Palin Goes Birther
Well, the best way not to get tagged as a Birther is to refrain from saying that people are “rightfully making it an issue” and that the only reason that she would avoid doing that herself is because “there are enough members of the electorate who still want answers.” It’s the same thing as Truthers saying that all they’re doing is “asking questions.” The answers have already been provided; they just reject them because they’re married to their conspiracies.
I think Palin just discovered the First Rule of Blogs: Don’t feed the trolls.
I’m sorry, I can’t take my eyes off this Sarah Palin story. Particularly since all my sports teams have decided to lose in hideous fashion lately, I have no escapist entertainments left except her. And it was very hard not to notice Palin jumping snowshoes-first into the birther controversy in recent days, which provided a great many solid laughs.
The ex-governor was asked in a radio interview if she would make Barack Obama’ s birth status an issue in the next campaign (were she to run) and her answer subtly endorsed the whole campaign. This isn’t the funny part, but it’s a necessary plot element, so hold on:
Would you make [Obama's long form] birth certificate an issue if you ran?
I think the public, rightfully, is still making it an issue. I don’t have a problem with that. I don’t know if I would have to bother to make it an issue ’cause I think there are enough members of the electorate who still want answers.
Do you think it’s a fair question to be looking at?
I think it’s a fair question, just like I think past associations and past voting record — all of that is fair game. You know, I’ve got to tell you, too: I think our campaign, the McCain/Palin campaign didn’t do a good enough job in that area. We didn’t call out Obama and some of his associates on their records and what their beliefs were and perhaps what their future plans were. And I don’t think that that was fair to voters to not have done our jobs as candidates and as a campaign to bring to light a lot of the things that now we’re seeing made manifest in the administration.
First of all, it’s amusing that Palin thinks she didn’t do a good enough job attacking Obama’s past associations. I can just imagine her pacing back and forth at night, poring over the 9,000 times she mentioned Bill Ayers last fall and thinking, “I was too subtle!” Secondly, it’s mildly funny that she seems genuinely to think that she’s not endorsing birther theories with this “I’d make it an issue if other people weren’t doing it for me” answer. But the really funny part comes later on in the interview:
I mean, truly, if your past is fair game and your kids are fair game, certainly Obama’s past should be. I mean, we want to treat men and women equally, right?
Hey, you know, that’s a great point, in that weird conspiracy-theory freaky thing that people talk about that Trig isn’t my real son. And a lot of people say, “Well you need to produce his birth certificate! You need to prove that he’s your kid!” Which we have done. But yeah, so maybe we could reverse that and use the same [unintelligible]-type thinking on them.
She later clarified this point on her Facebook page — emphasis here is mine:
Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask… which they have repeatedly. But at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.
Wasn’t Andrew Sullivan the only reporter really dogging Palin on the Trig question?
What’s funny about this is the way that, in what passes for Palin’s mind, any reporter who goes after her is “left.” Although this may not be an error. A lot of people are going to harp on the fact that Sullivan isn’t “left,” but upon thinking about it, it seems to me those people will be missing the point about how this word’s meaning has evolved.
The term “left” goes back to the days of the French revolution and originally referred to the seating arrangements in the French parliament, where the anti-Monarchists and the radicals sat to on left side of the National Assembly. It went on to refer to radical anti-authoritarian politics of many stripes — socialists, Marxists, anarchists, secularists, labor movements, etc.
In the modern United States, “left” doesn’t have any concrete meaning that I can see, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know what it means – it’s like pornography, people know it when they see it.
In 2004, on the Dean campaign plane, after seeing reporters throw the words “left” and “liberal” with Dean in a way that I didn’t really understand given the governor’s history, I polled the press corps on what its definition of “left” was. I got very few answers. While it was well understood that Howard Dean was “left” (and not just “left” but “too left” to win the White House, according to many reporters) no one could really say which of his policy ideas qualified him for that title.
In the end it was pretty clear to me anyway that “left” was basically a shorthand term for “pointy-headed weenie dissident.” Except for his stance on the war, Dean’s policies were much less traditionally “liberal” than, say, those of John Kerry — but Kerry made up for it by being much more full of shit than Dean.
Kerry was willing to say anything to get elected; he was willing to toe the Democratic Party’s absurdly vacillating non-stance on the war (We like war in general, we’re not wimps, but Bush should have invaded on a Tuesday, not a Thursday!), he nearly killed himself trying to give the press goofy photo-ops of the candidate playing manly sports like football and baseball, and was even willing to pose in a duck-hunting costume carrying a rifle.
