly.  Most TDrs here are FAR more worldly, wherever they fall in the political spectrum, from Ozark to FT.

Palin didn’t get a pass (unlike Bush) because her faux pas were continually fundamental—the newsies ALL knew more about EVERYTHING than she did.  Bush made very few SERIOUS ones—just funny ones.

Then again, in 2000, the economy was FAR better, unemployment was FAR lower, there was a budget surplus, not a burying deficit, we were not at WAR, and Bush ALWAYS had a knack for making friends, not enemies, of the Press.

Blood in the water brings the sharks and sends them into a feeding frenzy. Palin cut herself everytime she opened her mouth.

“I’m a fighter”...“I quit”....Sarah Palin is a walking, talking oxymoron, emphasis on the moron.

NABNYC: I think you miss the point.

Yes, there has been abundant sexism in criticism of Palin, but by far the overriding prejudice has been class. She’s not from the Ivy League Political Complex, which makes her an easy target. Really, her gender has little to do with it, except that her physical beauty is her most distinguishing characteristic.

The problem is, though she may be very talented as a politician/public figure, she really isn’t very…um…thoughtful - much as GW wasn’t particularly engaged in the subtle nuances of politics and life. GW got a lot of sh*t for being stupid, much as she has. But, because she was CHOSEN for her physical characteristics and far-right social appeal, she has sustained a whole other level of dsitain.

Palin has found a following? So did Hitler. You’ve been warned.

Hey blah-blah:  what’s your point?  The media picked on Dan Quayle, too?  Yes, certainly he was the object of widespread ridicule.  But it was mostly from Democrats.  As your article says, Bush/Quayle won that election, so the attacks on Quayle were apparently not considered by voters to be that substantial. 

I personally don’t think Sarah Palin is the smartest or dumbest national politician in recent years.  But I do think she’s been attacked the most, by both sides, and the attacks are openly sexist. 

It’s okay with me that people don’t like her—I don’t like her either.  But there’s something about the tone, the packs of men going after her, that is way beyond a question of whether she is knowledgeable.  It’s got that underlying hatred that is the sure indication sexism is the motivating factor, not education. 

Do you really think most of our politicians are smart?  They’re rich, they’re corrupt, but I don’t think most of them are particularly smart.  They mostly read speeches written by somebody who works in their office, then run off to cocktail parties to pick up bags of cash from the lobbyists and the corporations that own them.

Actually, it comes down to the source of the whole problem:  she really is a stupid person.  What is tragic is that she got set up for a fall, before she fell. McCain is really guilty of not anticipating what would happen.

I agree.  This resignation reminds me of the retarded kid in school who used to be demeaned, ridiculed, harassed, humiliated by the “cool” kids every single day, until finally the retarded kid breaks down crying, runs through the hall, leaves school and pleads with his parents to let him stay home or go to another school.

I don’t like Sarah Palin one bit.  But I dislike gang rape even more.  And most of the treatment of Palin by the (male) media and by the (male) politicians has been the same-old sexist and tired claims that most women hear from birth.  Jokes about her being stupid because she didn’t know the prime minister of some obscure countries.  Jokes about her being pretty, as if that disqualified her.  Jokes about her being sexually attractive, as if that meant she should be pulling trains for the boys under the bleachers.

Let’s put it this way:  George W. Bush was one of the most stupid people in our lifetimes in national politics, yet he mostly got a pass from the (male) media and from the (male) politicians. Dick Cheney was one of the most evil people ever in national politics, but these tough-guys in the media were fairly deferential around him. 

And you rarely hear the (male) media or (male) politicians going public to expose the (male) corrupt and criminal men who run our politics, media, and business.  There is a code of silence by which men protect other men.  And a code of sexism by which men attack and try to destroy women.

Sarah Palin wasn’t attacked and ridiculed because of her knowledge.  She was attacked and ridiculed because she was female, she was pretty, she was entirely confident in her own ability to get into the ring, take any punches thrown at her, debate anyone, speak publicly, rally the crowds, get out the vote.  And because of her self-confidence, which many men perceive as defiance or arrogance when found in a woman, the men decided to gang up on her and tear her apart. 

I’m tired of it all.  Whether she runs (and she is a right-wing fanatic, who I strongly oppose) or she goes onto TV, or writes a book, or whatever else she does, she’ll be okay. 

But what about the rest of us who are left with a political and media and educational and business system run by packs of crazed, arrogant, brutish men who would join together to destroy any woman who dares to stand up in public and say:  “Yes, I belong here too.”

