Tea Party
Bachmann Steals Sarah’s Thunder: Sarah Quits Again & Lets Her Take It
June 27, 2011
It’s tough to catch lightning in a bottle.
Equally tough to recapture the sound of thunder once someone else has spirited it away.
Sarah Palin’s endless, erratic dithering about her 2012 intentions has created a vacuum on the evangelical right that Michelle Bachmann has been quick to fill.
Who was all over the Sunday talk shows today? Bachmann. Suddenly, the press is all about her.
Just look at this.
Through her fear of engagement with America’s opinion-makers, and movers and shakers, Sarah has painted herself into a corner at which fewer and fewer people even bother to glance.
Bachmann has effortlessly slid into the groove that Sarah once occupied.
Suddenly, it’s Bachmann who is the “serious” female candidate for the GOP nomination.
Suddenly–or not so suddenly–Sarah has been shoved to the sidelines, from which her shrill cries can barely be heard.
I start the last chapter of THE ROGUE by writing:
The time has come to strike the tent.
That may seem like a strange thing to say in the last chapter of a book about the star performer of the circus. But no matter how much my book sales might benefit from a Palin presidential campaign in 2012, I sincerely hope that the whole extravaganza, which has been unblushingly underwritten by a mainstream media willing to gamble the nation’a future in exchange for the cheap thrill of watching a clown in high heels on a flying trapeze, is nearing the end of its run.
Someone who knows Sarah better than I do told me recently that the only thing that would propel her into the 2012 race would be a credible Michelle Bachmann candidacy. Because Sarah couldn’t bear to yield the limelight to another woman.
Yet it’s happened. I’d always thought Sarah would run for president because to not do so would destroy her credibility even among the cretins who would have supported her.
But she just didn’t have the guts, or the commitment, to do so. She’s always been a phony and a bully.
Because of John McCain’s desperate and deeply unpatriotic inanity, she got in over her head in 2008.
She’s been treading water ever since. Now she’s about to sink out of sight.
To switch the metaphor back to the circus, she’s skulked away from the center ring, conceding it to Bachmann without a fight.
A venal, lying, avaricious quitter she always was, and a venal, lying and avaricious quitter she’ll always be.
Goodbye, Sarah, “The Oft-Defeated.” We knew ye all too well.
Posted in 2012, evangelical, Fox, mainstream media, michelle bachmann, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | 
Tags: 2012 gop candidates, bachmann, cowardice, fear, instability, john mccain, quitting | 
95 Comments »
“The Oft-Defeated”: Dishonesty in Palin Propaganda Film Starts with Title
June 25, 2011
The movie about herself that Sarah will travel to Iowa to watch on Tuesday–unless she cancels her trip–is called “The Undefeated.”
How could a serious person, even a serious conservative, use that title for a movie about Sarah?
She was defeated, most famously, in her run for vice president in 2008.
Prior to that, she was defeated in her run for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002.
Those are two defeats in tries for elective office.
But Sarah’s history of defeat is much more extensive.
She was defeated in the Miss Alaska pageant.
She was defeated in four different attempts to graduate from college before she finally managed it at University of Idaho.
She was defeated in her attempt to get a creationist majority elected to the Wasilla School Board in the early 1990’s.
She was defeated in her attempt to have abortion banned at the Mat-Su Valley hospital.
Before her election as Wasilla mayor, she was defeated when she applied for a position as dispatcher with the Palmer, Alaska, police department and was not hired.
After her election as Wasilla mayor, she was defeated in her attempt to appoint Alaska Independence Party and John Birch Society member Steve Stoll to the city council.
As mayor, she was defeated in her attempt to fire Wasilla librarian Mary Ellen Emmons in 1997, a move that nearly led to her recall.
As mayor, she was also defeated in the courts when she tried to build a new sports arena on land the city did not own—a defeat for which Wasilla is still paying.
She was defeated in her first attempt to hold down an appointed job, when she had to bail from her post on the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2004, due to her inability to grasp the complexities of the commission’s work.
Mike Miller, the ultra-right wing candidate she supported against Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the 2004 GOP primary for U.S. Senate, was defeated.
As governor of Alaska, she was defeated in her attempt to have her ex-brother in law Mike Wooten fired from the state police.