Kerry’s willingness to jump through all the usual idiotic hoops set out for him by the political media made him less “left” among those in the press corps than an economic centrist governor from Vermont who was openly critical of the media’s war coverage and did not even have a Nerf ball on his plane. Which is normal and somehow made sense to all of us. If you scratch the surface of “left” you’ll find that it has a lot more to do with attitudes and cultural markers relative to the bourgeois norm than it does to do with political beliefs, ideas about the role of government, taxes, and so on.
It’s much easier to figure out who’s “left” and who isn’t using cultural litmus tests than it is using position papers. What’s the left position on monetary policy? I have no idea. What’s the left’s position on American Idol? Easy: it rolls its eyes.
Getting back to the present, even though Andrew Sullivan is a Republican, it’s not hard to see why Sarah Palin lumps him in with the left. Sullivan is gay, has probably been to a non-Christian bookstore more than once in the past six months, uses multi-syllabic words, is a member of the media and, most importantly, hates Sarah Palin. It may sound like a mistake to say that it was reporters “on the left” who harped on the whole Trig business, but it’s not a mistake if she’s using the word “left” in the sense of “Godless east-coast intellectual watcher of subtitled movies who disagrees with me,” which is where we’ve allowed this word to go.
Anyway, the kicker in all of this is that we now have a left-right controversy that has nothing to do with either the left or the right. What we have here is the nutty Birther movement dueling with a mostly imaginary Trig-conspiracy movement that the Birthers believe comes from the left, or at least their idea of left, anyway. This battle will be hard-fought, prolonged, and ridiculous, sort of like that fight sequence in Naked Gun where Leslie Nielsen struggles with the pillow thrown in his face. I imagine this will also be a good preview of the kind of thing that will pass for “left-right debate” in 2012. God, I love politics in this country!
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In every way, in the MSM and the DC halls of power, the answer to the question, “What’s left?” is, “Not much.”
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You missed the most damning point about Andrew Sullivan! He *wasn’t even born in America.* He’s must be a British – scratch that, “European” – sleeper agent sent here to roil US politics and keep down the True Americans.
i think that Naked Gun reference is a perfect metaphor for the news media’s coverage of elections in general. i learned more from your article “Candidates For Sale” than i did from any of those ridiculous debates. what a hoot.
You do what you want, but me, I am staying away from anything having to do with the carpetbagger from AK. She is not a serious person and not worth a second thought, in my opinion.
Mr. Taibbi,
Ms. Palin is the Paris Hilton of US politics, the press cannot ignore her despite the fact there is not a single newsworthy thing she has said or done in months. She generates traffic and traffic generates profits, how can anyone say no. She has the “OMG, what is that crazy woman going to do or say next” quality that made Ms. Hilton a similar media sensation for so long. There is no point in resisting, the best way forward is pay as much attention as your stomach can bear. Eventually she will “make like a fad and fade” and get a talk show (just like Ms. Hilton) where she can talk with only real Americans and only real Americans will listen.
I think you missed a really key point. Her interviewers basically asked “Since you were questioned about your personal and family life, isn’t it OK to question Mr. Obama”? Ms. Palin answered “Yes, that is OK”. Hasn’t she been complaining about the news media prying into her private life but now it is OK? That seems like something that she has not really thought through too well.
How right you are David and I’m surprised you missed it Matt.
She claims it wasn’t right what was done to her (if you believe in a conspiracy of one), and because it was done to her it’s now fair to do it to others. That type of thinking is presently endemic to our culture and is probably at the root of what ails this country.
Jake Sky
In response to another comment. See in context »get a talk show (just like Ms. Hilton) where she can talk with only real Americans and only real Americans will listen.
You mean like Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh? Ooh, ooh they could all do a show together and they could call it ‘The NEW 3 Stooges’!!
In response to another comment. See in context »There is no real ‘left’ in America anymore, now that people like Petr Kropotkin, Sartre, Bakunin, Sacco and Vanzetti, Fourier, Proudhon, Rosa Luxembourg and others are dead. Maybe Bernie Sanders and Matt Taibbi?
The characterizations of centrist politicians as “left” (Dean) or even Marxist (Obama) would be laughable if these labels weren’t so readily adopted by much of the citizenry. It’s even more ridiculous when you consider who’s in Obama’s administration and what he’s done so far to crack down on Wall Street, which is essentially nothing.
