Palin's speech was apparently written by Matthew Scully, a former Bush speechwriter, evangelical, and vegan animal rights advocate. It will be interesting to hear if huntin' and fishin' are talked up.
a former Bush speechwriter, evangelical, and vegan animal rights advocate.
I suppose caring deeply about all animals other than humans isn't so inconsistent with the caring-about-fetuses-until-they-are-born program of many other Republicans.
Thank god Blume doesn't even own a TV.
1: keep in mind the speech was largely written before they picked her.
4: Yeah, I'm wondering, though, if the Matthew Scully stuff is the post-Palin-pick rewrites. "We don't have a woman speechwriter, but we do have a touchy feely eco-Christian -- close enough?"
Oh, and addendum to 1: Apparently Scully explicitly rejects the idea of "rights" and instead talks about Christian mercy. I have not read his book.
Did Giuliani have dental surgery, or does he always talk like that?
Rudy's speech is making me want to vomit. He did get in one accurate zinger on Obama as a flip flopper. Obama was against wiretapping before he voted for it.
Giuliani needs lips in the worst way.
Are these really places Rudy wants to go? Flip flopping? Criticizing Obama's position on Israel when your VP just attended a sermon by Jews for Jesus two weeks ago? Executive experience when your candidate has none either?
I finally hit mute on Rudy. Jeez, I cannot take this crap.
This Giuliani character bores me. Where is the psycho Alaskan lady?
I'm sure there's a good line to be said about executive experience and McCain managing 15 homes.
Are they cutting away to shots of Bristol and Levi in the audience? I can't be sure, I don't know their faces well enough.
They kept cutting away from Rudy to Cindy and then to some other woman- was that Rudy's wife of the moment?
10: The good news is that no one is watching this convention, apparently.
Per the other thread, I don't know what you losers are doing, AP is already out with the story. Palin mocks Obama; McCain claiming nomination. Punctuation matters!
I'm not sure I should be letting my son watch this...
What's with the lame screensaver photos in the background?
I got that. And these cuts are coming every 3 minutes or so, methinks.
Swinging at "pollsters and pundits" right out of the gate!
Her lips are out of sync with the audio on my CNN cable feed. The speech is a failure!
Are they cutting away to shots of Bristol and Levi in the audience? I can't be sure, I don't know their faces well enough.
THE LIBERAL MEDIA AND BARACK OBAMA'S DISGUSTING BLOGS NEED TO LEAVE THESE TWO PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS ALONE. SHOWING THEM ON T.V.? THAT'S NOT CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.
I'd give it two "heh indeeds" and a "read the whole thing".
11: She's warming up by drinking the blood of twin polar bear cubs after killing their mother with her hands.
After 5 years of war, you would think people would stop mispronouncing it "Eye-Rack"
22: plumbers and porters can suck an egg, too.
Goddamnit. This woman is real trouble, real serious trouble.
People are saying that Giuliani's bat-head-biting ran too long so they had to shitcan Palin's intro video? Oh man.
Who's knew that when Ambrose Bierce said that war was God's way of teaching Americans geography that it was beyond even God's powers?
26: best is when the captioning software accidently says "I ROCK!"
"Special needs" is so politically correct. Why not just call 'em retards?
I think it's disgusting how the speech the liberal media is showing right now is exploiting Palin's family. They should be off limits.
She just did a head-fake with the pregnant daughter bit, and went with the special needs kid instead.
26: I just can't forgive anyone who mispronounces the 'q' as 'k'.
Did she just say her husband has "quite a package"?
She is making eye contact with nobody but the teleprompter. Her steely gaze is kind of one-track.
Am I blinded by overconfidence and partisanship, or does this woman just sound like a pathetic moron reading from a telemprompter? Also, is this accent appealing to anyone not from either Alaska or Minnesota? I am having a really hard time doing my usual liberal handwringing about this one.
39: Yep, right after mentioning his Yupik ancestry.
Aaaand she compares herself to Harry Truman.
29: That's just what I was thinking.
29: That's just what I was thinking.
"But with actual responsibilities"? FUCK YOU, SARAH PALIN!
New drinking game: Take a drink every time the baby changes hands.
Somebody tell that little girl to quit greasing that poor baby.
Somebody tell that little girl to quit greasing that poor baby.
41: I'm from Minnesota but I find that accent distinctly unappealing.
Do they know that non-Republicans have access to this?
"Baby I love you!"? Are you fucking kidding me?
Blinded by partisanship, 41. The accent is unappealing, but she sounds kick ass for exactly who she needs to sound kick ass for.
"Leave the nation better than we found it"? Ouch.
49 & 50: It's not just my imagination that the server is wonky tonight, huh?
Metanalysis of this comments thread suggests middle-America is going to loooove this woman.
The crowd is eating it up. Has she made any policy statements at all?
I want to cry--my wife says that she likes Palin.
It's not that great an accent but it's not very strong either. I don't think any hay can be made of it.
Still, it was fun when the boos for Obama went on for ten seconds and I imagined them targeted at her.
Palin will be a good campaigner. Better hit the phonebanks.
"Leave the nation better than we found it"? Ouch.
This speech is sucking almost as much as the server is.
"spirit of serving" Fuck you and your goddamn dog whistle Christianist shit.
I'm still so pissed off at the community organizer line that I haven't heard anything else she said.
41: You are blinded. She's beautiful, funny, and down-to-earth. And she's got moxie.
Luckily, meta-meta-analysis of this comment thread suggests that while we're afraid middle-America will adore her, we actually don't know jack about how the relevant swing-votery bits of middle-America will react to anything.
I want to cry--my wife says that she likes Palin.
Buck has noted her appeal as well.
I can't tell you how happy I am that she repeated the bridge to nowhere line.
Thanks for repeating an already-demonstrated lie, Governor.
This woman is winning the election right now.
Why the surprise? She has a journalism background and has run a political campaign. There was little doubt she was capable of giving a competent speech, especially to a crowd that couldn't be friendlier.
They're still facing the task of hiding the fact that she knows fuck-all about the U.S. government or any pressing national issues for two more months.
She's making some pretty specific statements about her governorship; hopefully they can be picked apart. (I.e., "half a billion in vetoes," maybe for stuff that later went through in a different form.)
Yeah, she's good. But Joe Biden will kick her ass.
Saturday Night Live writers are praying for this woman to be elected. That accent is a character waiting to happen.
This thread is panicky Democraticness at its peak.
They're still facing the task of hiding the fact that she knows fuck-all about the U.S. government or any pressing national issues for two more months.
There's no way that the Republicans could snow job America into electing someone totally uninformed.
63: I know. I've only just picked my jaw up off the floor.
But what an easy target: "As mayor, Sarah Palin managed to rack up $3,000 in debt for everyone in her town. Imagine what she can achieve in Washington."
54 -- I dunno. I still don't see the morons I know going for this. But maybe there's another class of other (female?) morons who are enraptured by this robotic high-school grade oratory.
It's possible that Middle America will love her, but keep in mind that liberals are, without exception, hysterics who think that every moment is a recreation of then Hindenberg disaster. Consider this: Obama gave a speech so incredible that even Pat Buchanan was impressed. Yet, the election was not immediately over.
This thread is panicky Democraticness at its very peak.
63: Yeah they released that line hours ago, along with the "change to promote their careers" line (has she said it yet? I'm not allowed to watch). Where AP got he "mocks" lede.
Confidence in our guy folks, confidence in our guy.
A professional liar reading a prepared mocking speech from a teleprompter. If this works, well look at what our fucking country really is, then.
There's no way that the Republicans could snow job America into electing someone totally uninformed.
Ha!
While I did not pwn 75, I did pwn 80. Plus, all typos are the server's fault.
Keep commenting, folks, it's all that gets me through this.
74: Why wait? This shit's pretty damn funny.
This woman is winning the election right now.
Come on. No speech by a vice presidential candidate has ever won a presidential election.
Like Blume, we don't have a working TV either, but Sybil's comments are scaring the crap out of me. Our republican neighbors are ALL jacked up about this woman.
On a brighter note- anyone for a Boston meet-up at our house on Saturday night? We will be celebrating the engagement of Blume and Sifu... Knecht will post details later.
Fucking lying fucking fuck fuck.
Good, keep the lies coming. They make great campaign ad material.
This is laying big - big - in southwestern PA, I can promise you. And that area is a pretty good test case for some other areas. People seem to think many of those voters would;ve held their noses and voted for McCain no matter what, but I think they would not have. And I'm telling you, this woman will get them to the polls.
88: In other words, everybody read comment 80 three times in a row.
This woman is real trouble
Sexist!
(I myself keep thinking, "I hate this bitch.")
80 -- Seriously. I'm feeling pretty good right now, why can't the rest of you. This is just a lame, lame speech. I guess she didn't actually say she admires Britney Spears or call for Alaskan to get out of the union, but no way is this sealing the deal for people on the fence. I'm drinking my bourbon out of hope, not despair.
You know, she does look strong. But she doesn't look Presidential. Too smarmy.
Is 70 a joke?
Seriously, Sybil, this is not an amazing speech. She's started flubbing lines, and a lot of the attack lines are pretty dull.
I do think that she's undone a lot of the damage of the last few days, but I'm not sure that "sassy mom" is the persona that can overcome her manifest inadequacy.
OK, and seriously, a lot of these applause lines ("not afraid to get in a fight either") are just LAME.
Well, I'm watching and I don't get the accolades. Is it for the content (meh)? Is the delivery supposed to be so very astounding that she is single-handedly winning the election?
Does this lying attack dog bullshit mean that Biden has permission to rip her shit apart?
75, 79, 80: I don't think she's going to give McCain the win; I just think she's really good. I also think she could do very well in the debate with Biden if she can do this shtick off the cuff. (Not that it matters what happens in the VP debate.)
I think what Sybil's saying is that she'll be voting for McCain.
This is laying big - big - in southwestern PA, I can promise you.
And Pennsylvania will still go Democratic in November. Of course she plays great with the base. That's why she was chosen.
why can't the rest of you
Because she actually sounds coherent, and we want her to sound stupid and lame.
