"Go-go boots", "Babe", "dumb", child is a "genetic freak" [Updated]

Photo by Tricia Ward

Continuing my run-down of Gov Palin coverage, the above are just a few of the choice adjectives in the media/blogosphere. [Note: several updates. I can hardly keep up!]

Michael van der Galien at Poligazette hits the nail on the head when he points out how the Palin nomination shows that "readers and other bloggers are going completely insane" over the amount of vitriol this election. Michelle Malkin calls it "Palin Derangement Syndrome". But whatever you call it, it may very well backfire. This muckraking is not only ugly, but it is really counterproductive. As John Podhoretz put it:

The effort to pre-determine her unfitness is not only a losing proposition; there is something fundamentally foolish, about it. Even un-American, in the sense that it suggests rule by wonk rather than popular fiat.

Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard claims that Dems are doing this because they are terrified of Palin. I wouldn't go quite that far, but there does seem to be an undercurrent of insecurity here both in the number and intensity of the slime.

Her gender, appearance, intelligence, and despicably, even her handicapped child is mocked. Not just by the anonymous small-time bloggers but by some big names as well.

Check out this article by Maureen Dowd. This is what passes for an opinion column in the NYT:

Vice in Go-Go Boots?...“The P.T.A. is great preparation for dealing with the K.G.B.,” President Palin murmurs to Todd, as they kiss in the final scene while she changes Trig’s diaper. “Now that Georgia’s safe, how ’bout I cook you up some caribou hot dogs and moose stew for dinner, babe?”

Incidentally, it's probably not just Palin; Ms. Dowd doesn't seem to like female politicians at all. Her columns on Hillary Clinton were so virulently sexist and insulting that even the NYT's public editor admitted that they were beyond acceptable.

Cernig at Crooks and Liars is more subtle, but no less condescending. He calls Todd Palin, Gov. Palin's husband, the "shadow governor", implying that Sarah, the woman, can't actually be in charge.

Steven Colbert on the Colbert Report:

Who the f**k is Sarah Palin? Wha - the sexy librarian? (He then goes on to mock her political experience)

.
UPDATE:
Jon Stewart on the Daily Show:

Republican Presidential candidate John McCain introduced the world to his third wife [laughter] ... no, actually the mild-mannered but troubled librarian from every Cinemax movie, yes, that's it.

Another comedian, Bill Maher on Real Time, probably crossed the line. Some quotes:

The maverick and the MILF...the maverick and the MILF!... but if I [McCain] die, this stewardess can handle it... the infant has Down's syndrome, she had it when she was 43 years old, and it looks a lot like John Edwards! (mixed reaction from audience)... she has five kids - does anyone in that party know the concept of pulling out? (laughter)

(OK, these guys are comedians, so they get some latitude here; but strangely, I've never seen them make similar jokes about Obama's appearance or experience).

And the less well-known Obama supporters sound off as well. Here are a few samples of the garbage floating around the net [warning - strong language]:

Stopthemadness at Democratic Underground:

hey, she's got all the qualifications of his [McCain's] last 2 wives: she was in the miss alaska pageant and she's dumb as a post... clearly, mccain picked wife no. 3, not a running mate.

Anonymous at Breitbart.tv:

So is she going to be breastfeeding in Cabinet meetings or what?

This whole thing is ABSURD! McLame is out of his mind. So is anyone who votes for this Northern Exposure Prima Donna. She seems excessively narcissistic and am already tired of seeing her BAT HER EYELASHES, and it’s only DAY # 2!!!!

Sheesh!

bullfrog at Crooks and Liars:

could mccain have become so pissed off by all the factions vying for his audience, he just yanked out his cell phone and called sarah?

could he have called her late in the night, when the viagra kicks in?

Press to Digitate at Daily Kos:

Gidget Goes to Washington

JoeSixPack at Washington Monthly:

But she has nice tits!

Don't be fooled.

Politically speaking: Those aren't real. She just happened to have the best plastic surgery Washington has to offer. Rovian politics can make anyone into a politically viable candidate during a general election.

bp4truth at Salon.com:

It looks like McCain has sold his soul to the devil. His pick of Palin is just the latest example of cynical politics at its worst.

Klytus at Salon.com:

Sarah surely isn't the brightest bulb in the box, when they were passing out brilliance, she did indeed get a pretty face, but a brain just about as active, as an inert bag of rocks.

Jameka at Salon.com:

Mrs. Palin is unable to say the word "nuclear." Says "nucular" like George Bush. She should not be VP.