I enjoyed reading “Obama’s Big Sellout,” but I’m horrified to think that this state of affairs is described by millions of Americans as “socialism.” And if this is in fact socialism–having former investment bankers shape the nation’s economic policies–I’d hate to see what capitalism looks like.
Do you really think AKA Obama would have won the election if all the things he is hiding were made known?
Do you really think AKA Obama will be able to finish his first term if all the things he is hiding are made known?
Why aren’t the polls on the birth certificate issue 100% in favor of AKA Obama practicing the virtue of full disclosure? It makes sense that supporters of AKA Obama would want the issue settled along with everyone else. I guess there is a significant portion of the population who are opposed to releasing the birth certificate because they are afraid of what it will reveal. I would conclude that those opposed to releasing all of Obama’s history are frightened of the truth just like AKA Obama.
If you are not suspicious of a man who hides his history I have a bridge in the desert I want to sell you.
If you are unwilling to call for an investigation of a man who attempts to sell you a bridge in the desert I have some beach front property in Florida at the intersection of I75 and Florida # 29 that I want you to buy.
If you place a down payment on a contract for the bridge in the desert and the beach front property in the swamp I would conclude that you voted for Obama.
Can you pass the: Obama Eligibility Logic Test?
http://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-eligibility-logic-test.htm
Or get educated and read:
Somehow, you know its coming. That OMG moment is just around the corner. You can feel the inescapable reality creeping up on you. Something will leak. Someone will spill the beans.
“For nothing is hid that shall not be made manifest, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light.” Luke 8:17
Obama “I have nothing to hide but I’m hiding it.”
http://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2009/04/aka-obama-fans-all-together-now-say-omg.html
Hey Aristotle,
Just out of curiosity, what real problems do you have? I mean beyond having to live in a country whose president might not have been born in Hawaii. That’s a very painful prospect, I think we can all agree on that, but how about other things? Do you have a good job? Do you have debts? Did you lose money in the housing bubble? What would you say the most important real problem you have is?
In response to another comment. See in context »You can count on anyone citing broken links to blogs with Sarah Palin photoshops to be entertaining in the very least.
In response to another comment. See in context »Ok, I will assume you are sincere.
Primary personal problem; I am not adjusting to my age and the inevitability of death very well.
Primary situational problem; I am very concerned that our nation is in deep trouble because of our drift toward socialism.
In response to another comment. See in context »This is exactly Matt’s problem. Barack Obama is not a socialist, Barack Obama is far to the right on everything important. He ran as a centrist, and he’s moved right as President.
Now, on a bunch of completely unimportant social issues, he may be slightly to the center. However, as far as doing what the establishment wants, he’s essentially Bush’s 3rd term. Wall Street loves him, his war policy is pretty close to what they want in the Weekly Standard.
Seriously, point to a Marxist policy, just one. This goody-basket for the health insurance industry? Free money for Wall Street with no oversight and no consequences paid for by the tax payers? 30,000 more troops into Afghanistan?
Well, I suppose that last one sort of resembles the self-destructive Soviet policy except its supposed to expand the United State sphere of influence. The most liberal thing about the current President is the color of his skin, otherwise he’s a creature of the DLC. Eisenhower was more of a socialist.
In response to another comment. See in context »dude, please explain to us what socialism is. While your at it, please explain communism, fascism and capitalism… I can, however, assure you, they are not one and the same.
im not going to pick on your ignorance, i would however suggest going back school or picking up a college level text book on economics instead of reading/ believing everything on the internet.
the usa would be different if the people werent so gullible, no matter how innocently stupid they are
In response to another comment. See in context »Thats it?
“Primary personal problem; I am not adjusting to my age and the inevitability of death very well.
Primary situational problem; I am very concerned that our nation is in deep trouble because of our drift toward socialism.”
If you continue to do poorly at “adjusting” to your age and the fact that you are mortal, please let us know, same goes for the continued or worsening of your concern about your subjective negative opinion of the current majority elected government. We want to help you. We’re fans of socialism.
Me- haven’t had a real raise since Clinton was in office but never missed a day of work. My company bills me out at rates 60% higher than then. My pension and retirement savings have had negative net growth since ‘99. Putting my 3 kids through half decent colleges even when I make them go as far as they can into debt themselves is costing me as much as my fucking house is worth. My wife and my payroll taxes (including the employers secret share) costs me more than buying a new midsize car every year, but a guy who turns a $100,000 profit in one year on a stock bet pays $0 payroll tax. But I’m fine – let me help you with your age psychosis and your concern about your chosen politicians not currently making policy. Your in some serious peril.