However. She *also* sounds arch and, truly, kind of bitchy. That seems like a bad way to try to fight Obama's sincerity.
Wait a second, is John McCain a veteran? I had no idea! This changes everything.
Yes, perspective, people. The last five days were such a clusterfuck for the Republicans that we could dare to hope she would come out as incompetent- and unprepared-looking as she actually is. Just because she didn't accidentally trip over a few lines doesn't mean anything underlying has improved for them.
OK, the Daily Show is making me a lot better with their assertion that every male Republican delegate is a closeted homosexual.
OK, the Daily Show is making me feel a lot better with their assertion that every male Republican delegate is a closeted homosexual.
Talk about your soft bigotry of low expectations. Bear in mind she's reading text off a fucking teleprompter (recalling her former job) in front of a very large, very friendly crowd who really Want To Believe.
Anyone who thinks that McCain is going to win knows that my offer of 2:1 odds stands.
if she can do this shtick off the cuff.
No reason to think that's the case, of course.
I feel like crying. Am trying to internalize y'alls optimism. I am sure that my undecided mom is voting for McCain on the strength of this speech.
Something about her tone brings back memories of high-school administrators speaking at assemblies and trying to sound convincing about how much the school has accomplished.
The base ain't enough to get 270 electoral votes.
I also think she could do very well in the debate with Biden if she can do this shtick off the cuff
Not a chance, without text on a teleprompter.
98: I think the accolades stem from the fear that this exercise in mediocrity really will play big in Peoria. You see, we try not to look down on small town America but we deep inside we fear that maybe we should.
"John McCain: like dead people, but alive."
Um, what could she be whistling here? "John McCain is the kind of name you'd find on war memorials in small towns across America."
I also think she could do very well in the debate with Biden if she can do this shtick off the cuff
Not a chance, without text on a teleprompter.
No reason to think that's the case, of course.
Really? She's being chatty and photogenic. I believe this is probably her standard presentation.
Also- running way long. Already at 36 minutes, out of primetime coverage, and that's with them ditching the intro montage thanks to Rudy.
Can the "bitch" theme work against here without sounding misogynist?
113: LOL.
110: I'm tempted to make you a whopping bet, so I'll feel better if he does.
112: It is early September, Sybil. And I'll give you a report tomorrow on SW PA. I work and go to soccer games with these folks.
Anyone who thinks that McCain is going to win knows that my offer of 2:1 odds stands.
You can get better odds on Intrade.
I feel like crying.
That's the cigarettes talking.
No reason to think that's the case, of course.
Really? She was chatty and photogenic. I'd think that's her standard M.O.
She is still a little stiff, forced and her timing isn't perfect but not so bad that the pros can't make her brilliant in a short while. Much better than Hutchinson or Dole.
There is a twinkle in her eye. She is going to have fun in the campaign. Sarah Barracuda.
Sybil is right. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Obama shoulda picked Clinton.
"John McCain is the kind of name you'd find on war memorials in small towns across America."
She said this? Let me wring the neck of the alleged vegan christian who wrote that line.
God damn it , I wouldn't have been pwned by Gonerill if it weren't for the fucking server. Now I'm really pissed off.
I think the accolades stem from the fear that this exercise in mediocrity really will play big in Peoria.
Well, Peoria is safely in our camp this time, thank goodness. But in terms of "Peoria" do folks even think that that was a particularly brilliant example of that kind of stuff?
But HOLY CRAP does John McCain so like a cricket-voiced old man in comparison now.
She *also* sounds arch and, truly, kind of bitchy.
Feature, not a bug.
Server ate my comments, but Ari, if you're willing to give those odds, you should just hit Intrade.
124: Don't. You'll lose. He's going to win 300+ electoral votes. New Hampshire? Of course. Iowa? Absolutely. Virginia? Probably. Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada? Yup. Florida, Missouri, and Ohio? At least one of the three. Alaska? Throw it in for good measure. Plus all the Kerry states. Ground game, bitches. Oh, and he's the better candidate.
It makes me feel better to hear McCain again, though.
John McCain: like dead people, but aliveundead.
If you squint hard enough, Todd Palin looks a little like Big Ed.
Ah. The server is just running two minutes behind posting. We should string a bunch of them together as a tme capsule, like Light of Other Days.
OK --
a) Annoying, tinny voice
b) Last line of speech literally says that this election is about exactly what Obama has been saying its about
c) Flat delivery
d) A lot of emphasis on a basically lame life story and biography
e) Specific proposals were standard issue Republican talking points without any ability to sell them to a broader audience.
I mean, she didn't actually fall onto her face or say that we were about to get eaten by bears. But this was at best a C+ and has definitely, extrapolating from my experience, alienated the critical voting block of half drunk white guys who were predisposed to find her annoying.
Why should I be afraid? What good would it do me if I were? She's personable! My god! Surely these are the end times.
God damn it , I wouldn't have been pwned by Gonerill if it weren't for the fucking server. Now I'm really pissed off.
I'll give you the middle American SW PA update tomorrow. These are most of my co-workers* and I have a soccer game tomorrow night to really get a sense of it with actual soccer moms and dads!. There certainly is a strong, strong winger base here, but they were always going to find an excuse to go for McCain.
I am not frenzied. As I said if reading Americana mixed with lies from a teleprompter win you an election. Well, fuck it then.
*These are me!
God damn it , I wouldn't have been pwned by Gonerill if it weren't for the fucking server. Now I'm really pissed off.
123: Sadly no. But we can probably say that she's snarky or arch.
137: Optimism is all well and good, but... Alaska? Really? Throwing that in just makes me doubtful about the rest of the list.
Sarah Palin gives a decent speech. She's not a game changer. I expect she'll do well in the 2012 primaries, though.
148: it's like a trust game, HC.
147: It was pretty sarcastic. Not that it will stop the McCain crew, but crying Leave Sarah aloooone! now will be pretty absurd.
All those shots of the ecstatic Cindy McCain have lead me to the inescapable realization that she is the baleful human avatar of an evil and ancient reptilian being who is the real power behind this campaign.
I am sure that my undecided mom is voting for McCain on the strength of this speech.
Aren't you from the South, though? I don't know that Obama ever had a shot with the undecideds there. I wouldn't worry too much on that basis.
Alaska? Throw it in for good measure.
Ari is huffing paint thinner.
"Palin can throw a pretty good punch with a smile" from MSNBC
Always the visuals.
I worry about sexism here, but I think she will be the "attack dog". The gleam I saw in her eyes was the one I saw in Giuliani's, but not Romney or Huckabee. She has...latitude...to say completely horrible things, while holding the baby and batting her eyes. She will kill on the campaign trail.
She will not be boring.
Um, what could she be whistling here? "John McCain is the kind of name you'd find on war memorials in small towns across America."
I was totally wondering that. Maybe just a lame, lame effort by the speech writer to evoke something.
How did I not know that Michelle Obama's cousin is the most prominent black rabbi in America?!
You know, I've heard good things about the Bridge to Nowhere, from a planning perspective.
Maybe just a lame, lame effort by the speech writer to evoke something.
Like OBAMA IS A MUSLIM.
I love that as this thread talks itself down off the ledge, the other thread has degenerated into ach repartee between gonerill and w-lfs-n. New mouseover contrasting intercuts?
145: Sorry, I thought 112 was lost. She did cause my wife and I to have a yelling match.
God, this is the motherfucking world I have raised my kids in! (not her in particular, this whole fucking convention, this whole fucking election). These are the pigfuckers in charge!
</existential despair>
I expect she'll do well in the 2012 primaries, though.
If Obama and Biden don't put paid to her political career in the next couple of months, I'll be very disappointed.
"Governor Palin, what exactly did you mean when you said, 'John McCain is the kind of name you'd find on war memorials in small towns across America'?"
How did I not know that Michelle Obama's cousin is the most prominent black rabbi in America?!
AND HIS CHILDREN ARE ISLAMIC JEWS.
I love that as this thread talks itself down off the ledge, the other thread has degenerated into ach repartee between gonerill and w-lfs-n. New mouseover contrasting intercuts?
Hey, I don't even have a vote in this country, so repartee it is.
It was pretty sarcastic. Not that it will stop the McCain crew, but crying Leave Sarah aloooone! now will be pretty absurd.
So does that mean we can demand Bristol go on Maury to find out who the real baby-daddy is?
This woman is real trouble, real serious trouble.
Eh. The distinguished commenter from Judas Priest gets it right here. Palin's speech wasn't bad--which is to say that she wasn't totally incompetent--but Christ, A) she sounded just like every city administrator who's ever cut a ribbon and B) she made specific assertions about her own career and about McCain's career that should be easy enough to contradict. I could be wrong, but I'm not seeing it. This speech will fire up the Republican base and leave everyone else lukewarm, especially after a few days have passed.
166: Clearly, there was an army of John McCain clones, all of which were war heroes and most of which have now died of old age and are buried all over the country. If McCain is inaugurated, the zombie John McCain army will rise from the grave and lead America to glory!
Bob's 158 is about right, although I have my doubts about the last bit - as I said, her attacks were incredibly boring (except the nasty "community organizer" one, but I can't help but note that she has now explicitly equated her mayoralty with his community organizing. So his state senatorship now equates to her governorship, and...).
I do see very easy paths for Obama and Joe to bring her down, iff the press doesn't let her play the "don't hit me, I'm a girl" game.
I live in the south but am from southwestern PA.
This:
She has...latitude...to say completely horrible things, while holding the baby and batting her eyes. She will kill on the campaign trail.
Is unfortunately true I think. The mom who kicks ass and takes name thing is going to play and I am going to get pissed when people here start saying sexist bullshit flippantly in irritation. And that effect is going to be a problem. And I can tell you when I see that woman standing up there and her husband holding the infant and the kids lined up and all of that, I have an actual gut reaction of being happy that she kicks such ass. And again I say I want to cry.
I hated Thatcher & Reagan, but they made me smile.
Fuck reason. Fuck facts. Good for academia, but they have no place in politics
Hey, I don't even have a vote in this country
And I lack the capacity to understand the issues.