Also as governor, she was defeated in her attempt to require teenagers to obtain parental consent for abortions.
Also as governor she was defeated in her attempt to have the state pay the expenses involved in her bringing her children with her on political trips, and her image suffered an even greater defeat when it was disclosed that she’d been billing state taxpayers a per diem charge for the more than three hundred days she spent at her Wasilla home while serving as governor.
Her reputation as an ethical reformer suffered another defeat when a state-appointed investigator found that she’d abused the power of her office in her attempt to have Wooten fired.
In 2009, she was defeated in her attempt to install her former personal attorney, Wayne Anthony Ross, as Alaska attorney general.
Subsequent to her resignation, it’s become clear that her strongest initiative as governor–the Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA)–has proven a costly failure.
And last summer Sarah was defeated in her attempt to bully me into vacating the premises I’d rented next door to her on Lake Lucille.
Not to mention how many Tea Party candidates she supported last fall were defeated. (Anybody remember Christine O’Donnell? How about Joe Miller, in her own (former) state of Alaska?)
How many defeats is that?
More than enough to make an utter mockery of the title of the hagiographic propaganda film that she hopes–and no doubt prays–will pull her national political career out of its terminal free-fall.
Posted in Breitbart, Joe McGinniss, Mike Wooten, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue, Uncategorized, Walt Monegan, Wasilla | Tags: abortion, abuse of power, alaska, lies iowa agia, palin movie, the undefeated | 112 Comments »
Increasingly Desperate, Sarah Palin Supporters Pin Hopes on New Movie
June 19, 2011
As they see even what used to be her base losing interest in Sarah as Queen Esther–and as a presidential candidate–her shrinking hard core of unblinkingly blind zealots is praying out loud that the propaganda film made by one of their own can somehow overcome all that Sarah herself has done over the past two-and-a-half years to make herself irrelevant, laughing all the way to the bank.
The serious neo-cons, such as Kristol, Barnes and Krauthammer, whom she so successfully seduced in 2008, have abandoned her.
To them, she’s become a dirty joke they wish they hadn’t told.
Most of the Tea Partiers have given up on her, too, transferring their affections to Bachmann, while dreaming of Perry.
This leaves Sarah increasingly isolated, no more a “Mama Grizzly,” but a polar bear marooned on an inexorably shrinking ice floe (but one, she will assure us, that isn’t melting because of man made global warming.)
God used to open doors for her. Now she needs a deus ex machina just to keep herself afloat.
The dwindling few who still proudly proclaim themselves as cult members see “The Undefeated” as their last best hope.
See this frantic call to arms–or at least to the box office–at The Daily Caller.
Or listen to the last gasps of the drowning at Conservatives4Palin, such as this and this.
As if a propaganda film could save her now.
For the record, Sarah Palin is not undefeated. She was not only defeated as McCain’s running mate in 2008, but she was defeated in her race for lieutenant governor of Alaksa in 2004.
“The Twice-Defeated” would be a more accurate title.
Not that accuracy has ever mattered to Sarah.
Posted in 2012, evangelical, glenn beck, Greta Van Susteren, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, michelle bachmann, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | Tags: 2008, charles krauthammer, conservatives4palin, deus ex machina, dirty jokes, fred barnes, god, ice floe, john mccain, mama grizzly, michelle bachmann, palin movie, polar bears, propaganda, queen esther, rick perry, the daily caller, the undefeated, william kristol | 71 Comments »
Schaeffer in HuffPo: Todd perfect example of “good biblical wife”
June 6, 2011
Divorce rumors are swirling again in the supermarket tabloids, but let’s not forget how much Sarah needs the husband she’s turned into an obedient lapdog.
As Frank Schaeffer points out here, Todd has become just another prop–available to build Sarah’s fences, carry her bags (she can’t do it with BlackBerries in both hands) and to turn up for photo ops.
More seriously, Schaeffer reminds us of something I stress in THE ROGUE: to the evangelical right, Sarah is not merely a politician who espouses their views on social issues, she is “the new Queen Esther,” who will “take back” America. They remain convinced that “God had chosen her to confound the wise!” as Schaeffer writes.
The extreme Dominionist religious right is the ninety percent of the Palin iceberg we don’t see, as she dazzles secular media in black leather.