In response to another comment. See in context »Dad? Is that you?
In response to another comment. See in context »Primary personal problem; I am not adjusting to my age and the inevitability of death very well.
Primary situational problem; I am very concerned that our nation is in deep trouble because of our drift toward socialism
Dear aristotle,
In response to another comment. See in context »The ‘inevitability of death’ makes your primary situational problem a moot point; i.e.: if you die you don’t have to worry about our drift toward socialism.
In closing I would like to suggest one thing:
Don’t worry, be happy!
Ya know, up until I read through your well reasoned, logical and airtight position I thought the “Birthers” were sour, bitter, know nothing malcontents who were so disappointed and shocked that Obama won the election that they would say or believe anything to not make it true. I mean you could just shut your eyes, stick your fingers in your ears and yell “La la la la la” for the next 4 year but going after Obama for so obviously and so apparently not being born in this country is genius! I mean you would have to be a complete and total puddinghead not to see it, right?
In response to another comment. See in context »Now I know the truth! The scales have fallen from my eyes. Thank you! Thank you kind sir!
By the way, I was very intrigued by your offer to buy swampland in Florida. Can we talk further about this exciting opportunity? I can wire you a down payment through Western Union if you wish. You can reach me at 1-976-GET-BENT.
You do sound pretty bitter. And telling someone to get bent is neither funny or original.
In response to another comment. See in context »Sorry, I’ll run my comments by you first before I post them. I’d hate to be thought of as unoriginal or unfunny by whoever you are…
In response to another comment. See in context »Good. If you’re trying to make a salient point by using humor…use good humor.
In response to another comment. See in context »I agree with masodark, but MY phone number is 1-800-328-7448.
In response to another comment. See in context »Aristotle, please call me at your earliest convenience.
For the umteenth time: (http://factcheck.org/imagefiles/Ask%20FactCheck%20Images/Obama%20Birth%20Certificate/BO%20Birth%20Certificate.jpg) Not that it’ll change your tune.
Matt did you spray the birther off? Or is it just as effective as truther off?
In response to another comment. See in context »Airistotle – you’re kidding right? Bush admitted to DWI, refused to discuss his Cocaine or weed use, got a pass on an AWOL from the National guard even when the records for his required drills were incomplete, never answered a single question about a potential felony drug bust he was tied too or a child he may have fathered and then paid for an abortion. All these things there was actually small amounts of actual evidence and a real contemporaneous motivation for Bush to conceal them. Thousands called for investigations and hearings and Bushes story – we got nada. Where were you then?
And Matt, I was at the VT AFL-CIO convention in Sept. 2004 and all the deer huntin’, nuke plant building union guys were all about the Dean. There was an activist from a VT nurses union movement who took the podium and lambasted everyone for VT Democrats silence as Deans well known non-liberalness got completely ignored by the national press. Matt, although you point out his anti Iraq position as his sole liberal stance, she loudly complained “he’s not anti-war” refering to his support for invading Afghanistan. But he went down as the radical, angry leftist.
In response to another comment. See in context »You asked for a birth certificate. Here you go:
http://kenyanbirthcertificategenerator.com/87a67facd5a4f8c8b3a8ee668a28849f
Now everyone can be from Kenya. I suggest David Duke as a good starting point.
In response to another comment. See in context »Aristotle, you get the award for “comment most resembling a label on Dr. Bronner’s ‘Magic Soaps’”. Well done.
In response to another comment. See in context »(1) Simply seeking a copy of Obama’s 1961 Certificate of Live Birth doesn’t make one a “birther.” A birther is someone who claims that Obama is ineligible to be President because he is not a “natural born citizen.” However, there are many who want to see Obama’s original certificate because, although they accept that he was born in Hawaii, they believe it might contain embarrassing information about his parentage or adoption, or contradict claims he has made in his various biographical accounts. And there are also others who seek his school records because they suspect that Obama may have claimed foreign birth for admissions or financial aid reasons. So there are legitimate questions which don’t turn on whether one believe Obama was born outside the U.S.
(2) The Daily Kos, which is left, was hawking the Trig Truther story for some time. And Sullivan long ago renounced the Republican party (voting for Obama and Kerry). I think you’ll find out that today he promotes very few positions that aren’t endorsed by what you would consider the “left” (if you believe the term has any meaning at all).
Seriously laughing out loud @ “Trig Truther.” I’m not saying I don’t believe it, just that it’s bonkers. Guh, we’re flanked on all sides by slobs.