Dammit. Should've skipped the thread along with the speech.
171: And who do you think will raise them and be their master? His "wife": CHTHINDY!!!! AIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
New Mexico ...
I don't know. This state is deeply racist, and the completely corrupt Democratic party isn't going to help Obama. We managed to keep our Republican congressman (Heather "Nipples" Wilson) in 2006, by a few tenths of a percent of the vote. I know the polls look goood now, but I'm worried.
Remember all those people - half the electorate - who voted for GWB because he had business experience, would pursue a humbler foreign policy, is a uniter not a divider, would make government smaller and protect our liberties, and is a compassionate conservative.
Those folks will love Palin because she's someone they think they could like - smart but not uppity, successful but not aloof, someone they could want to be. It doesn't matter whether what she says makes sense, or is congruent with the facts. People will vote for her because they could imagine drinking a beer testifying for jesus with her.
WikiAnswers says 1.2 million Americans have been killed in combat. Assume, conservatively, that only half of them are named John McCain. A 600,000 zombie army: suck on that surge, Sarge.
Ezra's preview was very prescient and will, I hope. talk Sybil down a bit. He points out that her success in this speech was entirely predictable, and in no way undercuts the fundamental narrative and reality that she's utterly untested and unprepared.
Let's put it this way: George Bush and John McCain both make regular statements that betray utter ignorance of how the world beyond our borders works. Do you think Sarah Palin will do better?
And if your reply is, "well, but Bush and McCain have gotten away with it," the reason is twofold: the press loves them both (they don't love Palin), and no Dem effectively went after them. Both Obama and Biden are fully capable of going after McCain and Palin.
I see I am pwned by Mcmanus. There's probably a moral lesson there.
154 is trure.
173: I disagree. I think that the archness is not going to play well. It's going to seem bitchy.
Oddly, now that I've seen her speak, my gut reaction is not a happy one. It's a "god I hate her" one. I can't quite figure out why. I think it's that she seems so Heatherish.
Rachel Maddow thinks she was nasty.
Rachel is also tryng to sneak in "dumb.'
Modern liberals.
I gotta go get a speech by Emma Goldman.
I think that Obama is going to win in no small part because he's so evidently more fun to have a beer with than John McCain.
I'll grant that Alaska may be a longshot, apo. I just threw that one in there for effect. The others are for serious.
All I know is that the basically apolitical women of our Mommy and Me group (I like to drop in and watch them play with my kid, because I'm a feminist) were talking about her endlessly yesterday and with a vitriolic, passionate hatred I've only seen them deploy against lead toys and people who don't try to breast feed their newborns.
So, the Republicans have a new female media spokesperson who will attract attention by pretending to speak for regular people while sarcastically insulting the masculinity of Democrats. That's nothing new.
110: Okay Ari, I'll bite. I offer 5 bars (a metric pound) of my favourite chocolate.
Rachel Maddow thinks she was nasty.
There we go. That's a much less sexist word than "bitchy," and it says the same thing.
Too bad the archives don't go back to 1992 -- it'd be interesting to have seen you all comment on Buchanan's speech.
Tomorrow, McCain is up, and even with Palin having gotten through her appeal to the base just fine, McCain still has trouble with his base, the Washington Press Corps. Trouble Palin did nothing to ameliorate.
The Obama campaign should make some news tomorrow, though, unrelated to Gov. Palin.
The republicans have been focus grouping Palin for the past several days and people, including women, have so far been liking her LESS the more they know about her.
I think part of the reason Sarah Palin attracts so much vitriol is because everyone was already mentally adjusted to defeating John McCain. It's not that she provides upsetting evidence that contradicts that; it's that being presented with an opponent who we haven't already realized can't win feels mean.
I was just in the process of vetting "snide," but I think "nasty" works better.
I agree with 183 though I could not have said so before a woman said so first. at no point did I think "I am glad this person has the opportunity to talk on TV".
Palin reminded me of the teacher who has zero respect for any of the students and thinks she knows everything in the world because she read the textbook. I get that feeling from some men too (aka "petty tyrant" -- typical among talk show hosts who talk down to everyone) but, well, she looks like a teacher too.
it'd be interesting to have seen you all comment on Buchanan's speech.
All I remember about that speech was the next morning this total Virginian frat boy I was working with was ecstatic, so happy was he to see someone bashing faggots at the RNC.
188 is very apt. Very.
I'm far from the target audience, but I thought it came across as nasty, and targeted only to the base or to those people who call themselves undecided but always vote Republican. All that stuff about the columns and the seal? That's inside baseball.
As annoying as it was at the time, in retrospect I think that the Democrats' tactic of giving McCain his due made the attacks more palatable. It also helped that their attacks were mostly about policy not character. A lot of Palin's attacks also seemed sort of unearned coming from her -- this is someone no one had heard of a week ago, who is she to sneer at Obama? She's never even met him!
And, sure, she didn't fall on her face as I had sort of hoped, but it wasn't that well delivered. It was competent, and will probably be better than McCain's, but I wouldn't rank it above either of the Obamas or either of the Clintons.
Olbermann nailed it: "Norma Rae by way of Tracy Flick".
I think Napí meant "ought to" rather than "is likely to," but I am just guessing.
189: Done. And snark and others, I'm not trying to make money. Intrade creeps me the hell out.
Too bad the archives don't go back to 1992 -- it'd be interesting to have seen you all comment on Buchanan's speech.
But Clinton ran on the economy, not culture wars.
Obama in various overt & covert ways is running a culture war campaign.
9 out of 26 items on my Facebook news feed are Palin-related. She's under our skin.
And I can tell you when I see that woman standing up there and her husband holding the infant and the kids lined up and all of that, I have an actual gut reaction of being happy that she kicks such ass.
That's great. Thanks for killing America.
it'd be interesting to have seen you all comment on Buchanan's speech.
I remarked to a friend during that speech "Oh my God, he's slitting Bush's throat on national TV."
Jesus, Mary and Joseph, sometimes I hate being a Democrat. This person gets nominated, within a few days there's enough evidence of her lying, lunacy and hypocrisy to sink the campaign several times over, then she gives a speech written by some fucking tool and OMG despair we're going to lose. Fucking take them down and get on with the business of building a just society, for crying out loud.
||
Here is an interesting little article (ignore that it is by Howard Kurtz). Apparently Obama met several months ago with Ailes and Murdoch to discuss Fox News' coverage and Obama's "boycott". (Obama is on O'Reilly tomorrow.) Nothing too startling, but kind of interesting nonetheless.
Ailes of course cannot escape his true Asshole nature, "If you're asking me if we're going to be in the tank for you, like MSNBC and CNN, the answer is no," Ailes recalls saying.
|>
So it turns out that a former TV sports reporter is able to read competently from a Teleprompter? We're doomed!
202 -- Bullshit.
200 -- Yes, "should" in the sense of "ought to"
I believe I bet a friend dinner, or something, if McCain won. I also told him I'd take him to In'n'Out if he turns out not to have passed the bar.
I'm on tenterhooks about this election, man.
206 is right. Once again, Jesus saves.
Correction:Obama in various overt & covert ways is running a half-assed chickenshit culture war campaign.
In 1968 we didn't toast the patriotism & heroism of McNamara & Westmoreland. We didn't say they made a mistake or had bad judgement. We weren't looking for comity and mutual understanding with Strom Thurmond and Lester Maddox.
We called them the genocidal racist monsters they were.
Sarah strikes me as the only candidate with skirt.
I second 206. The fundamentals of this election remain unchanged, and they all favor the Democrats. Plus, now she has to start answering actual questions rather than giving a speech written by somebody else to a 100% sympathetic audience.
206 is even righter than 203. Thanks for saying that, Jesus.
Sarah strikes me as the only candidate with skirt.
Makes sense.
206: I second Jesus's motion. I am in no way made happy by this reactionary. Lying reactionary. You can decide that it will play in PA, but I have no idea why I ought be swayed by her awesomeness.
Okay, Bob, you are not allowed to use my neologism in that comment, because Obama isn't running a freaking culture war campaign. He's actually trying to be a decent human being. Hard to imagine, but true.
215-214-206, hear, hear, good men! I'm going to go drink wine. Spo-de-o-dee.
They don't play it on the TV here in Singapore, so I didn't see it. But however good a set-piece speaker she is, the place where I'd imagine her crashing and burning is interviews. People be asking her foreign policy shit she never heard of before, just to trip her up.
In corrupt infrastructure news, some Bridge to Nowhere War or Car has been launched.
He's actually trying to be a decent human being.
I sometimes fear this might be true, but usually I'm an optimist about Obama.
People be asking her foreign policy shit she never heard of before
For the first time ever, I miss Tim Russert.
I'm going to go drink wine.
I've already been drinking wine. It's like we're brothers.
People be asking her foreign policy shit she never heard of before, just to trip her up.
I'm really concerned they are going to kid-glove her. Certainly it was in hope of that outcome that the McCain campaign has been working the refs for the past two days. Anyone who tries the "Who is the prime minister of Lithiuania?" routine on her is going to be called UNFAIR!
203: So everyone back on McCain tomorrow. I do think the one line of attack on Palin that the actual campaign should pursue is all the stuff being done to shut down troopergate in the last day or so (See TPM for details). Nothing says "Four more years of Bush" like abuse of power, and obstructing investigations and justice. Don't even lead with her, instead focus it on bush/Rove/Gonzalez/Miers and just throw in Palin as an afterthought.
Jesus, don't be so grumpy with us. The last eight years have taken their toll. I have felt alienated and angry since the 2004 elections. Lying, lunacy, and hypocrisy have been the name of the game in the Bush administration. There is no reason to suppose that would that would sink Snidely Sarah. I am scared, really scared, of the outcome of this election.
I am going to say good night, my imaginary friends.
I am going to take a little yellow pill so I can banish my anxiety and sleep. In the morning, my six year old daughter has her first day of school.
225 -- No one should ask her. They should ask Tina Fey playing her on SNL. (I know. But they could get her to come back and do it, don't you think?)
I believe I bet a friend dinner, or something, if McCain won.