MMelcher at Salon.com:

Sarah Palin represents to me the kind of trophy fascination that I've witnessed in a lot of NRA and oil-dependent fanatics...Taxidermied kills from hunting expeditions are referred to as trophies; younger, cuter, perkier second and third wives are sometimes also referred to as trophies.

If you thought they couldn't go any lower, many commenters actually attack Palin's child with Down's syndrome:

"Pinky" on Salon.com:

Doesn’t she remind anyone of the self-righteous blond twit on ‘The View’? ‘Hey, I’m special because I’m a republican and married some sports star and I don’t need this job and gosh are there people suffering to feed themselves’.

It sounds like she is a fence sitter on the whole right to life thing, either that or she sees genetic freaks as useful…

Cindy McCant at Washington Monthly:

women who *are* prepared to serve as "second in command" must watch from the sidelines while she travels around the country with her 4-month Down syndrome baby in tow.

Anonymous at Breitbart.tv:

92Percent Are SMARTER Than PALIN

Scientific research has shown that 92% of women who find out they have a MONGOLOID FETUS in their womb opt to ABORT. That means 92% are SMARTER than Palin.

We do not need this sort of MORON in the White House, pushing “prolife” cr*p from her Bully Pulpit.

Finally, there are the sock-puppets. "Dan Quayle with a vagina" is one particularly disgusting slogan that many bloggers/commentators are running with. Just a few examples:

wbonner at Reddit:

McCain Chooses "Dan Quayle With A Vagina" For VP

Antiochchat at Salon.com:

I think what we have here is a candidate who is completely out of touch who just selected 'Dan Quayle with a vagina' as his running mate.

From Openthreat:

Palin is Dan Quayle with a vagina.

Chuck at Ejshia.com:

As it is, I think she's Dan Quayle with a vagina.

Toileteer at JD Underground:

McSame just picked Dan Quayle with a vagina - oops

Chuck Sudo at Chicagoist:

Given all that, my personal take on her is that she's Dan Quayle with a vagina....

johninPortland at Daily Kos:

It's Dan Quayle with a vagina! -- although Quayle's ticket did win, so we shouldn't get too cocky.

One Queer Dude at Colorado Pols:

she could end up being Dan Quayle with a vagina

pers-819178872@craigslist.org at Craigslist:

Whoa -- maybe they should brief Sarah on what a President does as well when she goes to the "What a VP does" conference. And I hope they don't send her to the one where they tell her she needs to get the coffee and visiting heads of state get complimentary blow jobs from the VP.

Feels a little like Dan Quayle with a vagina to me. Better yet, Goldie Hawn's character in the movie "Protocol".
"They told me to show the Emir a good time...a very good time."

The Anchoress also has a pretty good run down on Palin coverage (scroll to the end). Something tells me this election will not be running on the high road this year...

UPDATE - a few more choice quotes:

The Bruceblog:

Heck, I’m a proud & patriotic Valley Trash girl. I don’t mind admittin’ it neither. I know I’m a babe (this quote is accompanied with a fake photoshopped picture of Palin in a bikini).

Woman With Brain for Obama at Pickled Politics:

Her newborn baby is ACTUALLY her teen daughters baby. Look it up. Its going to break HUGE. She is not a VP, she is a new cast member of Desperate Housewives.
First McCain focused on Bimbos in his attack ads and now he added one to his losing ticket.

Johnny Wendell's Diary at Daily Kos:

Go to 0:56 and tell me that ISN'T Sarah Palin (links to a woman in an 80's music video of Adam and the Ants). Pictures are worth a thousand words and as such, videos are worth a lot more. This classic gem was the first thing I thought of when I got an eyeful of La Bimbo de Juneau

There are now a couple of web sites devoted to this very issue: Sarah Palin sexism watch, and Fight the Palin smears.



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Beauty and the Beasts [Updated]

Gov. Palin and family - embedded from Hickpolitics.com

The beauty in this case is Governor Sarah Palin, the beasts are the leftist blogosphere that is out smearing her in full force. She was announced as McCain's VP pick only yesterday, and already the attacks are have gone into the gutter (examples below).

Whether or not she is a good choice remains to be seen; I still don't know much about her yet. But attacking her "inexperience" seems a little strange; she has: [text updated] almost 12 years of experience in public office (20 months governor, 6 years mayor, 4 years city councilman), vs. less than 11 years for Barack Obama (7 years in the Illinois State Senate, less than 4 years in the US Senate, with almost half that time devoted to the Presidential campaign). Moreover, much of Obama's time in the Senate has been spent on this campaign. Some of the attack dogs are jumping at this issue in a roundabout way; they are arguing that Obama still has more experience because Illinois has a much larger population than Alaska. But the problem is, Obama's experience is still not in the executive branch, and the issues change with region, not population. Generally, the governors of small states deal with the same issues as those from larger ones; only the numbers involved are different.