Let’s hope our ship of state is not the next Titanic.
Posted in 2012, evangelical, Joe McGinniss, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue, Todd Palin | Tags: divorce, frank schaeffer, huffington post, iceberg, lapdogs, queen esther, supermarket tabloid, titanic | 42 Comments »
CBS political correspondent: “Sarah Palin is either running for President or she should be” UPDATE//Chris Wallace chimes in
June 5, 2011
I see from the comments here and at my Facebook page that some people think I’m only pretending to take Sarah semi-seriously in order to hype advance sales of THE ROGUE.
Listen, folks, I’m not makin’ stuff up.
A photo of Sarah waving from the back of a Harley took up the entire top of the front page of The New York Times “News of the Week in Review” section today.
Also today, CBS political correspondent Jan Crawford posted a piece on the CBS News website under the headline: “Palin: Is ‘The Undefeated’ Running for President?”
Crawford’s piece is essentially a rave review of the forthcoming two-hour feature film, “The Undefeated,” produced with his own money by an independently wealthy Palin supporter.
The film, which Crawford has seen, left her with “the distinct impression [Sarah’s] presidential candidacy is not only possible, but inevitable.”
She writes, “Regardless of where you come down [about Palin], here’s one thing both sides should agree on: it certainly looks like Palin is running for President.”
Go ahead, call Crawford a Kool-Aid drinking right-wing shill. And remind yourselves again that Sarah is just too stupid, or too greedy, or about to be engulfed by too many scandals to mount a serious campaign for the Republican nomination next year.
But Crawford’s piece was published today by CBS, not C4P.
The bus tour? The movie? The move to Arizona? Can you not hold a finger to the wind and feel the breeze?
As I said to a commenter on my Facebook page, just wishing she’d go away–or pretending she already has–won’t make it so.
UPDATE:
Chris Wallace, who interviewed Sarah on Fox today, later said this:
I’ve interviewed her a bunch of times now over the past two years, and I have never seen her as good, as impressive, I mean she’s always been an entertaining interview, but I have never seen her as good, as specific as she was, whether it was the debt or the state of the economy, or the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. I don’t think any fair minded person could look at that debate and not say that she is potentially a serious candidate for President of the United States. Now that doesn’t mean she’s gonna run, but this is the first time that I looked at her and I thought, she could be real player in a 2012 election.
Howard Dean Warns: Sarah Palin Can Beat Obama
June 5, 2011
We can laugh–and we do–but others worry.
Howard Dean says, “I think she could win.”
Meanwhile, at Daily Beast, former Bush and Rumsfeld speechwriter Matt Latimer opines that Sarah has already won her war against mainstream/lamestream media, and that her victory could herald big things in next year’s GOP primaries.
Latimer writes:
Last week saw yet another example of the Alaskan’s unmatched skills in media manipulation. All Palin needs do is get on a tour bus and head east and Washington’s most elite scribes fall over themselves to find out where she’s headed, what she’ll say, what she’ll do. All of it was meaningless, of course…
Unfortunately, it’s not meaningless if MSM coverage leads the great unwashed (i.e. those of us who are merely citizens, and not members of the elite Beltway press corps) to believe it has meaning.
It’s a nasty, sordid back street affair that mainstream media is having with Sarah.
As I just wrote in the final chapter of THE ROGUE,
SARAH PALIN practices politics as lap dance, and we’re the suckers who pay the price. Members of our jaded national press corps excitedly stuff hundred dollar bills into her g-string, even as they wink at one another to show that they don’t take her seriously.”
We sneer at her and write her off now.
And we might still be sneering–but also fearing–as Sarah rides a Harley up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, in January, 2013, to be sworn in as President of the United States.
Yeah, right, we all say: and pigs can fly.
But Howard Dean has actually played the game, not just commented on it from the sidelines.
Laugh him off–and Sarah–at your peril.
Sorry, make that “our” peril. I live here, too. And I’m not laughing.