I've got a case of Ommegang Abbey Ale riding on Obama's victory. A cynical friend--who stands to gain if McCain wins--asked me if I really wanted to bet on the American public. "The audacity of hope, man! The audacity of hope!" I shouted.
I am going to take a little yellow pill
My sister! I do prefer the blue ones, but.
In the morning, my six year old daughter has her first day of school.
Comity! Iris starts kindergarten tomorrow. She's been going to "school" since she was 3 months old, but this is the real deal - 5 days a week, 8:15 am. New kids.
And I really need to get some sleep.
220: That's awesome. BTW, did you know that every person in the US could have sex with Ashley Dupré for like ten days straight for less than the cost of the Iraq war?
I've already been drinking wine
You want to know how much I support America? I'm drinking wine from the republic of Georgia at this very moment, because they're our friends and everything, and I figured they could use a little scratch on top of that $1 billion we just pledged.
Neither the CNN nor MSNBC talking heads seem particularly impressed by the speech.
233: My God! Roger Ailes is right. They really are in the tank for Obama.
230:No euphemisms for me. Valium, Ambien, and Vicodin. With a chaser of dextromethorphan.
Decency is an abominable vice in politics.
I'm really concerned they are going to kid-glove her.
I hope not, given tonight's schtick was basically, "I am the fucking barracuda!.
I'm drinking wine from the republic of Georgia
Georgian champagne is highly praised in Russia. I bought some when I was there in 1987 and drank it on my prom night, but I don't really recall how it tasted since I was dosed out of my mind.
Bob McManus and Sybil Vane have it right. Palin is Ms. Smith goes to Washington, just not for you, for them.
Everything you've said here that you think is a downside is actually her strength. The small town, her lack of knowledge, her nastiness/bitchiness/heatherness; what we call self-confidence and cockiness in men and look for in people we're going to follow. She's smart, she'll get more polished every day, and she's a fighter.
I wanted to hate her but I really like her. Not her speech, which was full of lies that even she doesn't care about, nor what she actually stands for. Her.
Do not imagine it will be easy to debate her. While you're working on sifting through millions of facts and details and trying to organize them into one pithy rejoinder, she's ignoring all of that and saying matter of factly what a mother would do. And what a seasoned mother would do is actually always inarguable.
McCain has around 40% when he should be around 5%.
If Palin can take McCain to 45%, then we're back to the election being decided by corrupt voting machines.
This is a historic election and the Republicans are going to be motivated to elect the first woman Vice-President in U.S. history.
Be afraid.
My take: confident, clean, and articulate like I thought she'd be, but the lines she gave didn't scare me. Except for "I sold it on E-bay." Almost a perfect pause there. So, people will call it a strong speech because she's seen as dumber than she is, but nothing to shit yourself over. Furthermore, what's up with the refusal to refer to Obama by name? The constant refusal to invoke him hovers over this convention like a being whose name one dare not pronounce.
every person in the US could have sex with Ashley Dupré for like ten days straight
It will be an outrage if that isn't means tested.
If Palin can take McCain to 45%, then we're back to the election being decided by corrupt voting machines.
If she takes McCain to 45%, that's still a 10-point lead.
237: But Moldovan champagne is the real shit. Of course they have their own breakaway region as well (Transdnistria).
You people are nuts. She's a decent VP pick, as I said two days ago, but she's still the VP pick. The election is about, in order of importance, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and John McCain. Joe Biden's and Sarah Palin's effects are marginal at best.
"Be afraid" my eye. Maybe you are the afraid!
(I think maybe John McCain is actually afraid, and he should damn well stay that way.)
the Republicans are going to be motivated to elect the first woman Vice-President in U.S. history.
That statement has no inherent logic to it.
BTW, I just want to reiterate: we already know that she repeated a debunked lie in this speech (about the bridge). That is not a promising start (for her). I really want to hang that bridge lie around her neck like an albatross.
241,
If polling indicates the election is within ten points, but McCain wins by voting machine theft, it is credible that the polling was wrong. A close election will kill us here.
Do not imagine it will be easy to debate her. While you're working on sifting through millions of facts and details and trying to organize them into one pithy rejoinder, she's ignoring all of that and trying on her "Nowhere, AK" shirt.
One last thing: Palin's effect on the race to date has been to increase Obama's lead - it has grown each day since she was announced. If this speech went over gangbusters, the worst case is status quo ex ante. Which was still Obama winning. Relax, y'all.
Also, as my beloved Rachel is saying right now, Palin has never faced the national press. The press is not going to play nice with this, especially if she is going to be nasty and then be hidden away.
Oh. My. God. I hadn't watched the aftermath of the speech until now. McCain actually looks dead. No, worse than that, he looks like he has Parkinson's and is very, very heavily medicated, like Oudemia at her prom.
No, no. I was spritely. I did a very serious dance at one point.
Sorry, I didn't mean you looked dead or like you had Parkinson's. I was just referring to your meds.
248: Consider that this is happening instead of a convention bounce. Really, unwandle your panties.
248, JRoth,
The media, owned by the right wing, has successfully reduced expectations of Palin at the same time it utterly ignored Obama's incredible speech. [You here, as a mini-media, followed suit, and dropped conversation on Obama's speech the moment she was announced.] She just gave a speech, her first exposure on her terms, that exceeded those lowered expectations.
If the sociopaths who own the media decide they want favorable reporting on Palin starting tomorrow, that's what we'll have.
252: Suuure. You're just all keyed up now that we know Michelle Obama is part of a seekrit Jewish cabal.
250: I really am starting to wonder if McCain has all his marbles.
I wanted to hate her but I really like her.
Maybe it's the bourgeois in me, unable to admire a fellow Leninist, but I don't see what's likable in her. She strikes me as a rather typical little person with big authority. She's the PTA mother who tries to ban books; the neighbor who uses covenant rules against you; the churchgoer who doesn't want you to shop on Sunday. She's ballsy, true, but she wants to run my life. There's nothing likable there.
Do not imagine it will be easy to debate her.
There's no point in debating her. Obama and Biden's arguments are with McCain, not Sarah Palin.
And she really did try to ban books!
255: Michelle stole my heart long ago. Don't tell my grandma.
256: Speaking of my grandma, McCain has reminded me, throughout the campaign, of her just before we realized she had Alzheimer's. He looks vacant a lot of the time, seems to snap back suddenly to the moment at hand, and those snaps are often accompanied by bouts of empty rage. Really, though, he's probably just very old.
My grandmother is like 30 years older than McCain, so I don't think his age is such a big deal.
You know, say what you will about Reagan, but at least he remained affable into his dotage.
Olbermann just said it's hard to decide if Palin's speech was more reminiscent of Tracy Flick or Dolores Umbridge. Takes one to know one, Keith. I really can't stand him.
260: My mother is older than John McCain. She looks great, is very peppy, zips around town in her Obama-magneted Prius and her enormous Bernese Mountain Dog.
I'm glad someone besides me hates Olbermann.
(I do think Palin was awfully Heatherish, though.)
Holy crap, people, just watched Sarah Palin's speech.
Can it really be possible that the GOP might win the gender wars, after all? even though that would be completely unfair and absurd, and they don't half deserve to?
McCain: Man enough to have a woman (on his ticket)
Obama: Just what's he's afraid of, after all?
Christ, she's more manly than most of the men I've ever met in my own lifetime. But also with serious womanly street cred, what with her having given birth to five children and all. Ha! And youse all laughed at her "beauty pageant" credentials, just like you'd never read Phillip Roth or anything.
McCain's crazy like a fox, is what I think. I guess it's always been a mistake to underestimate that old bastard.
262: I hate to agree, because he's pretty smart and--back when he worked for the Ocho--really funny. But he's a dick. Beggars can't be choosers, though.
She zips around town inside her dog? That's either fucking gross or you're flashing back to prom night.
Christ, she's more manly than most of the men I've ever met in my own lifetime.
Yeah, but you're Canadian, so that's to be expected.
She did say it's enormous. Maybe even large enough for a reading lamp.
There are plenty of sharp people who are older than McCain. He doesn't seem like one of them, though.
I saw that as I was about to post and was like, I don't feel like fixing it! Bring the bitchassery!
Can it really be possible that the GOP might win the gender wars, after all?
I suspect that you're just trolling, but the answer to your question is, "Only if a majority of women in this country decide that Palin's issue profile is much, much, much less important than her gender." And every woman I know is more of a feminist than that.
Indeed, McCain does not seem like one of the sharp people older than McCain.
And every woman I know is more of a feminist than that.
Said Ms. Kael.
He does seem like he's older than he is, but he doesn't seem like he's sharper than he is.
People worried about corrupt voting machines should take notice of who's Secretary of State in Ohio this time around. When Kenneth Blackwell lost his gubernatorial race, we replaced him with a lady by the name of Jennifer Brunner.
Look at the Recent News on the Ohio Secretary of State page, and you'll see why I gave her money in 2006.
274: True enough, but Emily's List agrees.
I can't tell if 273 is little bitchery or actual agreement with what I was clearly saying.
I was just thinking.... Alaska is a big fucking state. Huge. So huge that a jet airplane is probably a good thing for the state government to have at its disposal, in case officials need to get somewhere quick, on short notice. Why sell the the state's airplane on e-bay?
Unless, of course, the governor's job is so lax that it really doesn't matter if she spends time waiting around to fly coach... I find hard to believe that she would do. Someone should look into how much money Alaska has spent on charter jets over the past 18 months.
And every woman I know is more of a feminist than that.
Um. How many women do you actually know? (no, not in a biblical sense, jesus!). Just asking, not trolling.
Takes one to know one, Keith. I really can't stand him.
We can't all be Jon Stewart. I don't watch Olbermann all that much because I don't like being harangued, even by people I agree with (though my mom, I think, would have his child, were she still fertile), but I'm willing to cut Olbermann a lot of slack, just for his work on Sports Center.
Christ, she's more manly than most of the men I've ever met in my own lifetime.
I could very easily imagine Sarah Palin and her family in the cast of Beachcombers.
Do you really need to ask, B?
Another one for the job talk.