Other attacks are far less legitimate. For example:

Questioning if her down-syndrome child is really her daughter's (even if true, that is an entirely personal issue);

Accusing her of editing her own wiki page;

Calling her names like "the new Segway", or "the new Betamax";

And it gets far nastier...

Under a pseudonym, the Obama campaign already set up a web site to claim "A vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for gay marriage". (congrats to Charles Johnson at LGF for catching this).

Other examples:

Blasting out old high school and beauty pageant photos or desperately digging for a photo, any photo at all, of Palin in a bikini, to use against her (as if there is anything immoral about a swimsuit outside of Saudi Arabia or Iran?).

Claiming that McCain and Palin must be sleeping together, and that Palin has "a nice ass".

Putting up fake magazine covers to ridicule her (from Andrew Sullivan no less, who claims to be above this kind of politiking).

Calling her "the most unqualified nominee in VP history with the possible exception of Admiral Stockdale" (Not to get off topic, but it shows how this moron doesn't even know his comparisons; Admiral Stockdale was an American hero, a Medal of Honor recipient, and the highest-ranking man held as POW in Vietnam. He once slashed his own face with a razor to prevent him from being forced to make disloyal statements on Vietnamese TV).

Saying she "looks like a porn star".

Some more choice sexist quotes:
"SM" at Washington Monthly:

Prediction: Since this is indeed an unprecedented campaign season, I think we will soon see Palin withdraw herself as the VP pick to "spend more time with her family." Seriously. Given a day's worth of coverage, I don't possibly see how she will hold up for two months.

"MattF" at Washington Monthly:

just a weird coincidence that the person McCain selected is the youngest and prettiest and least experienced of the possible choices.

"MsMuddled" at Washington Monthly:

precisely what *you* flaccid freedom freaks seek in a professional female: someone who gives you a boner and at the same time fix your little boo-boos.

"LA Confidential Pantload" at Balloon Juice:

Why’d he pick her? He was probably having one of those erections that last more than four hours.

"Digital Amish" at Balloon Juice:

It’s obvious what McCain is doing with this pick. Flanked by Cindy and Sarah he’s trying to decide that age old question—“MaryAnn or Ginger?”

"dbrown" at Balloon Juice:

The only thing Gov. Palin has learned in her political life is how to give hand jobs to the fundamentalist – as for intelligence, didn’t anyone tell her about birth control or at least, hand jobs for her spouse?...AS for eye candy, I saw her cover for Vogue, and she was in lingerie! Now that is a woman who is professional but not when it comes to being VP.

"Flippant" at Daily Kos:

The Maverick and the MILF. This is a gift and let's open 'er up.

(If you don't know what "MILF" means, you will have to google it).


And that is just a small sample of what's out there.

As one Hillary Clinton supporter put it:

Keep it up, possums. Keep it up. Just when some Hillary supporters were trying to forget what misogynist freaks you all are, now you’re going to remind us all over again.

There is a very good chance that this kind of chatter could really backfire against the Dems. Wait and see.

That doesn't mean she was the best choice. My jury, one that actually deliberates, not presupposes, is still out. But let's face it - no matter who McCain chose, the attacks would have been in full swing already. Romney: "going for campaign $$", Huckabee: "pandering to the religious right", Condi Rice: "pandering to minorities", Lieberman: "desperate for the crossover vote". See how this works?



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I'm back

I'm finished with my class. And boy, do I have a lot to say about the current US election. One primary is down, the VP picks are in, and unlike other pundits, I haven't been beating this election to death for the last nine months (or longer). Expect a ton of material in the next few days.

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Another Taliban attack kills 63

Photo embedded from the BBC

See a pattern here? This time it's a weapons factory. Since this was one of the worst terrorist attacks in Pakistan's history, it is getting front page treatment from the Media. Therefore, even Juan Cole can't ignore it, although he mentions it very tersely, with no comment (the name of his web site not withstanding).

Keep in mind two more things as well:

1) Pakistan is right in the middle of setting up a new government in the wake of Musharraf's resignation;

2) Pakistan is a nuclear armed country.

All is not well in SE Asia.