In response to another comment. See in context »(1) Liz- you are a birther. A public display of one’s full birth record has not been required by any previous president.
In response to another comment. See in context »Elizabeth – I second you. My reason for demanding a real birth certificate (instead of that useless piece of paper with no doctor, hospital, time, birth weight, etc.) is because it’s a symbol of all that’s wrong with Obama. What Obama promises and what he does are polar opposites.
It’s ironic that Matt calls it ‘Obama’s Big Sellout’. Obama didn’t sell out his campaign promises for the sheer fact that he never meant them in the first place. His promises were just bullshit to get himself elected. And we would have known that if we’d only gotten the facts.
For instance, in the campaign, Obama promised ‘transparency in government’. Yet his own transparency was a disgrace. He concealed his birth, grades, papers, briefs, financial forms, home loans, etc. He even concealed the fact that he didn’t write ‘Dreams…’ but had to dump it on Ayers to finish. (Thanks, Chris Andersen for making it official – a year too late.)
Obama promised he would work in D.C. ‘for the common man’. But in Chicago he abandoned commoners to Rezko’s rat-infested, smelly slums simply so Obama could get his hands on a mansion in Kenwood. (Not to mention Michelle’s touching concern for the same commoners as exemplified when she banished a child wounded by a pitbull to a clinic instead of the emergency room of her employer, UCMC.)
Obama promised that as President he would ‘rise above race’. But as a Chicago citizen, he clung for 20 years to ‘Uncle’ Wright who screamed ‘God DAMN America!’ and accused whites of inventing AIDS in order to kill black people.
Obama promised he would do away with graft and corruption in D.C. Yet in Chicago he colluded with one of the biggest grafts in Chicago’s history when Obama squandered $110 million of Annenberg Foundation money to raise children’s test scores – without a single damned thing to show for it. (Not to mention letting his campaign aide and her husband steal a $150,000 grant for a garden in the Chicago slums.)
Like I said, that birth certificate is just a symbol of all that’s wrong with Obama. I.e., what he says and what he does are polar opposites. Face it, he’s never been anything but a sleazy, corrupt Chicago pol whose only concern was how much he could get for selling out his Chicago constituents to the fat cats in power. And now that he’s in D.C., he’s selling out the entire nation.
That sale is now in the trillions – and rising. For THAT, we deserve to see his damned birth certificate.
In response to another comment. See in context »Is there a particular reason every single conservative like Carolyn here sounds EXACTLY like the drivel coming out of Rush Limbaugh’s butt every single day? Crazy how that works.
Anyway, conservatives are seriously a creepy bunch. Just like this whacko here. Since when are a presidential candidates grades front and center? Do we also have the right to observe how many times Sarah Palin flunked out of college because she could do a keg stand but couldn’t spell keg stand?
In response to another comment. See in context »Maybe if we had demanded the shrub’s report cards we wouldn’t have made that monumental mistake — TWICE!
In response to another comment. See in context »So you are “demanding” a better Hawaii certified COLB not because you doubt Obama’s citizenship, but because you are fishing for other discrepancies between that totally private, personal document and what Obama has been told by his family and repeated his whole life.
And the reason you consider this “demand” valid is because you so virulently disagree with his agenda.
After the next Republican is elected, you should feel terribly guilty and unable to defend his and your policies if a whole bunch of us in the political opposition are refused access to or under oath testimony to ANY personal records, papers, etc. we deem important after he (or God forbid she!) is elected.
Or is there some law that requires Presidents to disclose all personal records already that I’m not aware of?
In response to another comment. See in context »I read Daily Kos everyday — when were they hawking the story about Trig being Brewster’s child?
In response to another comment. See in context »It was the day you were sucking my dick in the alley behind the gay bar. Don’t you remember? We told each other knock knock jokes. Yours were hilarious! Someday I hope to live up to your exacting standards about humor. Until then I will just have to settle for insults. A pity.
In response to another comment. See in context »Do you feel better now?
But seriously…when was Daily Kos hawking the story about Trig coming out of Bristol’s va-jay-jay?
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Palin Goes Birther and what does “left” really mean in American politics, anyways? [...]
Taibbi, you buried the lede. This piece isn’t about Palin or birthers, it’s about your realization that “left” in this country is about culture, not politics, which is hilarious, smart and maybe even true. I too wondered in 2004 how Howard Dean had become The Far Left Guy, given his actual policies, and more recently marveled at Obama’s being tagged as far left, socialist, Marxist, radical, etc.,–although it’s not like the right wing ever needs a reason for calling someone preposterous names.
