S.P.A.S. Post 1: Palin's Poetisms

Even now, academics and journalists expend considerable effort "decoding," on the most basic level, the statements of Sarah Palin. Is she simply out of her depth, struggling to balance an incoherent narrative in a harsh spotlight? Mentally challenged? Just completely clueless about the basic meaning of the things she speaks about, or even just possibly her very words themselves?

No.

We cannot understand her because she's secretly a poet. Of course, it's long been speculated that what appear to be Sarah Palin's inarticulate ramblings are in fact the work of a poetic genius trapped in the body of that gentle corrupt official. Here are some of Hart Seely's interpretations from last October:

"You Can't Blink"

You can't blink.
You have to be wired
In a way of being
So committed to the mission,

The mission that we're on,
Reform of this country,
And victory in the war,
You can't blink.

So I didn't blink.

(To C. Gibson, ABC News, Sept. 11, 2008)

"Befoulers of the Verbiage"

It was an unfair attack on the verbiage
That Senator McCain chose to use,
Because the fundamentals,
As he was having to explain afterwards,
He means our workforce.
He means the ingenuity of the American.
And of course that is strong,
And that is the foundation of our economy.
So that was an unfair attack there,
Again based on verbiage.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)

"Challenge to a Cynic"

You are a cynic.
Because show me where
I have ever said
That there's absolute proof
That nothing that man
Has ever conducted
Or engaged in,
Has had any effect,
Or no effect,
On climate change.

(To C. Gibson, ABC News, Sept. 11, 2008)

But finally, this week, luminary William Shatner has taken a stance on Palin's poetisms. The answer is now indubitable. Behold Shatner reading a selection from Palin's farewell resignation speech to the nation:




And just in case someone out there hasn't seen it – and for those of you that have, a reminder that it exists – here's a Shatner Bonus:

She Never Stops

Today's Palin idiocy:

“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

At what point will people stop speculating about her future and focus on the storyline that a complete fucking moron nearly became Vice President of the United States?

Shouldn't we all just breathe a sigh of relief rather than giving a hell about what this nutjob does next?

(And just to be clear I'm only talking about real news organizations that should be covering real news. The Daily Show should probably open a Bureau in Wasilla to make sure they don't miss anything.)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh god, her again:

Former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has anounced [sic] she will resign as governor of Alaska on 26 July and not run for re-election.

Mrs Palin's term of office was due to end in 2010.

There has been speculation that Mrs Palin, who is very popular with the Republican Party base, might make a bid for the White House in 2012.

Surprise! But wait for it...

"I'm taking my fight for what's right in a new direction...

Once I decided not to run for re-election, I also felt that to embrace the conventional Lame Duck status in this particular climate would just be another dose of politics as usual, something I campaigned against and will always oppose," she said.

Ah yes, that makes total sense. Obviously, there's no point to politics if you aren't trying to get elected again. Why should she wait until THE LAW mandates her term's end, when she could skip out on all that hard work it takes to run a state NOW? In fact, I'm sure we all have responsibilities during the next year. Why don't we all just up and take our fight for what's right in a new direction? I'm just sure that there's something more important for us to do than whatever we initially committed to.

As for the chance that she'll run for prez in 2012, my stance remains unchanged: bring it. Who doesn't want a repeat of the Sarah Palin Show? Particularly now that she's demonstrated such hilarious disregard for actual governance.

At the same time... when is she going to just shut up and leave us alone?

Who Are These People?

Before you actually watch this video, I should note that the Huffington Post article on the subject is accurately entitled Sarah Palin Does TV Interview While Turkeys Are Slaughtered In The Background (VIDEO):





Also, please note the $295 Burberry scarf.

OH. MY. GOD.

Okay, Sam, I swear I will stop talking about Sarah Palin sometime soon. But this is just too much. Way too much. My god, I actually feel deeply sorry for her. I mean, the sound of hope in her voice when she thinks that someone might be taking her even a little bit seriously... it's just heartbreaking.

But really, did they honestly expect Nicklaus Sarkozy to give Palin a personal call? Really? Who in gods name runs this campaign?




Best bit:

"I must say, Governor Palin, I loved documentary they made on your life. You know Hustler's Nalin Palin?"

"Oh, good, thank you, yes."

"That was really edgy."