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Terrorist kills 29 at hospital in Pakistan

A wounded boy outside the hospital, embedded by the AP

Yesterday, a suicide bomber in Pakistan blew himself up at a hospital, killing 29 people and wounding another 35. The Taliban claimed responsibility for this crime.

Let me repeat that. The Taliban (aka Al Qaeda) attacked not a police station, military post, or a government building but a hospital. And this happened not in Iraq, or even Afghanistan, but Pakistan. Is there any doubt about who we are fighting, and that terrorism was not caused by the US invasion or Iraq or Afghanistan, but the other way around?

I am also mentioning this because no one seems to care. The major media barely gave it any mention at all, and it didn't make any headlines in the West. It was also generally ignored in the blogosphere, except by some right wing sites such as LGF. That's a shame, because it shouldn't be a political issue. But that sad truth is that some don't like to discuss events like this because they don't fit with the leftist media's world view; the United States can't be blamed, and it was a despicable criminal act against a government allied with the United States. Middle East "expert" Juan Cole, for example, this week strongly criticized Bush's support of Pakistani president Musharraf (with some justification) but then didn't mention this attack at all. Curious, isn't it?

Andrew Sullivan wrote yet another post (I think we are into the high-hundreds by now) about how the United States are the bad guys because we used stress positions on some prisoners. I don't even think he really writes them anymore; he can just copy and paste from his old articles. That is bad, but the weird thing is the real bad guys do things like blow up hospitals. That's what's forgotten in all this noise.

Speaking of noise, there's another reason why it's getting little mention. The leftist blogosphere is literally freaking out over a far more important issue (to them): one poll has McCain 5 points above Obama, which gives McCain a solid lead in the electoral college. Some of these guys who track these things daily should really get a life; it's simply too early to take these polls seriously; we haven't even had the VP picks or the conventions yet. Yes, Obama's supporters are downplaying this, saying it's too early, and doesn't matter, etc. But the strange thing is they are saying it now when their man is down, while they've been ignoring this conventional wisdom for the past several months while he was on top! The panic is universal; Daily Kos, Balloon Juice, as well as all the usual suspects are riled up. Including, of course, the aforementioned Andrew Sullivan and Juan Cole. Of course. Because one poll is so important.



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How low can they go?

186K per second brings us a preview of things to come in the US Presidential election.

It's incredible how the same people who loudly complained about the "swift boating" of John Kerry in 2004, have no problem in 2008 with attacking John McCain's service with far less evidence.

Now we are to believe that his "cross in the dirt" story is suspect (he recounted how once when left tied up with ropes all night, a guard secretly loosened his bonds and made a sign of the cross in the dirt, to tell McCain that he was in solidarity with him - a Christian too). The ever-odious "Balloon Juice", says:

I think there is pretty solid evidence that he’s just copying other peoples’ s**t.

What is this "pretty solid evidence"? Apparently, 1) because Solzhenitsyn wrote about a vaguely similar episode in one of his books, and 2) because McCain didn't mention it in his first account upon release from captivity in Vietnam.

Personally, before I would go accusing a war hero of lying about events, I would want ironclad proof in my corner. But that's just crazy me. The "evidence" above is pretty thin, especially when: #1 if you dig hard enough, you will find some similarity to something anyone said to some author in some book somewhere. Particularly in prison camps where pencils and paper were not available and the only way to write things was often in the dirt. As for #2, the account was a magazine article, which for sake of space could not possibly include every event from his 5+ years of captivity.

On the other hand, McCain's 1999 book, Faith of my Fathers, discusses the episode (it's a heck of a read, and entirely apolitical - so I recommend it whether you support the candidate or not).

Finally, Orson Swindle, a fellow POW, confirmed McCain's story. Of course, he's already been attacked for the sin of being a McCain supporter.

Not surprisingly, this bottom-feeder story is being pushed by the Daily Kos, a partisan web site, which is trying very hard to "mainstream" the story. Andrew Sullivan, as usual, strongly insinuates it without committing himself, as if he's setting up his escape hatch just in case the story blows up in his face. Now he says he will "gladly air any evidence that emerges in McCain's defense", but still neglects to mention Swindle's confirmation.

So why would Obama's supporters stoop to this level? Probably out of an increasing sense of desperation; in a year where the conventional wisdom said that the Republicans didn't have a chance, the two major candidates are drawing dead even right now. Since McCain's major strength is that he has light-years of experience over his opponent, the strategy seems to be to mitigate that advantage by questioning McCain's experience.