Yes, people vote based on aesthetics, but isn’t that pretty much the conventional wisdom at this point..?
In response to another comment. See in context »Well think of President Clinton being considered “radical left” or for that matter, Obama being considered “left” at all. By my personal definition, neither was that far left of most of the Republican presidents before them. In fact as far as I can see, they end up with the same policies, just approached from a different angle. Generally regarding those of us who aren’t part of the great oligarchy, it’s with (Democrats) or without (Republicans) K-Y as to their policies.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Gorssberger,
In response to another comment. See in context »I think that Matt titled his post well. He clearly understands that his audience is much more interested in shouting already decided opinions about a certain brunette bellwether than actually learning something. While I agree that words like “left”, “conservative”, and “liberal” have changed in meaning since their European origins, for us Americans they are pretty clear. If you are “left”, you see America as existing in the world and subject to its physics. If you are “right”, then you think that America exists as a city on a hill part way to paradise and that we (the real Americans) can make it anything we want it to be.
You should consider reading “What’s The Matter With Kansas” which is entirely about that topic and pretty interesting too.
In response to another comment. See in context »Maybe Palin is really a brilliant secret agent, planted by the “left” to destroy the Republican party, helping Obama get elected, not once, but twice. I honestly can’t think of any other reason such an outrageous figure could be an electable politician that is taken seriously by so many people. People like me could be called the Planters.
You may have something there. Think what she did for New York!
In response to another comment. See in context »Hey I’m definitely a lefty and I like American Idol.
Ok, I feel guilty about it, but I do like it.
You’re no lefty. Liking American Idol is an unforgivable ideological sin.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] you mean “somewhere to the left of ralph nader.” which i thought about when i read taibbi’s post on “the left” this morning: It’s much easier to figure out who’s “left” and who [...]
In Aus we had a version of Palin, called Pauline – just as ignorant, just as bigotted, with a slightly more annoying persona. The worst thing about her short lived political career was the impact on the rest of the political discourse. Like dropping a bowling ball on a stretched blanket, it made it acceptable for mainstream right politicians to make all sorts of rascist comments and to snear at critics as “politically correct” or “blackarmband wearers”. It also caused to elevation of moronic attitudes as those of “real Australians”.
Now that I think of it the parallels are scary. I hope your Pauline also disappears in a puff of exposure.
BTW is it called dog whistle politics in America too?
Tiny, tiny correction here: Kerry posed with a shotgun, not a rifle. The diff is substantial both in the actual objects and how dumb he would have looked (not to mention careless, also lawbreaking) were he trying to blast ducks on the wing with, say, 165-grain ought-six boattails. Also, it would be illegal, as all rifle ammo is mostly to entirely lead and hunting waterfowl with lead is against federal law. OK, blast away at me for harping on this tangential detail…
No, that’s funny. I didn’t remember that it was a shotgun. Much funnier that way, not inconsequential at all.
In response to another comment. See in context »But the incident does sum up something at the heart of what Kerry and his campaign were about, the willingness to jump through hoops as you put it. That is, Kerry probably needed a hunter’s ed certificate to buy a small game hunting license (though he may have been exempted by age) — if so, it couldn’t have been a totally spurious photo-op. Which is to say, he was willing to use something real about himself in an utterly phony and orchestrated way in a hopeless attempt to reach people who were never going to vote for him anyway, which made him look phonier to people ideologically inclined to vote him. It’s quite like Palin putting Aristotle and Plato quotes in her book, except the Palinistas are too busy stroking their woodies to realize how contrived and fake that is.
In response to another comment. See in context »The truly consequential fact of the piece, “I polled the press corps on what its definition of “left” was. I got very few answers.”
Most of us are not surprised folks in “the press” and “media” dont have a definition of “left.
Did you consider asking them the definition of “definition”…
It has been the smart versus the dumb for a good 12 years now. The dumb HATE being called dumb more than anything. The smart do their best not to point it out, but they are terrible at hiding their disdain, and the dumb are always aware of their true feelings anyway. We tried dumb for eight years and right here is where it got us. Palin is the new apostle of dumb. All we have to do is remember what happened the last time…
Palin’s genius is to dispense with the faux gravitas which encumbers most pols and completely embrace the role of vacuous media whore. How can you not be turned on by an (air)rifle wielding woman in a star ‘n bars bikini doin the blood and soil shtick? That shit is AWESOME. If the major political issues of the day are aesthetic and lifestyle (and they are) why not take the pickup, boomstick, titties, flag and vague rage versus the Prius, MacBook, latinate polysyllables, and “change you can believe in” bumper sticker.