"Well, good."

"I really loved you."

I kid you not.


Now, let's contrast this sordid episode with an arguably more sordid, but drastically more self-aware, phone encounter with Barack Obama in 2006. As Gawker reported the other day and two years ago, Obama made fun of the babyface of a young reporter named Nicklaus Lovelady at a press conference, which apparently killed his chances with a cute intern. Lovelady, rather than deal with the issue professionally, promised to withhold his vote until Obama publicly apologized.

Obama's response? To call the guy and apologize. For "messin' up his game." Listen on:

Boomp3.com


It may, short of ideological difference, actually be impossible to dislike Barack Obama.


UPDATE (from the AP):

Obama's campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs, commenting on the prank, said: "I'm glad we check out our calls before we hand the phone to Barack Obama."

Yeah, pretty much.

She Did It Again!

I'm not even going to bother explaining why this is one of the most fantastically stupid things a major national candidate and active governor has ever said.

She's Against Studying Fruit Flies? Are You Fucking Kidding Me?

After blogging about how Sarah Palin doesn't understand causation, I'd sort of assumed she couldn't stoop any lower on the staggering ignorance of basic scientific knowledge front. Well, I was wrong. Here she is, supposedly railing against wasteful earmarks and congressional pet projects:

Congress spends some $18 Billion for earmarks on their political pet projects. And that, right there, is more than the shortfall to fully fund [autism legislation] IDEA. Where does that earmark money end up, anyway? You guys have heard some of the examples about where these dollars go. You've heard about the bridges, you've heard about, um, some of these pet projects that really don't make a lot of sense. Sometimes these dollars go to projects having little or nothing to do with the public good. Things like fruit fly research, in Paris France. I kid you not."

Let's set aside the fact that her prioritization of Autism is the very definition of a pet project, even if it's a good one. And let's also ignore the fact that fruit flies have been used to study autism, so her "argument" isn't even internally consistent.

The problem here is that "fruit fly research" and "modern Biology" are basically synonymous. Famously so. Fruit flies are the single most studied organism ever, the paradigmatic "model organism" in genetics and evolutionary and developmental biology because of a combination of historical circumstance and legitimate scientific reasoning. To dismiss "fruit fly research" is to dismiss Biology. Period. Hell, they're used in such a vast variety of research that I'm not sure what it would mean to condemn their use wholesale.

She seriously could not have chosen a stupider example if she was trying. It's so stupid that the most charitable way to read her position would be as an honest attack on the theory of evolution and science in general, since the evolutionary synthesis would not have been possible without Theodosius Dobzhansky's pioneering work with fruit flies. But yeah, no, there's no way that she knows that. She’s just an idiot who wants to cut funding for fundamental research without even the most basic understanding of what she's talking about.

Even if it hadn't gotten personal, there would be no doubt in my mind: Sarah Palin can never hold national office. Never, ever, ever. Kudos to JJ for getting the vote out in SoVa. I'll be phonebanking on Sunday, but it's no substitute for going to talk to voters in an important state. Let's build a little more of this.

EDIT: Alright, that pollster chart I originally had here isn't workin that well, which is too bad because it's a beautiful picture today. That "tightening" of the polls we've been hearing about? Not so much.

More Credit Where Credit's Due

In one of the most intelligent decisions of its eight-year run, The Bush White House today declined to include Sarah Palin in a briefing about Iraq. I think the AP put it really well:

John McCain got a call from Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on the phone to Barack Obama, and to his Democratic running mate, Joe Biden. Nobody called Sarah Palin.

Their reasoning?

"Senator Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee and, obviously, is an important political figure in the United States," McCormack said. "(Either) one of Senator McCain or Senator Obama are going to be president come January. And so just in terms of the courtesy and protocol aspects of this and the practical aspects of this, we thought it was appropriate to make those calls."

Absolutely. I couldn't have said it better myself. Sarah Palin is not an important political figure in the United States, nor does she have any intellectual or political influence on people who are not insane. She therefore does not deserve the privileges of "courtesy and protocol" at a national scale.


It's on us to keep it that way, and ensure that she never, ever, ever holds national office.

Dramatic Reading of Minutes from 1996 Wasilla Town Meeting

Not to flood things over here, but damn:





Honestly, it's worth watching all-the-way through.

