Palin thread of the day
Humorist David Kahane has some good stuff on the Left’s rabid attitude toward Sarah Palin.
Kahane also nailed it quite some time ago, one of the first who did.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Humorist David Kahane has some good stuff on the Left’s rabid attitude toward Sarah Palin.
Kahane also nailed it quite some time ago, one of the first who did.
Truely, the money quote…
I liked this intriguing recommendation to Palin from the Kahane link:
You might also want to think about interviewing New York literary agent Jane Dystel, who a) contacted the totally unknown Obama in the wake of an adulatory New York Times piece in 1990 and b) got him a $125,000 advance for a memoir that c) he couldn’t write, even after a long sojourn in Bali, which d) got the contract canceled, whereupon e) Dystel got him $40,000 from another publisher, following which f) the book finally came out to glowing reviews and g) Obama fired her. Wouldn’t she have an interesting story to tell?
I’m not quite over the line with the folks theorizing that Bill Ayers ghost-wrote Dreams from My Father with Obama, but the writing and publishing of that book is a very odd story.
Like everything else, Obama has almost no paper trail as a writer before DFMF. It’s not a great book, Michael Chabon to the contrary, but it’s not bad either and writing even a not bad memoir is an undertaking, and one that Obama flubbed the first time out.
Just another example of Obama getting breaks no sensible person could expect.
Just FYI, David Kahane is a pseudonym and the name of the murdered writer character in Robert Altman’s great Hollywood satire, The Player.
His stuff is wonderful, especially his take(s) on Palin, which are spot on.
I always find myself wondering who he REALLY is…
I found an excellent post at Conservative Talk, by Thresherman:
Or in her own words, “A good point guard knows when to pass the ball.”
What is the desription or name of this type of humor? It has a lot of truth in it. Yet the writer is pretending to be the other side. Besides “political humor” is there a name that describes this style?
Just as Neda Agha-Soltan personalizes Iranian oppression:
so Sarah Palin personalizes conservatives for insecure leftists who hate and fear conservatives;
so Sarah Palin personalizes Middle American values for insecure leftists and for professional women who have rejected those values, and who both hate and fear those values(fear they have made the wrong choice via rejecting those values);
so Sarah Palin personalizes the detested underclass who do not have the right education, do not speak the right way, yet have the GALL to believe they are just as smart and just as wise and just as capable;
so Sarah Palin personalizes the ethics of abortion for women who have had abortions and whom are insecure about the virtuousness of their choice;
so Sarah Palin personalizes Christianity for nonbelievers who have rejected Christianity and whom are worried they might live empty lives and then go to Hell;
so Sarah Palin – with her damnable hot husband and well adjusted kids and successful career, personalizes the envy for those who tend towards insecurity and envy.
Stephen Pressfield says the opposite of love is fear. I say hatred is closely tied to fear. People who tend to be insecure, envious, ungrounded, fearful, guilty: Sarah Palin personalized everything for them, and they directed all their “stuff” at her. Sarah really is a “designated hate receptacle”, as the God sneering chick who refuses to consider neurological differences between males and females said – and brilliantly said. Sarah Palin really is (as a neo commenter Mike O’Malley pointed to in the “More Palin Hate” thread) a subconscious scapegoat which hearkens to early and ancient human traditions (that’s my paraphrase of Mr. O’Malley’s words) – especially for those who have never studied the Christian gospels, and have never been exposed to the radical message of love in the Sermon on the Mount. Sarah Palin really is, as neo says “the perfect storm, the confluence of flashpoints regarding class, education, beauty, sexuality, Christianity …, and female ambition.”
Many on the left consider themselves too virtuous to hate an entire large group of people. Such is unseemly. However, they get to hate HER. To them, it is not unseemly to hate a specific individual. She personalizes it for them, and their bile spews as if from a wide open sewage pipe which has been closed up and storing it’s contents under pressure. Sweet release. And all the @#$% shoots forth: insecurity, envy, guilt, fear, hatred, and plenty more. Breathtakingly stinky. And they don’t know it. They think it smells like flowers.
Great link Neo, but the first link opens on the second page of the article, not the first.
huxley, I think it likely that Ayers shared his ghost writer with Obama rather than doing it himself.