Posted in 2012, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Obama, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | Tags: daily beast, donald rumsfled, flying, g-strings, george w. bush, harley davidson, laughter, matt latimer, pennsylvania avenue, pigs, press corps, prostitution | 101 Comments »
Piper back in Wasilla, smiling again, thanks to Britta//UPDATE-CORRECTION
June 4, 2011
A Wasilla correspondent lets me know that Piper was back home this afternoon, unwinding by enjoying a visit to a local coffee shop/ice cream parlor with Track’s new bride, Britta.
I’m told that Piper was smiling and that Britta and Piper “were just hanging out.”
From all I know of Britta, described to me as “a sweet girl from a solid family,” it would be just like her to take poor, road-weary Piper out for a treat.
Someone who’s known Piper all her life said she came in and “waved a little wave” and, when asked how she was doing, smiled and said, “Okay.”
And now, despite all her mother has done to strip it from her, let’s give Piper her privacy back and hope that the rest of her summer will be better than the start.
And let’s be happy that in the person of Britta Hanson the Palin children finally have a female family member who cares about them.
UPDATE/CORRECTION:
I’ve heard from so many people–and have now seen video to back it up–that poor Piper, in fact, did not make it back to Wasilla today for a happy, end-of-tour ice cream with Aunt Britta. I have no doubt that my correspondent’s first-hand report is correct as to what happened, but perhaps I misunderstood when it occurred.
A difference between a blog and a book is that misunderstandings about who, what, when, where and why don’t get published in a book.
Wherever Piper is tonight, let’s hope—for her sake–that we neither see her nor read about her again until she’s at least eighteen years old and able to make choices about privacy for herself.
Let’s also hope that in Arizona somebody will post a sign designed to protect her that’s similar to the one I posted on my property line last summer after the first time Todd trespassed, which of course is described in THE ROGUE.
Posted in Joe McGinniss, Palin children, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, Todd Palin, Wasilla | Tags: britta hanson, piper palin, track palin | 102 Comments »
Sarah Palin Tries on American History for Size: It Doesn’t Fit
June 3, 2011
Mediaite reports on CNN’s Brooke Baldwin delivering an account of Sarah’s encapsulation today of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
In Sarah’s version, Revere was
“He who warned, uh, the…the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms, uh, by ringin’ those bells and um by makin’ sure that as he’s ridin’ his horse through town to send those warnin’ shots and bells that uh we were gonna be secure and we were gonna be free…and we were gonna be armed.”
Oh, my. Were Sarah’s version correct, the U.S. might still be a British colony today.
We certainly wouldn’t have won the Revolutionary War.
First of all, Sarah: Revere wasn’t warning “the British” of anything. He was warning the rebels about the British army’s nighttime advance.
Second, the whole point of Revere’s ride from Boston to Lexington (his destination was Concord, but he didn’t make it) was that it was secret. Because the Middlesex County countryside was rife with British supporters, Revere virtually whispered his warnings that the King’s forces were crossing the Charles River on the night of April 18-19, 1775 to launch an attack upon the American rebels.
Read much more about Revere here.
Ringing bells and sending warning shots while on a clandestine mission? To warn the British that they “weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms?”
Was this the version of American history that Sarah learned in Wasilla public schools, and as the daughter of her schoolteacher/father Chuck Heath? Where she also learned that the earth was only six thousand years old and that men and dinosaurs walked it together?
Paul Revere didn’t “warn, uh, the British” of anything. He warned our side that the British army was advancing, in order that the rebels of Lexington and Concord would not be taken by surprise.
Ah, Never mind. If a person truly believes that God has “annointed” and “mantled” her to become president of the U.S. in order to prepare our nation for the imminent return of Jesus Christ (which Sarah does, as I make clear in THE ROGUE,) then what difference does it make whether Paul Revere warned the British or the Americans?
After all, back then they were all Christians, and that’s what counted.
And because the end of the world as we know it will occur during Sarah’s lifetime here on earth, pretty soon there won’t be anyone around to remember.
What’s Paul Revere gonna do about that?
Actually, this is getting old fast…//UPDATE: Piper hits the wall, Sarah runs straight through it
May 31, 2011
I was thinking of writing a piece for The Daily Beast about a Palin appearance in New England this week.
But I’m not going to play hide-and-seek. So, Sarah, you can relax–at least until Sept. 20 when THE ROGUE will be published.
Seriously, how far does she think this “Close your eyes and count to twenty, then catch-me-if-you-can” approach will take her?
