I wasn’t going to write about Sarah Palin again today. Really, I wasn’t. I was all set to slog into something informative and useful about health care.
Well, maybe later. This is too juicy. ABC News has an absolutely hysterical interview with Palin the Petulant. For example,
Palin conceded many people are still confused about why she made the decision to leave office.
“You know why they’re confused? I guess they cannot take something nowadays at face value,” Palin said.
If we take her at face value, she’s a quitter and a ditz. As I’ve said elsewhere, the speculations on the reasons she left office assume she has a reason, which gives her some credit.
Or maybe the reason is this:
But she said a major factor in the decision was the mounting legal bills she and the state have had to incur to fight ethics charges from her political adversaries. None of the accusations has been proven but, she said, the costs of fighting them have been enormous.
I’m sure Bill Clinton commiserates. But this is the best part:
But as for whether another pursuit of national office, as she did less than a year ago when she joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the race for the White House, would result in the same political blood sport, Palin said there is a difference between the White House and what she has experienced in Alaska. If she were in the White House, she said, the “department of law” would protect her from baseless ethical allegations.
“I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we’ve been charged with and automatically throw them out,” she said.
There is no “Department of Law” at the White House.
Priceless. Of course, the only reason we don’t recognize Gov. Palin’s sparkling intellect and critical thinking skills is that we’re against feminism.
Update: Jonathan Turley is amused.
Thank you. I was wondering when someone was going to mention that crazy idea about feminists being against Palin. What a crock. I’m an old feminist and I think that embracing an inept politician just because she’s a woman is offensive to my own feminist beliefs. We hold everybody to the same standards. I don’t think she was belittled for being a woman. She was belittled for being an idiot.
I spend a long weekend away from the internet and learn the world has ended. Sarah Palin resigned from the Governorship because she was concerned about all the political witch hunts in regards to her ethics? It is a strange world out there…
I agree, she is an airhead and a ditz. But, she does have presence. The far right republithugs love her. She is a very scary person. I hope she is truly out of poliltics forever and ever!
FWIW, Alaska apparently has a “Department of Law” so she was probably just mixing it up with the Federal DOJ, which of course would protect her from ethics complaints if it were still headed by someone like Al Gonzales, I guess.
I’m an old feminist and I think that embracing an inept politician just because she’s a woman is offensive to my own feminist beliefs. We hold everybody to the same standards. I don’t think she was belittled for being a woman. She was belittled for being an idiot.
Absolutely agree. I would add she’s also a religious nut (either real or pretend; I suspect pretend), a hypocrite, a really bad parent, and a protofascist in her responses to her critics.
Ah, Sarah. Good times.
She’s never ceases to amaze, does she? I read an article where she was quoting as saying “1 term is enough”. Honey, you didn’t even have one term! You gave up.
She’s, at best, beyond naive to think no one would raise an eyebrow at this. When you quit your job (esspecially in this economy!) with nothing lined up, people tend to question you.
As for this silly charges that would be thrown away if she was the prez, brings to mind an attitude shared by Nixon. When Sarah Palin does something, it is not illegal!
Anyone who thinks she’s going to go away is flat out nuts. She has tasted fame and she will NOT give it up.
She’s a hero to a certain deranged part of our populace and she will continue to mine that shaft for the rest of her life. The question is whether it will continue to be in politics of some form, or be on TV, radio, or print (yeah, I know that sounds funny, but she can always hire a ghostwriter). Murdoch’s media conglomerate will find (a) spot(s) for her, you betcha.
And she will run for President, several times – mark my words! She may have quit on Alaska, but her ego won’t let her quit that gig…
I think she has what I call ‘nurtured narcissism in crisis’ – when somebody who’s had a lucky ride thru life relative to the effort they’ve had to put in, is suddenly hit with adversity and stress they’ve never encountered before. They discover that their pumped up sense of superiority and entitlement is no substitute for the experience, intellect and character required to handle the challenges they’re suddenly faced with. They usually quit AND blame!
(caps and exclamation technique borrowed from Palin).
Fortunately for Palin, she’s in the (lucky) situation where she can be cocooned by family, friends and fans, (and given the shallowness of her intellect) emerge from all this flying more narcissistic than ever, and pissed off – a potentially dangerous thing if there’s still a sizeable wingnut base around by then.