Here's a serious question: why are liberals tempermentally so pessimistic? I know, I know, life's hard experiences have taught you never to hope, but it's not like America is going the way wingnuts want either, and yet they are always optimistic. America has conspicuously failed to turn to Jesus or ban abortion, but the wingnuts are always ready to think things are going to turn their way. I'm beginning to wonder if the cause and effect goes the other way, and that somehow being a pessimist makes youa liberal, but I can't see why that would be true.
282: No, I figured you were being mean. As usual.
I could very easily imagine Sarah Palin and her family in the cast of Beachcombers.
Fuck, yeah. It's like her dad's who's her uncle is actually Relic, eh?
Oh wait. I didn't just say that aloud, did I?
279: From my understanding, this was a jet (albeit a smallish one). Most of the planes that go in and out of villages are puddle jumpers and I'd imagine that most villages just don't have air-strips suitable for a proper jet to land.
She sold the plane, though, because it was bought by Frank Murkowski. And boy let me tell you, Alaskans *hated* Murkowski as governor and this was a pretty easy way to score some cheap political points. Had it been bought by some other previous governor, I'd lay money on it still being owned and operated by the state of AK.
In 1988, the Dukakis made a great pick for the VP choice in Lloyd Bentsen. After his acceptance speech, everyone was talking about how Presidential he seemed. In the debates, he administered the worst debate drubbing anyone's ever seen. And yet, Dukakis still lost.
And boy let me tell you, Alaskans *hated* Murkowski as governor
Odd, after they had voted him to the Senate for 4 terms and then still liked him enough after 24 to make him governor. What changed?
"24" s/b "22 years". Not just a typo but an inaccurate one!
289: I may have my history wrong, but I don't think Dukakis was running against a black man.
292 conclusively demonstrates the truth of 284 in all respects.
Only if a majority of women in this country decide that Palin's issue profile is much, much, much less important than her gender ability to stoke resentment against imaginary elites.
Which it is.
In re Olbermann -- He is more or less permanently (less when he went way way off on the HRC RFK thing) in my good graces from his Sports Center days, when, during some homerun race or other, the slugger in question smacked a homerun that ended up hitting his own home-run counter sign. Said Olbermann, "By the way. That's not irony. That's coincidence."
294: Wanna bet? Again, 2:1 odds and proceeds to charity of the loser's choice. I'm not in it to make money; I'm trying to help people kick the concern trolling habit.
I think he was seen as too Washington at that point. No longer enough of an Alaskan. That he appointed his daughter to replace him also wasn't seen as a very auspicious beginning to his tenure as governor.
Part of the reason that he kept being elected to the senate is that he had clout. Alaskans LOVE the fact that their representatives are (well, slowly that should be making its way to the past tense, as both Young and Stevens have some stiff competition this election cycle) senior members who serve on important committees and can bring home a crap load of money to the state. So there was a lot of reason to keep him in the senate. Moreover, the state is conservative enough, that were there to be a challenge to his seat, it would more likely come as a republican challenger in the primary than a democrat in the general. (For example, Tony Knowles, a very popular democratic governor, still couldn't defeat Lisa Murkowski, a not-very-popular partial term senator.)
I've been out of Alaska for about 10 years, though, so I probably am missing a bit of the nuance of why in particular they disliked the guy. What I get, I get from my sister who still lives up there. (And who voted for Palin for governor, would vote for her again for governor, but who would NEVER want her as VP because "she scares the shit out of me". Not sure I follow her reasoning there...)
Sybil, this and this should make you feel better.
295: You probably like w-lfs-n, too. Seriously, Olbermann was great on Sportscenter. "The ball is juiced" era was priceless. But, alas, he's still a dick.
296: Bets on this blog are based on percentage of income, in accordance with our angry left principles. Given their outsized benefits packages and the lives of leisure that they enjoy, academics have been found ineligible to place wagers on this basis.
Bets on this blog are based on percentage of income, in accordance with our angry leftFinnish principles
299: Super pwned, but only because we care, Sybil!
300: Young Ben I like very much, but I purely despise Olbermann. It's not clear to me what, if anything, they have in common.
MC, I was talking to oudemia. She wrote 295. But you ahve I have reached comity on Olbermann, and that's something!
Everybody likes W-lfs-n for some crazy reason.
305: Oh sorry! I wasn't quite paying attention.
Doughnuts all around! On Olbermann we have achieved comity.
It certainly isn't because of your agreeable, comity-seeking nature, then.
I don't.
Of course you don't. And I blame Ari's grandmother, frankly. But that's why we all like you, of course.
that's why we all like you, of course
Au contraire. Self-loathing isn't a likeable trait.
279: sold the jet, used a puddle-jumper. The jet couldn't land at most of the Alaskan strips anyway.
Self-loathing isn't a likeable trait.
Anti-Semite.
And I beg to differ, anyway.
A certain emo drama baby begs to differ, B.
Ben's calling MC an emo drama baby?
No!
I'm not calling MC an emo drama baby! That is a mistake engendered by the proximity and content of our respective comments.
Whom am I calling an emo drama baby? To find out, you'll have to read my blog tomorrow afternoon!
That's called a teaser, by the way.
I would never, Gonerill. Bwos b4 hos.
That was so pathetic I fain would go off to a corner and just DIE>
And 322 returns to the topic of the thread?
The media eats up this permanent-sneer stuff, but I find it a little odd as a campaign strategy. If you want people to vote with their lizard brains don't you need to play on fear, or some stronger emotion than bitchy contempt? (And I don't just or primarily mean Palin--I just read the speech, but on paper she's not nearly as bitchy as Mark Salter).
Armstrong, never an Obama fan, weighs in:
I've never seen a woman, or a man for that matter, speak that way, prime time, national, convention, live, ever. She blows away Hillary Clinton. Sorry, but that's what it is. Palin's deft speaking style is like watching visceral connective tissue being torn-- with a child in arms.
Oooookay.
"don't you need to play . . . some stronger emotion than bitchy contempt?"
I've consulted the last fourteen years, and they say: "Hells Naw."
Okay, I have no idea what's going in 316 to 319, but now my RC guilt is kicking in (it's a true curse to be Catholic, of course: the cloying, sickly-sweet scent of the incense; the cheerful brutality of the alcoholic uncles; the way you'd kneel before a statue of Our Lady and want your whole life to be washed away and beg forgiveness for what you had done and what you had failed to do when you were only five fucking years old), but if I pushed the 'just goofing around on the internet' envelope too far with 315, I am sorry. I don't even know what's going on, but I feel guilty, of course, and probably should.
325: Armstrong = ? I'm so out of the loop.
The GOP are going to win this gender war stuff, aren't they? I only wish I were trolling.
I don't think you're trolling, mc, but you seem to kind of hate the Democratic nominee & his supporters--how typical this is, I know not.
No big deal, ten our fathers and you're scot free with God. Ogged, however, that's a different story. He's occulted, you know. As best as I can understand it, He intends for you to remain temperate. He doesn't want you to go off on people without a damn good reason. Furthermore, He commands that you shall be modest in your claims, and gracious in your defeats. You probably shouldn't be a jerk. In this last phrase is contained all the law and the prophets.
327: don't worry about it. It's cool.
but you seem to kind of hate the Democratic nominee & his supporters--how typical this is, I know not.
Actually, Katherine, I've given money to Obama, and have also signed up (though I haven't actually done it yet, admittedly) to work on a voter registration drive. But you're right: I don't much go in for true believers in political candidates, even when I want their candidate to win, and I very much object to these ideological purity tests where even the slightest sign of critical thought might be (might be?) held against one. How typical is your animosity toward people who are basically on your side, I'm sure I don't want to know.
It's a shame no one recorded Obama's—or anyone else's—great speech at the DNC. What an utter lack of foresight.
If American women start to vote MCain/Palin because hey, female vice president and never mind about legal abortions, support for single mothers and hope of real help for working families, Ann Coulter was right and they're too dumb to be allowed to vote...
Don't get too caught up in the buzz of a single speech delivered to an already receptive crowd. It's going to be easy to paint Palin as a pathological liar.
MSNBC reporting that Palin's teleprompter desynched midway through her speech. I hadn't realized at the time - did anyone?
335: It is interesting that there is a spinnable defense of her "Bridge to Nowhere" positions along the lines of the fiduciary responsibility of a Governor to her state (or in her case her support as a candidate for Governor). But they seem to want to go with the lie. They apparently think they need to run with the mavericky anti-earmarkers trope through the whole campaign. Reason #38 why they've been working the refs so hard. One of my favorite reads the last few day has been the Anchorage Daily News, they of course have a bit of home state boosterism, but they are pretty good at laying out her ongoing blemishes in a straightforward manner.
334: Try not to lash out at women in an impotent rage. Makes you look small. And doesn't help to bring out the vote for the Dem candidate.
334: If Americans women start to vote MCain/Palin because hey, female vice president [insert your reason here] and never mind about legal abortions, support for single mothers and hope of real help for working families and a thousand other issues, Ann Coulter was right and they're too dumb to be allowed to vote we've got big fucking problems that transcend this election...
Watching the RNC in full voice brings home how stupidly cavalier this country is about the whole democracy thing.
334 gets it exactly right.
Happily, they won't, and Mary Catherine is just indulging in a particularly pointlessly vituperative brand of trolling.
from the link in 335:
Palin: "To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House."
Sarah Palin might have changed her mind on this one recently. However, a comment here notes that Palin actually slashed funding for schools for special needs kids by 62%. Budgets: FY 2007 (pre-Palin), 2008, 2009 (all pdfs).
But that is friendship, Apo. Palin wants to help special needs children take personal responsibility for their lives, and not rely on elitist government programs, like "special" education.
I'm going to repeat parts of my 238 and 254.
Bob McManus and Sybil Vane and Mary Catherine have it right. Palin is Mrs. Smith goes to Washington. She's smart, she'll get more polished every day, and she's a fighter.
McCain has 40% when he should be around 5%. If Palin can take McCain to 45%, then we're back to the election being decided by corrupt voting machines and practices. This is a historic election and the Republicans are going to be motivated to elect the first woman Vice-President in U.S. history.