Actually, knowing her, and knowing MSM, I’m sure she thinks–with some justification–that it can take her all the way to the White House.
Even still, I feel sorry for the reporters assigned to the bus tour beat.
And I have an idea for MSM editors: un-assign them.
There’s a lot of talent out there chasing after ephemera.
And, as with the dog chasing the school bus, it’s only worse if you catch it.
Here’s something else, and uglier: Sarah used Trig as her photo-op prop on her Going Rogue tour in the fall of 2009.
Now, almost two years later, that poor Down Syndrome child is neither so photogenic nor so manageable, so he’s off (or under) the bus.
So it’s Piper who has to fill in. Do you think that poor girl had a choice?
Last summer, Sarah complained long and loud that I’d moved in next door because I wanted to peer at Piper through her bedroom window.
Her hot-to-trot flunkies like Beck and Van Susteren made that slanderous accusation into a right-wing meme.
But the notion was so silly and sick that I couldn’t even get mad about it.
I do, however, have granddaughters who are just about Piper’s age.
Their mothers and fathers have nurtured them since birth, and continue to do so. I can’t wait to see them again in July.
But what about poor Piper, reduced to a photo-op, and with no chance to opt off the bus?
The only time I saw Piper—I never laid eyes on her last summer—was at a Sarah book-signing at The Villages, Florida, just before Thanksgiving, 2009, when I reported on the event as part of my research for THE ROGUE.
I was appalled to see the poor girl ushered up to a FOX News platform for makeup before Sarah brought her on camera during an interview with one of the Fox blondes about what a swell Thanksgiving they were all going to have.
Trig, at least, was too young and too Down to know how he was being used.
Piper was being taught to love it.
And it’s only going to get worse.
In the end, there are three things to remember about Sarah:
1) Everything she says and does is fraudulent.
2) She cares about no one but herself.
3) She believes that God has told her that 1) and 2) are okay and that any harm she does to her children is merely collateral damage.
UPDATE:
Here’s one of the great things about kids: they can upstage even the Ultimate Upstager.
End of her first day on the bus, and poor little Piper is pissed. As Michael D. Shear reports for The New York Times:
The youngest Palin daughter looked none to happy to be delayed by the press corps, and repeatedly tugged at her mother’s arm during the questions. At one point, she said, “Mom, let’s go.”
After all this, I wouldn’t be surprised if in ten years Piper Palin joins Al Qaeda.
Posted in 2012, Chuck Heath, evangelical, glenn beck, Greta Van Susteren, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Palin children, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue, Todd Palin, Trig Palin | Tags: bullshit | 179 Comments »
Sarah Palin and The Seven Dwarfs: Clear-eyed view from across the pond//UPDATE: sending a message?
May 30, 2011
I often think that Beltway pundits are so close to the screen that they can’t see the picture for the pixels.
And once they reach a collective opinion (i.e. the conventional wisdom from mid-January to April that Sarah’s disastrous plunge into the pool of Narcissus following the Tucson shootings of January 8 had finished her as a force in American politics), they cling to it the way Obama said that embittered poor whites in Appalachia and the Rust Belt “cling to guns or religion.”
Granted, Richard Adams works in The Guardian‘s Washington bureau, which puts him technically inside the Beltway.
Coming from England, however, he’s also a foreign correspondent and thus–unlike the blind men in the Indian fable— able to see the whole elephant. 
In today’s Guardian, Adams points out that there are two strong indicators that Palin will run for president: “everything she says and everything she does.”
Including the fact that her bus tour will take her to New Hampshire this week and to Iowa next month.
You can’t hardly get much more definitive than that.
As Adams writes:
Palin would be crazy not to run for the Republican nomination. Just look at the rest of the field.
UPDATE:
Nothing subtle about this:
Posted in 2012, evangelical, Joe McGinniss, mainstream media, Obama, Palin racism, right wing, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, The Rogue | Tags: 2012 gop candidates, 2012 primaries, dwarfism, dwarfs, dwarves, elephants. blind men, fundamentalist christian, GOP, iowa, narcissus, new hampshire, religious right, richard adams, sarah palin 2012 campaign, the guardian | 44 Comments »