I think Palin is preparing to run for the Presidency in 2012 as an independent.  At worst, she’ll split the vote and ensure the re-election of Obama. (I hope for a third party candidate who knows something and has demonstrated it.) But if her showing is good enough, she’ll enhance her career options and possibly go to the big feeding trough, Washington DC. And she’s still young comparatively speaking. 
A little anecdote.
I used to go to a store at lunch near where I worked that was frequented by the local political potentates. Some of them were delegates to Democratic Convention.  The woman who worked behind the counter was a PUMA Clintonite.  When Clinton’s nomination died, the counter woman turned almost instinctively to backing Palin.  She’d revel in each of Palin’s faux pas and light up when I asked her who she was for in the upcoming election.  Her lightning response was, “I wish Palin were running for President.”
I suspect that there is a rather large voting bloc who sneer at the northeastern corridor’s stereotypes and say what do they know about being a woman and rearing a family and dealing with the male dominated society? 
I think Palin is scary.  In this case, we might get what we deserve.

Imagine the Iranians who are in the streets protesting an election being applauded by the US, an amalgam of milquetoasts.
Makes you want to sit back and just enjoy.

Appearing to be stupid is hardly a disadvantage for a politician.

Having read a whole bunch of high school essays recently, what concerns me is that a politician whose grammar and thinking are unclear and garbled, may actually be seen as a leader for a population that has been passed from one grade to the next without learning critical thinking skills.  One hopes that Obama, as a political figure who values literacy and intellectual skill, might inspire a better future than that. 

Palin wasn’t just caught unprepared for the vice presidency. She is actually stupid. Somebody needs to say the truth of it. The fact that she was personable and pretty - and a right wing Christian - got her to a certain point in Alaska at a certain time because it is has a small population marked by an “off-the-grid” mentality.  She would not have been able to get elected to anything beyond a local school board or city council in a small town in the lower 48.  Cities such as Seattle, Austin, Atlanta, etc. have a greater population than the state of Alaska, and they are places where there is intense competition based on ability to think critically and where really serious persistence in the face of tough realities are basic requirements. 

It was a great mistake for McCain to take her on as the VP nominee, but it would be an even greater mistake for the rest of the country to consider her
anything but a media celebrity with no prospects beyond the limelight, until and unless she shows an ability to learn to think.  Given that this isn’t likely to be in her repertoire of capabilities, the kindest thing to do would be to allow her to be a private citizen who focuses on her family and heals from the damage done to her soul and psyche.  One can feel empathy with her without wanting her to be anywhere near the power to affect others’ lives.

Mick - you’re kidding, right?

Nothing in Goodman’s piece plays on the sexist angle popular in the media (beauty queen, dumb broad). She makes nary a mention of her beauty or intelligence. Palin is an enigma wrapped in a comedy. Goodman tries to drill past the Letterman/Fey caricature to understand the ambiguous person within. And her conclusion that Palin may be such an opportunist that when opportunities collide with withering criticism, even Palin loses track of who she is – is a reasonable one.

Palin did knuckle under.  The question is why.

There is probably more to the story than we’ve been told so far.

Sarah Palin was chosen for VP candidate as the token female who could energize the religious right wakkos.  It is obvious that she was not up to the task, and that’s NOT her fault.

This does not excuse her for her foibles and legal problems in Alaska, where she has been operating like a loose cannon.  This also does not excuse her for lying like a dog on one stump speech after the other. 

It should, however, scare the beejeezus out of Americans that this person could have been second in line behind a 72 year old guy with a history of cancer who obfuscated his medical history with a bizarre scheme that would be appropriate for a Mission Impossible episode.  Yes, it should scare us because we have a two party system and one of the two parties has run off the rails.

There are a number of things we can do to prevent situations like Sarah Palin.  We need to break the strangle hold that the two parties have on our political process.  We can do this by instituting term limits and 100% public campaign financing.  We can take back control of the presidential debates from the PDC and give it back to the League of Women Voters.  We can lift the level of political discourse out of the gutter by re-instating the Fairness Doctrine.

If all of those things were fixed, our political system would be opened up and Sarah Palin would have been in competition with real candidates with real political skills instead of the goofy bunch of misfits the GOP assembled to run this last election cycle.  The GOP can’t be serious when they tell us that Sarah Palin was the best they could come up with.

-Wexler

It’s disheartening to hear Ellen Goodman natter on along the same old sexist lines.  Sure, Palin sounds incoherent to someone grounded in English grammar, but nevertheless she has found a following.  Okay, we completely disagree with her and her following, but nevertheless, she’s good at it.  Compare her non-reasons with McCain’s ramblings during an actual presidential campaign, his complete about-faces on every important issue, his lies, his two-facedness, and really, McCain wins the idiocy race hands down.  But McCain, an old pro with decades of political annealing, gets away with it while Palin is excoriated at every turn.  For what?  Apparently for doing McCain’s thing better than he, and worse, of course, for being unabashedly female.  Which apparently makes her cheap.  And Goodman goes along with the guys, never wondering what it must feel like to be dissected and trashed non-stop in the media.  They say, if she doesn’t want that, she should shut up.  Why should she shut up?  Why should she knuckle under?  Why shouldn’t she fight back?  All the media went “boys together” after David Letterman made Palin’s daughter fair game.  Every single one trashed Palin and let Letterman off the hook.  And I bet every female teen was wishing she had a mother who stuck up for her like that.  But the guys don’t get it.  And neither does apparently oversocialized Goodman.