The media, owned by the right wing, has successfully reduced expectations of Palin at the same time it utterly ignored Obama's incredible speech. [You here, as a mini-media, followed suit, and dropped conversation on Obama's speech the moment she was announced.] She just gave a speech, her first exposure on her terms, that exceeded those lowered expectations. If the sociopaths who own the media decide they want favorable reporting on Palin starting tomorrow, that's what we'll have.
It's clearer and clearer that there's no need at all to dwell on Palin's family. Her history as mayor and governor provide an ample supply of attack points: slashing funds for special needs children and teenaged mothers, opposition to choice and stem cell research, advocacy of abstinence education and creationism, attempted censorship, willingness to abuse the power of office for personal revenge--mm, a rich fruitcake of stupidity and moral idiocy. She reminds me of what we've got right now.
I think one of the best questions we can keep on asking is "where did the money go?" We need to keep reminding middle-class Americans that Republican policies have steadily worked to transfer wealth from the rest of the population to the top 5%.
Shorter 342: Please see again 238 and 254.
Her history as mayor and governor provide an ample supply of attack points: slashing funds for special needs children and teenaged mothers, opposition to choice and stem cell research, advocacy of abstinence education and creationism, attempted censorship, willingness to abuse the power of office for personal revenge--mm, a rich fruitcake of stupidity and moral idiocy. She reminds me of what we've got right now.
Seriously. If Obama's campaign can't get her on this stuff they deserve to lose. They seem to be on the right track though. Today the effervescence of the speech starts to wear off and we're left with a string of assertions (and insults) from it together with the emerging details about her record as mayor and gov. One question is whether the media runs with it.
One question is whether the media runs with it.
SPOILER: They won't. Facts are hard.
One question is whether the media runs with it.
Given that last night made clear the McCain campaign intends to run against the media, I don't see any way they wouldn't. Never underestimate the viciousness of a spurned lover.
345: Oh yeah, I forgot the crazy spending as Mayor of Wasilla. Yeeehah!
Extended sports metaphor: It's fourth and long with seconds remaining on the clock, and the GOP is down by four. They need to complete the long bomb in the endzone to win. The Dems are in a prevent defense, with no down linemen on the pass rush and all the linebackers substituted by defensive backs and wide receivers. Palin drops back, finds an open receiver on the 30 yard line and completes a pass 25 yards downfield. Under ordinary circumstances, great play. But when you need a touchdown to win, BFD.
Her term as Mayor is all about Republican governing principles writ small: irrelevant wedge politics, turfing out officials for their lack of personal fealty, book-banning and of course racking up a large permanent debt.
A remarkable number of liberals of my acquaintance seemed ready to move into panic mood after it turns out that Sarah Palin can deliver a competent attack dog speech. I don't see why. It was competent, but no more than that. And it wasn't a speech that even tried to do either of things that John McCain's campaign needs to do -- separate McCain from George W. Bush or convince people that McCain can improve the economy. It didn't even try to address those subjects.
This stops the downward spiral, maybe, until perhaps people focus on the fact that Palin's signature accomplishment as Governor of Alaska was to oppose a bridge project that she in fact favored, but McCain was losing the race before Palin was ever announced. Stopping the slide doesn't get you to a win.
296: Shouldn't the money go to a charity of the winner's choice? Otherwise, what's the damn point of winning the bet?
what's the damn point of winning the bet?
Again with the pre-9/11 thinking...
344: All three are bull.
If Palin's appeal was really supposed to be Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington, she'd be sunk with the conservative base; that's underdog appeal in a party that celebrates aristocratic social dominators, not underdogs. (Which is not to say they wouldn't gamely try to spin the underdog angle if their leaders told them to; and indeed, watching conservative Republican women's groups complain about all this sexism whose existence they had hitherto pooh-poohed is quite entertaining.)
Palin is, rather, in most ways a fairly typical female conservative media darling: visually polished, charismatic, acidic in just the right measure toward the Shared Enemy without threatening the white male ego, and chock full of bullshit. (Steinem has her measure exactly.) Her ethics conflict with her state party is the only thing that sets her marginally apart from this type, but that's unlikely to be a central part of her narrative in the coming weeks. Her contribution lies mainly in her being able to stir the heart of the Republican Dude in that special way that Ann Coulter used to do, with a touch more subtlety; but The Base is smaller now than it was, and in an election where the Republicans show signs of trying to tack vaguely back toward the centre, this is weak sauce.
AFAICS the Dems still have much more to fear from Diebold than they do from Sarah Palin.
349- Why do they call it a prevent defense? Isn't that redundant?
Her contribution lies mainly in her being able to stir the heart of the Republican Dude in that special way that Ann Coulter used to do, with a touch more subtlety;
Being charismatic wins elections. (I just don't know if the VP's charisma has that much impact.) But all she ever has to do is be charismatic, and things won't stick to her unless she loses her composure.
Being charismatic wins elections.
Not by itself; Edwards was charismatic, for instance. And fortunately, Palin's immaculate tailoring is no match for the supernatural magnetism of your secret-Muslim Antichrist.
Seriously, all of this is because she can competently read a speech of a teleprompter? People! Xanax is your friend!
When it comes to pills, I think we should pay close attention to what Sifu has to say.
Not by itself; Edwards was charismatic
Maybe I define "charismatic" as the ability to win elections.
360- Concluding that we have lots of friends.
People! Xanax is your friend!
And if you can't find Xanax, one of these will probably do the trick, too.
Edwards never won an election? He must have been a MSM creation, then.
Has last Thursday been erased from everyone's minds? If the election is going to come down to charisma, then the Democrats win. If the election is going to come down to who gives a better speech, then the Democrats win.
366: Edwards won one election, ten years ago, against a genuine moron.
The concern is not that that the election will come down to charisma, it's that the election will come down to personality and identity. Which it always does.
If the election is going to come down to charisma, then the Democrats win.
I think it comes down to who gets more votes.
355: You're wrong about the Ms. Smith goes to Washington part. The Republican schtick is recruiting ordinary decent folk to support the aristocrats, and convincing very well off people that they're salt of the earth. (The Palins are in something like the top 5% of the American people in terms of family income).
So you have people like Romney and Dubya (and the Kennedies, AFATG) mimicking ordinary decent folk, and you have TV commentators mimicking ordinary decent folk, and if anyone can ever dig up a working class father or grandfather they give them a lotof play (e.g. Russert).
Palin fits perfectly into that game. She also appeals to small-towners, Westerners, and ambitious lower-middle-class women, and the latter two groups are key to this election.
Most of the Clinton voters will vote for Obama, but the Republicans only need to split off a slice of them. I've almost given up now on my (apolitical centrist) PUMA sister, who would have loved to be Sarah Palin.
I think it comes down to who gets more votes.
As long as you leave the 2000 election out of it.
359: All of this because she can competently give a speech without a teleprompter?
That nitpick aside, it's not the speech. It's that McCain is closer to Obama than is reasonable given the gap between a generic Democrat and a generic Republican. While Palin looked like the second coming of Dan Quayle, it looked like the end was in sight. It's not, as yet.
The reaction to realizing that that oasis is a mirage is where the anxiety comes in.
Putting issues to one side and focusing solely on personality:
My brain realizes that Palin's voice is grating, kind of whiney, and has an annoying teenager bounce to its cadence.
And yet my heart finds her spunky, winging-it passion and spontaneity more appealing (no, I'm not talking about sex appeal) than Obama, with his "I've-been-planning-for-this-my-whole-life", Harvard Law Review aura of condescension and entitlement.
#370: Ahem. I meant electoral college votes, of course.
And yet my heart finds her spunky, winging-it passion and spontaneity more appealing (no, I'm not talking about sex appeal) than Obama, with his "I've-been-planning-for-this-my-whole-life", Harvard Law Review aura of condescension and entitlement.
It is the fairy tale story used by Hollywood in so many movies. See Legally Blonde, etc.
#369: The Palins are in something like the top 5% of the American people in terms of family income
Hey, those snowmobiles aren't going to buy themselves.
Man, I am just going to start fights today if I say anything about politics. The only uninformed speculation about what wins elections and what democrats should do and what the speech means and how close it should be and how worried we should be that matters is mine, okay?
#374: It is the fairy tale story used by Hollywood in so many movies.
And now it's come true!
uninformed speculation
Personally, I'm guided by what Republican operatives say off camera.
367: Unlike Palin's amazing political career? She got elected wingnut governer in a wingnut state.
375: snowmobiles s/b "snowmachines"
367: You don't know shit about what determines elections. Pessimism does not make you an oracle. US Presidential elections are referenda on the economy and the incumbent party. There's actual research and shit that bears this out, not pulled from my ass.
381: I noticed that, too. Is there a difference? I'd always heard "snowmachines" in reference to the things that make fake snow at ski resorts.
Edwards won one election, ten years ago, against a genuine moron.
Being a genuine moron has not traditionally been much of a disadvantage in North Carolina politics.
Speaking as the swing voter (of some sort) from middle America, I totally dig that Palin exudes that whole HOTT psycho-librarian vibe, and she should totally pledge to make porn in the White House.
When it is all said and done, however, she is not on the top of the ticket, and she will outshine McCain, who is apparently actually dead, but that ain't gonna win the election. Particularly since the Enquirer thinks she's had an affair. Uh-oh!
So chill, sheesh.
max
['Quality entertainment!']
382: luckily, Walt will start the fights for me!
I feel like I should apologize to Mary Catherine, if she comes back to this thread. We both want the same thing, and I'm sure her inchoate terror about possible bad outcomes is deeply felt and sincere. That it expresses itself in ways that I find incomprehensible and incredibly frustrating is probably a product of my own deeply held feelings about the subject.
Love! Comity! Unity!
Fuck that Palin clown, though.
383: Evidently it's just what they call them up there. Which makes sense—you're not going to shoot wolves from a mobile, are you?
John McCain is the kind of name you'd find on war memorials in small towns across America.
Fuck you, you turd. Eat some ground game.