If Palin does speeches and fundraising for Conservative candidates in 2010 I wonder if she will pick who she helps, or if the Big Shots in the Party will do the choosing.
Kahane’s style reminds me of Dave Burge, aka Iowahawk. Hmmm…
I accidentally posted this comment in a prior post about Palin. I am reposting it here because that was my original intent.
When I was in college, and I discussed issues with my friends, I would often find myself getting into heated discussions because I would suggest points of view that people just didn’t want to hear. Or ask questions that people didnt quite want to consider. I did this to both my lefty friends and my righty friends. This had me asking my liberal friends (those who often spoke of rights) about the rights of the unborn, and my conservative friends (pro-military) about what purpose was served by excluding gays from the miltary. Often it didn’t even mean I fully agreed with the idea I was proposing, but if I felt there were questions to be asked, I would ask them.
I have some questions and concerns about Sarah Palin, as well as sympathy for her as she faces the liberal media and its bias. I will just put this out here, and hope that its taken for the honest inquiry it is meant to be. (I also apologize if this is more lengthy than I expect.)
When McCain chose Palin to be his running mate, I thought she was a fresh new choice, and was electrified by her convention speech. I liked the fact that she was a conservative maverick who took on the Alaska establishment, and that she was a conservative woman who had the capacity to counter the so-called “breakthrough” aura that the Obama campaign had. Even as she stumbled sometimes, I cheered for her, and enthusiastically voted for McCain-Palin.
But as time went on, I must admit that I was torn between her “positives” and her “negatives.” I think things have polarized in such a way that its difficult for people who support Palin to see her negatives, or those who oppose her to see her positives. There is hatred and contempt on one side, and adulation on the other. One side sees her as an uninformed tart, and the other sees her as an authentic American woman.
I may be the exception, but I’m somewhere down the middle in regard to Palin. I see in her great promise as well as considerable failings. Just this week, I found two articles, both from people deemed to be conservative, who have managed to crystalize both sides of the dispute for me. I encourage everyone to read both of them, because I think there is truth in both.
The “Pro-Palin” article is the Victor David Hansen article mentioned in a previous comment to a previous post on this blog. It can be found here:
Victor David Hansen article
The contrary article is by former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan, and is found here:
Peggy Noonan article
As enthusiastic as I was for her in ‘08, the reality is that she came accross as uninformed and not well read. The fact that our opponents in the liberal media, in liberal academia, and among the liberal elites have seized upon this appearance as a basis to attack her should properly cause us to defend Palin when such attacks are out of proportion and unfair. But it doesnt remove the larger question of whether she is, indeed, as unprepared as she appeared.
It is wrong for elitists to assume that those not part of their “circle,” are worthy, and its wrong for the an Ivy League liberal elitist to assume that a non-Ivy Leaguer like Palin is unfit for high office just because she is not one of them. But that doesn’t mean that the opposite is true either: that because her non-Ivy League status enrages those liberal elites, that it automatically means Palin really is fit to be president and well suited for the job. Noonan’s comment, in her article, that “For 30 years the self-esteem movement told the young they’re perfect in every way. It’s yielding something new in history: an entire generation with no proper sense of inadequacy.” rings true. Could it be that, beyond (rightly) defending someone against improper attacks, Palin’s enthusiastic supporters are also assuming that she will be up to the job because she’s an average American, just like them, and that that’s enough?
(As a former enthusiastic supporter, and one who would like to be so again in the future, I’m inclduing myself in this question.)
I think the key thing is whether Palin will learn and develop as a national figure in the next few years. I agree with VDH, when he wrote as follows:
But if, a big if, she decides to become a national political figure, Palin should use these next few years (in addition to making some money to support her family) to travel and read widely in the manner that a Reagan did in his wilderness period. . . . I think most would like to see her do another Couric interview five years from now after she had time to size up DC insiders, meet more politicians, lecture in front of hostile audiences-and just read and reflect.
I would like to see that interview myself. If you read both articles, you will see that VDH and Nonan have opposite views of palin’s intelligence. I think I’ll wait and see that interview in a few years, and make up my mind then.
I hope this is taken in the manner it was meant. Sorry for the excessive length.