It's certainly a risky strategy, and the fact that Obama himself has enough integrity to stay away from it is probably a clue to his supporters that they shouldn't go there.

There's another factor too. Not many people of McCain's generation are around today, and far fewer served in wartime or experienced any real hardship. For most of these bloggers, a purse-snatching is about the closest any of them will come to a life-or-death struggle, and the greatest torture they ever experienced was when their cell phone couldn't get a signal, or the batteries ran down on their iPod. The only starvation any of them experienced was when they had to wait in line for 20 minutes to get their 960-calorie Wendy's triple cheeseburger. I have seen this disconnect in the United States, and even more so in Western Europe. To people who have never experienced real hardships, it's as if such things only happen in the movies.

On the other hand, McCain was tortured, he was starved, and his life was threatened. For more than five years.

Question his honesty all you want, but I would advise against mistaking speculation for evidence. Just my 2 cents.



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Still Here

And still alive and kicking. Multiple demands on my time (school, family, etc) have made blogging impossible. After August, the site should be back on track.

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Sense of media proportion: War vs. Tabloid stories

For the past couple days, Russia has invaded Georgia, and only now agreed to a truce. It remains to be seen if it will hold. Reportedly, hundreds have been killed.

But what are the networks running in America? CNN and Fox News channels are practically running 24 hour coverage of John Edward's admission of infidelity, and the missing Caylee Anthony case. The first is a very minor story (except for the media's initial blackout on it) and there's simply nothing to report on the second. I have enormous sympathy for a missing child, but there is nothing new to report. Therefore, nothing justifies running coverage around the clock, filling the airtime with one endless speculation after another. Nancy Grace is obsessed with it to the exclusion of everything else.

I think slaughter in a country that might touch off a much wider war is a far more important story. In my military course here at Fort Huachuca, AZ, we have students here from Georgia, some worried sick about their families back home and wondering when they will be recalled.

There are parallels, in Russian history. Not in Chechnya, which was a breakaway province, but rather in the disastrous 1939 Soviet invasion of Finland, which cost Russia hundreds of thousands of lives and pushed Finland into the German camp during WWII. History may be repeating itself.

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Drive drunk, collect $1.63 Million

File this under "crime pays". Overlawyered discusses one of the most egregious travesties of misjustice you will ever hear about.

To be brief: In March 2000, Wayne Davis drove his pickup across the center line of a highway in Missouri and crashed head on into a vehicle driven by Edward and Virginia Johnson. Davis's blood-alcohol level was .203, more than twice the legal limit. The Johnsons were hospitalized but survived the crash.

Next came a lawsuit. Not against Davis, or the car company, or the alcohol seller. No, both Davis and the Johnsons together conspired to sue Davis's insurance company, Allstate, for "bad faith", over a technical dispute involving releasing the Johnson's medical records to the insurer. Davis agreed to give up 90% of any loot won. What they won was $16.3 million US dollars, and a Missouri appeals court upheld the verdict. Unless there are further appeals, the judgement will stand.

Translation: the victims of the accident receive $14.7 million dollars, and the drunk who caused it gets $1.63 million.

There are many parties at fault here, including the tort system itself. But when you theoretically have adult supervision (a judge) these things are not supposed to happen. But this did happen, not just with one judge involved, but at least a dozen (there are 11 judges on the Missouri court of appeals western district). I also have a big problem with the supposed victims of the accident not only being rewarded so far beyond their actual damages, but rewarding the drunk driver as well. What kind of message does that send?

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Alexander Solzhenitsyn, RIP

Solzhenitsyn as a prisoner in 1945

Aleksander Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (Александр Исаевич Солженицын) is dead at 89 years old. That was a long life for a man who saw combat in the Soviet Army in WWII, was branded an enemy of the state for his criticism of Josef Stalin after the war, spent 8 years in Soviet labor camps, and was hit with a severe bout of cancer. He later wrote many books on the subject of abuses in the Soviet system, the most famous of which was probably Gulag Archipelago. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970, and was forced to leave the Soviet Union in 1974.

In 1978, while discussing the Vietnam war at Harvard University, he said:

"But members of the U.S. antiwar movement wound up being involved in the betrayal of Far Eastern nations, in a genocide and in the suffering today imposed on 30 million people there. Do those convinced pacifists hear the moans coming from there?"

Maybe, for a little while at least, the press will put things back in perspective on what the real gulags were. Just for an example of how skewed the term has become, a simple Google search of "gulag united states" turns up 869,000 hits. A search of "gulag soviet union" turns up only 617,000. Speaks for itself.

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