I agree with freD – I think she has narcissistic personality disorder. She’ll be around forever because she can’t handle not being in the spotlight. She doesn’t want to govern, she just wants to be in the spotlight.
Btw, I believe she cited part of the costs as being $500K in personal expenses “setting the record straight.” She’s so thin skinned (and here’s that narcissism again) that she can’t leave any allegation unanswered, and answering allegations costs money, you betcha.
What occurred to me yesterday evening is that her media presence has not been without conflict–ever, at least since I became aware of her. I said yesterday that she likely expects assault from most others outside her little circle, so it looks like hostile conflict is just a given.
She has learned well to use this constant as a formidable Hapkido move and uses the passive-aggressive role of “victim” (of the unrighteous media and those that hate America) to illicit support from admirers who know that role as well. But it shore looks like a long and difficult way “to serve the Lord.”
I also read that she may have A.D.D. It sure looks like it as she tries to do interviews and think on her feet. If so then it is especially important for her to have a set of canned responses prepackaged by competent handlers so that she can repeat them endlessly. It is the only thing she can do to try and manage a deficit in skills, but that only fuels the speculation about her intellect–again, not a problem for the mostly emotional easily outraged bunch.
When I heard that 15 of the ethics complaints had been dismissed I began to wonder if there wasn’t a bit of a gang-pile thing going on. But my wife reads Mudflats all the time and the information seems to be that she has insulated herself with all kinds of cronies and birds-of-a-feather, and that they occupy key positions including one or more that filter out such investigations. And the deals she has cut with the oil companies–whole ‘nuther post I’m sure.
Well, don’t worry too much about her. Just remember how Bobby Bare sang it in 1976:
“Yeah, Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life
End over end neither left nor to right
Straight through the heart of them righteous uprights
Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.”
lj sez:
“I’m an old feminist and I think that embracing an inept politician just because she’s a woman is offensive to my own feminist beliefs. We hold everybody to the same standards. I don’t think she was belittled for being a woman. She was belittled for being an idiot.”
I agree, in fact I also think that because she is so challenged that the issue of her being a woman has been bypassed. This may be the best thing that Sarah Palin has done for this country: make the issue of competency more important than the issue of gender. At this point I can’t think of anyone who would oppose a candidate for President just because she is a woman.
I just saw her on an MSNBC interview. She is eerily similar to Donald Rumsfeld in the way she talks and in her attitude.
Bartcop calls Palin a partial term abortion……….
Crude, yet clever.
Maha, I thought you’d get a kick out TBogg’s Palin koan post if you hadn’t seen it yet. When you do not think good, and you do not think Palin, does she make a sound? Or, as Palin defenders will insist, the Palin that can be explained is not the true Palin.
I may be a city boy from the streets of Gary IN. but I recognize a set of virgin waders when I see one. Unknown to most folks we used to have a hell of a smelt run in Gary, IN. It was a magical time, ordinary steelworkers would for 4-5 days a year become commercial fisherman, with nets, poles, waders, and grills, and coolers. One thing I was always aware of was who was new, you could tell by their lack of sain netting skills, the general uneasiness with wading into 45 degree water up to your chin, but the dead giveaway every time was the brand new set of waders. If you got close enough you could still smell the K-Mart.
When I look at that ABC video that is what I see, new waders, a real good show, but not real good fishing people, exit stage right. In fact if you look hard enough you’ll see cameramen wearing kaki shorts. This broad is a fake, she smells like K-mart to me.
It seems acceptable for politicians to overemphasize his or her qualifications, achievements, public abilities. But for a politician to fake catching fish, well that smells.
It would be nice if the media actually fact-checked things. Politicians in this country, most of them Republican, have been coasting for years, safe in the knowledge that they can repeat any lie and it will be accepted as fact.
I don’t really follow Palin-centric news too closely, but I do know that that report released last fall (& promptly mis-categorized by Republican pols & spinners) stated unequivocally that Palin had abused the power of her office.
Of course, it’s possible that she simply didn’t understand the report. Her command of the English language is … questionable. And anguished.
So, ignoring the question, which was about how she would deal with charges and accusations during a White House CAMPAIGN, she skips ahead to the fun part where she runs for president unopposed (because anything less would be a deep personal insult), is carried to the White House on the public’s shoulders and is then protected by a department within the White House whose job it is to reach into the courtroom and stifle all charges against The Leader.
Smell the democracy!
I thought Sarah was just “Going Galt.” I hear it’s all the rage.