The left today is anybody that the MSM wishes to marginalize. I wish more Americans would read, especially you, instead of getting all their information on politics from the boob tube.
Our two party system has been failing us now since President Reagan’s administration and has now come full circle to potential implosion along with the crooks on Wall Street trying to prop up a dying system.
Well, and of course there’s the sheer hilarity of the way she talks about “those crazy conspiracy nuts” who wanted to question her family’s birth certificate thing but then pivots, frictionless, without even a pause, to suggesting that doing the same about Obama is not only justified but a noble cause.
In other words its “left-right”ism in its purest form: It’s despicable when others do it, purely because I call them “left” while pointing out what they do, and it’s perfectly okay if I or others do it, because I don’t attach a direction label in that case.
Nobody would have cared about her tote-bag baby if she hadn’t sported it like a Cabbage Patch Kid throughout the campaign. Only in America would people vote and support someone because they share a similarity, namely having a retarded baby. I heard a hack on Chris(unrestrained political id)Mattews actually claim that today. I voted for Obama because he’s left-handed BTW, heh.
You gotta love it. The Attack of the Killer Tomato attempts to out rogue the Queen of Rogue;~)
http://wcco.com/politics/palin.tomato.moa.2.1355722.html
Uh oh, someone’s dropping the fictitious and absurdly stupid “socialism” bomb!
It wouldn’t be right to be left with Palin in 2012.
Who Certified AKA Obama as “Natural Born”?
http://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2009/11/this-from-obama-file-one-of-best.html
In 1961, the Public Health Services, U. S Department of Health, Education and Welfare, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics Division published the “Vital Statistics of the United States
Here is a blank copy of the Standard Certificate of Live Birth. This is the information being hidden by Obama
http://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2009/07/blank-birth-certificate-form-aka-obama.html
Plus read the article that is included with the blank copy.
you do realize that this is the reason people think the right is insane…right? We have so many problems in this country right now yet we have a large segment of the population freaking out over a birth certificate.
The problem with the “birthers” is that nothing, and I mean NOTHING will satisfy them when it comes to Obama. We could have video of him exiting the womb and they’d say the video was “doctored”.
All of this kind of crap does nothing to further national discourse; it’s just a monumental waste of time. Now, as for Palin, I’m shocked day in and day out that someone who is such a pathological liar, so stupid, and so ignorant is even anywhere near the national stage. I’m gonna go drink a gallon of bleach now…
In response to another comment. See in context »At this point he should just start banging the interns because, you know, it doesn’t really matter what you do or don’t do, you’re going to be the target for every insane thing people can think up. Why, I remember like it was yesterday when that vicious soviet double agent drug kingpin running his cocaine cartel out of Little Rock killed his wife’s best friend and blew up his Commerce Secretary’s plane on the way to signing over ownership of our national parks to the UN at the Bilderberg Conference.
I think the White House should start offering special limited edition birth certificates, for a price, and if you act now they include some sort of “guarantee of authenticity” in the form of a gold coin or figurine or something, just to make the parody complete.
The only way to respond to this insanity is with satire, if you ask me. This WH has been pretty good at doing that now and then, so far.
[...] 8, 2009 · Leave a Comment Matt Taibbi weighs in on a topic I’ve been contemplating a lot lately, the increasingly meaningless distinctions [...]
“Godless east-coast intellectual watcher of subtitled movies who disagrees with me,”
This I great line that really his the nail on the head. Back in my college days I used to think jealously played a major role in the disdain from the right. Back then it was “Volvo driving tree huggers.” I used to be of the opinion that the thought process was along the lines of, “because I can never be one of them, screw ‘em” mentality. After watch Bush jr. win not once but twice I realized I was dead wrong. We really are at a point where being normal, i.e. academically challenged is considered heroic. If you are just like me then you are a true American. If you are not then you are a “liberal”, or whatever. “I don’t know or care where Iraq is on the map, why should I expect my leader to know?” It’s not only sad but frightening. If I had a dollar for every mother who says “Palin is just like me. She would make a great president.” There is such a disconnect with reality. “Hey Palin looks great in that white lab coat. She would make a great surgeon.” Where did we go wrong?
Just a Reminder – Before he was nominated AKA Obama Signed Resolution Describing Him As Ineligible.
http://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2009/12/just-reminder-before-he-was-nominated.html
Unless you have video of Tiger Woods doing it doggy style with one of his women, stop promoting your own blog.