Seriously, Fuck Sarah Palin

Over the last week or so, CBS has released (or leaked) several pieces of what is probably the single worst televised interview with a national candidate of all time.

It's actually quite sad, and more than a little scary. When Palin isn't spouting hilarious gibberish, the startling political incompetence and genuine ignorance she displayed was truly unprecedented, even to hardened ears.

But the following clip represents something a little different:




Though her stress on the personal experience of global warming is a little misguided, most of Palin's answer is pretty fantastic when you consider who it's coming from. By rights, the admission of the reality of climate change and call to action should be really reassuring.

And then we get to the last sentences of her answer:

"Kinda doesn't matter at this point, as we debate, what caused it. The point is, it's real, we need to do something about it."

Now, unlike some of her other answers, this is not nonsense on a logical level. Nope, this answer betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue, and of the role of science in government, and of, let's be honest, reality. Cause here's the thing: if we don't know how global warming was caused, how do we know what to do about it? How can we possibly do anything about it at all?

If it wasn't man-made, there's almost certainly nothing that we can do. Pragmatically speaking, saying that the causes of climate change don't matter is precisely the same as denying that it exists. Her casual dismissal of the work of scientists who have been struggling for years to answer precisely these questions – with some success, I might add – is astounding. And what does this say about the "something" we need to do about the crisis? Insofar as it will be anything at all, Sarah Palin's "something" will be a token solution at best, with no scientific consultation.

Seriously, fuck Sarah Palin for even pretending to know about climate change.


EDIT:

Someone put out a compilation video! Hooray!



.../we are not safe anymore.

Real Gaffes

Over the last day or so, Talking Points Memo (and others) have been throwing some heavy punches at McCain over an interview he did with Radio Caracol. It sounds like the best case scenario is that McCain either doesn't know the name of the Spanish Prime Minister or thinks that Spain is a Latin American country; the worst case, that he wants to enact some seriously scary and alienating foreign policy. Although an aide has denied that McCain made a mistake, which would confirm a truly cold stance against Spain's relative pacifism in recent years, it's hard to be sure that's what McCain had in mind if you listen to what he said. I'll let Josh Marhall of TPM tell the story, which includes the relevant portion of the interview:





Given the inconsistencies between the aide's statement and McCain's language in the interview, it looks distressingly like they've taken a belligerent, militaristic stance to cover up what would otherwise have been a mid-level gaffe. Not only does this interpretation indicate a shallow inability to take responsibility for the slightest misunderstanding, there's no way to read the story such that McCain gives the tiniest fuck about what people from other countries think. This has already caused a bit of an international incident, as the Spanish Press is not taking this lightly. Just imagine the sort of trouble he would stir up as president of the United States.


To add to his troubles, John McCain said at a rally today that if he were president, he would fire the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. The problem is, that's not an action that the president is authorized to take. At least, not yet. As ABC News points out, "while the president nominates and the Senate confirms the SEC chair, a commissioner of an independent regulatory commission cannot be removed by the president." Again, because of the fairly disgusting belligerence and expansion of executive power of the last eight years, it's unclear whether McCain is unaware of the president's responsibilities in this regard or merely wanted to create new ones. And again, let's just hope he was being an idiot.


Then there's Palin, who was showcased at that same rally in Cedar Rapids – they seem to be traveling as an inseparable team now. Shortly after calling the city "Grand Rapids," she answers a question about energy by saying, well, you tell me:



Mmmm. Congress. Molecules. Bags! Export bans not allowed to... keep oil for the hungry... market? What?


Add to this that McCain does not know how to use a computer – I do not understand why that is not one of the biggest issues of this campaign – and Palin apparently chose unbelievably obvious security questions for her now-hacked personal email account and then proceeded to semi-legally but ultra-stupidly use that account for government business...

You know, there's been a lot of talk about "experience" and "qualifications" this election, but for all that gabbing it doesn't seem like we've even asked the question yet. Let's actually have the conversation. Hell, let's just talk about basic competence for a moment.

Sure, it's funny now, but imagine Ciudad de México in flames because of a misguided old "maverick"'s attempt to nuke Madrid.


EDIT: Also, McCain apparently invented the blackberry. Even though he can't use google. Maybe not his greatest week.