(Also, hi: lots of people with names that are not Whitey McWhiteville in the armed forces. Lots of them died. So, again, fuck you.)
b,
It's a "god I hate her" one. I can't quite figure out why. I think it's that she seems so Heatherish.
Please don't take offense or hate me for what I am going to say. I could be wrong, but this is my guess.
My guess is that you hate her because you've spent years promoting the idea that women deserve respect because of their intellects and not because of the emotional response they get being mothers and now this SOB is using all those tactics that you abhor.
Her schtick is the feisty Mom with a good heart who is willing to face down all those big meanie people in power while hiding behind her children in her fortress of mommy momitude.
And no offense but this kind of tactic is one that has infuriated Men for ages because it takes away all our advantages and there is no defense against it.
I think maybe you are seeing things from the "position of power" point of view.
Her schtick is the feisty Mom with a good heart who is willing to face down all those big meanie people in power while hiding behind her children in her fortress of mommy momitude.
Hey, that is well-put!
Sybil, MC, Fleur, read these independents' testimonials and (start to) whisk your worries away.
We need NEED to find out the specific titles of books Palin tried to censor. As soon as we identify those books, she's going to look petty and ideological.
Unless we're talking about "Sado-masochism for Pre-Teens," in which case we don't go forward with the plan.
392: Apparently the only source is the former Wasilla city librarian, and she isn't talking.
Sifu: Comity!
Actually, this thread has made me realize that even better than predicting doom on the gloom on the internet is to go out and do something. I had originally planned to participate in a voter registration here in NYC, but I'd rather go somewhere where the effort is really needed. So: on 27th September I'm going to Wilkes-Barre, PA, which is apparently the area where Obama lost by the largest margins in the primaries. Are these voters susceptible to McCain/Palin? Oh yes. Can they be persuaded to vote Obama/Biden? I don't know, but I think it's worth trying.
Evidently it's just what they call them up there
VT too.
Pleasepleaseplease let this be true.
389 threatens to destroy my sense of comity. I'm going to pretend I didn't read it.
397: I find it incredibly irritating, too. Comity!
US Presidential elections are referenda on the economy and the incumbent party. There's actual research and shit that bears this out, not pulled from my ass.
That research suggests that a generic Democrat should win a semi-close (53-47) election against a generic Republican, given the current fundamentals. Notably, that research does not take into account the effects of a war hero running against a black man named Hussein.
I don't like it, but that's how it is.
392: Actually, 394 makes a good point: why not just spread the rumor that she tried to ban Harry Potter? Where's Sifu to do this?
By the way, just what the fuck is Dick Cheney doing over in Georgia today?
If American women start to vote MCain/Palin because hey, female vice president and never mind about legal abortions, support for single mothers and hope of real help for working families, Ann Coulter was right and they're too dumb to be allowed to vote, then they'll be voting as poorly as American men, something which they've shown no sign of doing for several generations and don't actually seem to be starting in on now.
Her schtick is the feisty Mom with a good heart who is willing to face down all those big meanie people in power while hiding behind her children in her fortress of mommy momitude.
Assuming I am correct, then the way to counter from a position of power is definitely NOT to attack it.
The way to counter this sneaky attack is with a sneaky attack right back at it. This is what I meant yesterday by a whispering campaign, and the Enquirer seems to be on the job.
See all those other Mommies who will protect her with their own lives when attacked from outside will turn on her themselves and tear her to shreds. You gotta sow jealousy and envy and they'll turn on her in an instant.
In the olden days this was called cat-fighting but that name is sexist so lets just call it fighting fire with fire shall we?
See the thing is I've heard that Palin has done some bad things, being promiscuous (no wonder her daughter is a slut. Did you know that Spears slut sent a baby care package to Palin's daughter? True.) and taking revenge on decent hardworking people like that state trooper. She thinks she's better than the other working Moms. She thinks she can get away with it. She's laughing at all the real working Moms who are trying to do the right thing and make ends meet and maybe buy a little something special for Timmy cause he's a good boy really. Look at Palin's fancy clothes. Look at her smug smiles. Who does she think she is, Queen of America?
See that's what would take her down.
Yeah, it looks like it is raising the specter of earlier ugly debates.
402: I don't know, but he's got a fiddle of gold with him that you might just could win.
Look at Palin's fancy clothes. Look at her smug smiles. Who does she think she is, Queen of America?
I hate Palin's dye job. Those highlights look awful.
I just wanted to get it off my chest.
401 is fucking brilliant. I was going to suggest spreading the rumor she tried to ban "My Pet Goat," but Harry Potter is a billion times better.
Please don't take offense or hate me for what I am going to say. I could be wrong, but this is my guess.
Can I borrow this opener for my next presentation?
408: No, it may be a winning issue. Focus group!
404: She thinks she can say her family is perfect just because she's clawed her way to the top and her money can solve all their problems. Well, not all of us are so lucky, missy. And I wish my husband could stay home with the kids...he does his best, but things just don't come as easy to most families as I guess it does to the Palins.
Since we're talking superficial: McCain should really stop trying to smile. He's obviously straining, and it makes his face look pear-shaped.
162. You know, I've heard good things about the Bridge to Nowhere, from a planning perspective.
Me too. Ketchican is kinda a neat little town. Apparently it's located right up against a cliff, so across the way is the only direction they can expand.
410: Yes, but having tried to ban Harry Potter may get her Emerson's vote.
399- So we know what's happened in the past and since a couple of things are different now, we're not exactly sure what will happen this year.
we've had twice as many volunteers come in today as usual, with half of that 200% saying in so many words that Palin's speech was the catalyst they needed to get off their asses. I have no idea how she plays in mythic Middle America, but she's certainly pissing off a lot of vaguely elderly Ohio women.
415: I was in Ketchican on a cruise. It is a wonderful place.
it makes his face look pear-shaped.
You mean "regal".
By the way, just what the fuck is Dick Cheney doing over in Georgia today?
Trying to precipitate a nuclear war, because that's what vice presidents do all day.
You know I'm not one to spread rumors but doesn't Sarah Palin seem a little, well, uppity to you? Look at her smug smile. She's loving all the attention she is getting. She's slept her way to the top and she's loving it. Oh yeah, you know she's got it made now. Nobody's gonna question anything she does now. She knows she can do whatever she wants and she is loving it.
Wait until McCain dies, then you'll see the real Sarah Palin. She'll be drinking champagne and laughing at all of us behind our backs.
What I remember most from my brief stopover in Ketchican was that a person could buy liquor at 8 on a Sunday morning.
Geez you elitists, Ketchikan has two Ks in it. The reverse-suburban-anti-elitism meme will never spread if we are the propagators.
Yes, ha ha, it's all fun and games until Cheney promises the Georgians America's full support and defense capabilities against Russia----which he is apparently doing today. Not too many details have come up, since all of the reporters in the world are in St. Paul.
There can't be that many reporters in St. Paul. If they were, we would have heard about the warrantless and groundless imprisonment of thousands of people, and the police-state tactics for destroying all records of their excesses.
426: since all of the reporters in the world are in St. Paul.
We are all Wasillans today.
426: since all of the reporters in the world are in St. Paul.
We are all Wasillans today.
dz,
I have no idea how she plays in mythic Middle America, but she's certainly pissing off a lot of vaguely elderly Ohio women.
My guess is that they are picking up on what b first mentioned and what I've been expanding on.
People that have been put down are *very* sensitive to any hint of smugness and really really hate that. Oh man do they hate that.
Smear Palin with smugness and uppitiness and she's done for among that group. And that group just loves to do the grass roots talking too. Oh yes.
Tripp, please stop calling Sarah Palin a slut. If you're doing it as a joke, it's not coming off that way.
#381, 383, 387: Actually, the preferred terminology is "machines of snow".
she's certainly pissing off a lot of vaguely elderly Ohio women
Playing tough is a difficult sell for female politicians in this country. A lot of people will take her as "shrill harpy" (ask Senator Clinton about this one). Not fair in the big picture, certainly, but politics isn't fair.
tripp, knock it off. Don't use "uppity" as an insult, and don't talk about moms like they are a gullible tribe not in the room.
396: Okay, best line from that article is the National Enquirer's self-defense:
"Following our John Edwards exclusives, our political reporting has obviously proven to be more detail-oriented than the McCain campaign's vetting process. Despite the McCain camp's attempts to control press coverage they find unfavorable, The Enquirer will continue to pursue news on both sides of the political spectrum."
There can't be that many reporters in St. Paul. If they were, we would have heard about the warrantless and groundless imprisonment of thousands of people
I'm pretty sure this assumes a different mass media than the one we have.
Jesus Christ Tripp. Despise older women much? They are quite as capable as you of evaluating Palin's politics, and your lameass misogynist imitation of a ladies' gossip session is making you look like a creepy elitist.
And that group just loves to do the grass roots talking too. Oh yes.
I am part of that group, and what I say is fuck you.
There has got to be a target audience in this country for that horrible Nancy Grace woman, for, otherwise, how on earth would she have her own cable show? I don't understand her appeal, even if it's a more complicated viewer-interaction than simply liking her, because Nancy Grace's voice and schtick and affect give me such a headache that I can't even analyse why I hate her so much. But somebody's got to be watching her.
I figure Palin, with her grating voice and heavy-handed sarcastic judgementalism, is aiming for the same crowd.
Actually, the preferred terminology is "machines of snow".
no, that's the political juggernaut smashed by Sarah's mavericity.
I think the title for this thread should have been:
"SPITBAWLS?!?!?!?"
433: THE HIGHEST OFFICE I CAN ASPIRE TO IS SCHOOL BOARD
Chuckle. What a perfect example of why dems lose the elections.
I'm not talking about the empowered feminist women, and for some reason you seem to think that all women are just like you.
Buy a clue, all women are NOT the same you sexist. The women that Sarah Palin appeals to are the ones I am talking about. I am saying how one takes Palin down within that group.
Sheesh.
Hey, the GOP is playing dirty politics by playing the mommy card and you fools are refusing to respond with a dirty tactic. Fine. But if you actually want to win instead of pretending that all women are that same as you and every dirty tactic against any women is an attack against you then go right ahead but you are being manipulated just as much as the GOP women.