In response to another comment. See in context »Lewis is right. You buried the lead. This definition of Left is important. It seems to have come from the Democratic Party’s problem of letting its enemies define/frame it and its positions. I disagree with George Lakoff about a lot of things, but he certainly was correct about this problem. Especially as folks like Palin try to paint Democrats, liberals etc. with as ugly a brush as possible.
This issue is important enough that it absolves you from having brought up Palin again– even though the rest of us have moved on past her– to more important concerns, like Tiger Woods’ penis. What a circus we have for our media. That’s why it’s great to read someone like you who has original and important things to say. Keep up the good work, Matt!
Interesting comments. I think that Repubs have researched exactly what pleasure and pain buttons to push in the voters. I think they have bought some very expensive propaganda/political marketing research. In the last presidential election, the research said “Run someone like this ______.” And it described a personality like Palin. A lot of folks (but apparently not enough to win Repubs the election) want to vote for someone they identify with– personally, not in political opinions. So they ran for VP someone who doesn’t even have any political opinions. They just fed her a few Republican sound bytes, as a substitution for having political opinions or proposals.
Mostly she’s dumb enough for females to identify with, if they are traditional and in the lower 40% or so I Q range of the female population. Palin is traditional in that she apparently has not done much work outside the home. I know she has held positions, but really, what has she accomplished in the world outside the home? No more than the average traditional female who has never worked outside the home who is not running for VP. And she’s hot, so the males like her, if they are Repub enough to like the Repub sound bytes she has been fed and repeats over and over.
I guess they underestimated the # of folks in the U.S. that have a functioning brain though.
People in the U.S. live in a “democracy” where the only thing we get to choose is to vote on which Congressional and presidential candidates are going to be the ones to take the money out of our wallets and give it to the Special Interest Groups who financed their campaigns. If we are dumb enough to stay with this system, rather than to seek out and vote only for candidates who pledge to accept no Special Interst Group campaign contributions, then it isn’t surprising that a lot of us will also be dumb enough to identify with Palin.
[...] the perfect blend of establishment Republican and Tea Partyier. She’s just crazy enough to hint at support for the birthers, and just savvy enough to hire someone else to write her climate-change op/eds. So which way should [...]
Palin bashing is the last refuge of a scoundrel, especially in a country where ‘liberals’ have enormous egos because they are 1% smarter than creationists.
Go liberals !!
‘Left’ and ‘Right’ are wholly inadequate to describe the political spectrum.
You should consider include ‘Statist’ and ‘Libertarian’ in your vocabulary. Yes, I know it will initially confuse many of your readers, and the learning curve for many will be steep, but whatever…
Naturally, few will admit to being Statists. But if you look around, most in government (both Left and Right) are far more Statist than they are Libertarian.
There’s nothing funnier to the rest of us than seeing Americans argue about who is a “Socialist”, as most of you wouldn’t recognise a socialist if one was dancing around in front of you wearing an “I love Trotsky” t-shirt and waving a flag that said “I’m a socialist”.
Just shy of 50 years ago, the comic geniuses from Beyond the Fringe did a sketch on Broadway, in which some British ex-pats are explaining the US to a recently arrived fellow countrymen. In discussing the political system one of them notes:
“There are two main parties in the US. The Republicans, who are the equivalent of our Conservative Party, and the Democrats, who are the equivalent of our Conservative Party”.
True then, true now.
Matt, you may want to spend a bit more time on the “my family in the left’s gunsight” whine from Palin. She dragged those poor suckers to EVERY SINGLE public appearance she made, then squawked when they got “mentioned.” Talk about funny, do you suppose she home-schooled them during the campaign? Abstinence-only sex education, of course.
Everyone agrees that President Obama’s original birth certificate would end the controversy. Please vote and explain why you think President Obama has not produced or should not produce his original birth certificate. http://eyeonthelaw.blogspot.com/
While your observation is astute and actually logical it lacks a certain level of visceral idiocy which I employ when making any sort of decision, be it large or small. I haven’t bothered to read the other comments–prolly a bunch of left-wing loonies like Michelle Bachmann or John Shimkus. But getting back to my original point, Sarah Palin is a model American. She is so much, in fact, that she never even left the country until the last year! How many of you left-wing pansies were off ‘vacationing’ in Prague, learning about cultures west of Indiana and forming opinions based on experience while she was here loving America, the great may I add, the WHOLE FUDGING TIME?!? I rest my case. Palin for Playboy ‘10.