They are using you allegiance to women against you. It is as simple as that.
You don't want to play dirty? Then get out of the way and let someone else do the politics, because the GOP is ruining our country and I want to stop it, even if it means telling people like you to swallow some pride and open your frigging eyes.
Geez Tripp, we aren't strategists, why are you telling us what press releases and ads to do? The only thing you are doing with your fantasy-sports cynicism is pissing people off.
what happened to the "The Crazed!"?
Odds that the next comment by Tripp is the "aw I was just kidding" backpedal on all the pointlessly offensive bullshit he's been spewing in his phony-ass "knowing" tone? Currently given at 1.7 to 1 for.
443: Ok, Tripp. We'll just stand back and let you win the election for us with your cunning whispering campaign.
443: Chuckle. What a perfect example of how the patriarchy replicates itself.
Seriously, among the things we shouldn't stoop to are things that directly damage progress towards our long term goals.
You don't want to play dirty? Then get out of the way and let someone else do the politics, because the GOP is ruining our country and I want to stop it.
By wanking in the unfogged comment section? My hero!
I want to make one thing clear - the gullible tribe I am talking about is NOT in this room. If you people don't get that then I think you better re-calibrate your offense-o-meters.
There is a gullible tribe of Moms out there. I'm talking about using a dirty tactic to turn that group against Palin.
If this does not apply to you then guess what, I am not referring to you.
Sheesh people, quit being so damn sensitive and quit looking for insults everywhere you turn. You give empowered women a bad name. If you are truly empowered then you can tell when a real insult comes your way. Most of you hardly ever show up here anyway, so you lack perspective.
For those that do come here I am an on your side and I'm giving you good advice.
Aaaaaand the bet in 445 pays off.
Can I just say that, whatever political disagreements I might have with Gov. Palin, she really deserves credit for her groundbreaking artistic work in her role as the title character in Van Halen's Hot for Teacher video?
Palin has appeal, it was perfectly predictable she would. Spunky, small-town authentic, Mrs. Smith, fightin' mom, all that is real. But that doesn't change the fact that A) she has views most people, and especially most women, disagree with, and B) she's wildly inexperienced and in over her head. The Democrats should publicize the views (and the lies, when she tells them), and the press will expose the over-her-head part. I don't think her magical vagina-possessing! property is going to outweigh those things among women or anybody else.
Also, if you do want to get all psychological about it, Palin has this kind of high school queen-bee quality to her that I don't think makes people want to follow her. Different than the HS QB. But that impression could just be because I hung out with the geeks in HS.
Good speech, entertaining. It's impressive that McCain is running so hard away from Bush.
I'm not kidding about this Sifu, so I guess you lose that bet.
And who gives a rip about all you no-names that flutter in to pile on? What is there, a call to action email that goes out to the "I am an insulted victim' group?
I'm here contributing as best I can and all the sudden there is a flock of lightweights who essentially call names and say "I am offended. Be quiet. You are crazy."
Whiners. Geeze. Drop the victim role.
You give empowered women a bad name. If you are truly empowered then you can tell when a real insult comes your way.
This paragraph is like a circus trick--it's about to swallow itself, or is in the act of swallowing itself. Is there some rhetorical term for this, where the words actually embody the referent?
a dirty tactic
i root for Democrats of course, and usually in sports, for example, someone i root for, wins
my rooting for didn't help Clinton though
so just thought maybe there's a trap, to play according to your principles sticking to the issues only and loose (hopefully you'll win) or play dirty and loose your self-respect
all you no-names that flutter in to pile on?
Attempts to pull rank as a higher status commenter are (1) generally deprecated, and (2) given who you're arguing with, kind of ridiculous.
So, just to check, here, rob, mcmc, Wrongshore, peter, peep and, presumably, myself, are "no-names" and "lightweights"?
And you are, I guess, further pointing to the fact that you kill more time on unfogged as evidence of... what, exactly? Your superior political instincts?
Really, it's a whole cascade of winning formulas you're working with, there. Good luck getting elected dogcatcher.
I'm here contributing as best I can and all the sudden there is a flock of lightweights who essentially call names and say "I am offended. Be quiet. You are crazy."
Who's whining now?
I'm here contributing as best I can and all the sudden there is a flock of lightweights who essentially call names and say "I am offended. Be quiet. You are crazy."
New mouseover text!
No one's offended, Tripp. People are saying you're an asshole. There's a difference.
An asshole and and idiot, to be fair.
pointing to the fact that you kill more time on unfogged as evidence of... what, exactly? Your superior political instincts?
I've been waiting MY ENTIRE FUCKING LIFE for a social setting where pointless procrastination increases social status, and now Sifu is trying to ruin it? Shut the fuck up!
it's a true curse to be Catholic, of course: the cloying, sickly-sweet scent of the incense; the cheerful brutality of the alcoholic uncles; the way you'd kneel before a statue of Our Lady and want your whole life to be washed away and beg forgiveness for what you had done and what you had failed to do when you were only five fucking years old
This should be the first paragraph of someone's novel.
456,457; Come on, Tripp has to be joking now.
(Maybe, it's part of the joke that the more we insist he's joking, the more he'll act offended. That could be funny)
You should all cut Tripp some slack. If Sarah Palin were your mother, you'd be taking this thread personally, too.
456,457; Come on, Tripp has to be joking now.
He's always joking. Yet he's always serious. Ooh, it's a mystery! Dude must be deep.
He's always joking. Yet he's always serious.
This is the nature of the Tao.
So anyway, the speech now is over. If you didn't see it, what you see is the media coverage. And on the Yahoo homepage, which is (dozens of millions of?) people's homepage, the top headline is not actual coverage, but meta:
RNC speeches fact-checked: Sarah Palin and her fellow RNC speakers weren't completely truthful at times.
And then below it, two other headlines:
* Obama, Biden remarks fact-checked
* Media bias against Palin suspected
Did anyone link to this yet?
In two different focus groups of Clinton-supporting Nevada women -- married and unmarried -- conducted immediately after Gov. Sarah Palin's Wednesday night speech to the Republican National Convention, a few common reactions quickly took shape.
First, women in both groups were impressed with Palin's speaking ability and poise. But they were hardly convinced that she was qualified to be vice president, or that she truly represented the "change" they were looking for, especially in light of what was deemed an overly harsh "sarcasm" pervading her address... in both groups, narrow majorities said they held a more negative view of Palin after her speech.
Her next children will be named Brick, Thud, Splat, Moresby, and Brisbane. Guess which are male.
Steinem's op-ed told me something I didn't know:
Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax.
From the last headline story in #470:
Over half of U.S. voters (51%) think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November.
That's what you get for ripping on someone's mom, punks.
what was deemed an overly harsh "sarcasm"
See comment 433.
The Tripp that can be known is not the true Tripp.
Sifu,
rob, mcmc, Wrongshore, peter, peep
Things have been clarified for me. What would you call a group of people who drop by to call me an asshole and then leave?
Sifu, you stick around long enough to have a conversation and discussion. From what I can see the others make a special point to come here and make insults and that is about it.
If that is all you've got I think the term light-weight is applicable but maybe you have a better term for it.
And Gaijin, I'm against Palin, not for her. Sheesh.
And don't jump down Tripp's throat. His comments come from an entertainingly different world view, an imagined world of bitchy 1950s small-town sewing circles , and I for one found them quite amusing. Hence they're a contribution. This place conflicts with my libertarian blog-commenting values.
Much like Abu Dhabi and Equatorial Guinea, Alaska has no need for taxes.
I did not realize before how odd Alaska is, and now I want to spread the word.
455: usually in sports, for example, someone i root for, wins
Elitist!
470: Hell, that isn't meta, the first link is fucking brilliant. They just tear through every misleading point.
Over half of U.S. voters (51%) think reporters are trying to hurt Sarah Palin with their news coverage, and 24% say those stories make them more likely to vote for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in November.
What, out of spite? "I'll show you to investigate the potential veep's past!".
People are idiots.
472 - the crowd that loves to make cracks about black people naming their kids Propecia or Lemonjello is conspicuously silent about the odd names of the Palin kids. Why couldn't she have given the real American names like Deondre or Pocahontas?
#477: I know you're against her. But with a name like Tripp, I figure you're another one of her kids that she had somewhere along the line and just hasn't owned up to yet.
471: exactly, exactly!
See, despite evidence to the contrary, the American people are not totally useless idiots.
From what I can see the others make a special point to come here and make insults and that is about it.
Well, maybe you should pay more attention.
Counterpunch I want to see from Team Obama (though not the candidates, and maybe it should be anonymous):
"It was good to see Governor Palin give a competent red-meat speech at the RNC. Nobody likes beating up on an old man, especially one who served his country as gallantly as John McCain did so long ago. Gov. Palin is a member of and a sop to the Bush base of the Republican party that still can't think of a mistake made by President Bush, and we mean to point that out at every opportunity."
I have a funny feeling that those 24% correlate quite closely to the group of voters who could not actually be any more likely to vote for McCain than they already were. "Before, there was a 100% likelihood, now I am 200% sure! Now I am off to put in my usual 300% effort at work today."
#483: I thought those urban legends presented as fact were the worst part of Freakonomics.
Now here's what I call a Vice Presidential pick!
Thwacka-thwacka-thwacka-thwacka, my friends.
483: Ta-Nehisi Coates has a hilarious post today about how he can't quite puzzle out the white-person folkways that determine when a particular name is "ghetto".
473: as a matter of fact, she's a tax raiser; she pushed through a windfall tax on oil companies so she could cut even bigger annual checks to the ruggedly self-reliant people of Alaska.
PGD,
I think there was a certain amount of evidence for the existence of this other world-view during last night's convention.
I agree that world-view is flawed and delusional but I also think that parts of the GOP base pretty much has that flawed and delusional world view.
My overall point was that within that flawed and delusional world view here is how to take down Palin.
I certainly don't endorse or remotely share that world-view but you know what - I have actually seen small town Bridge Club behavior and they do have much of that world-view. It was not a sewing circle but it seemed to have a similar function.
How can Alaska have no state income or sales tax? How do they maintain basic services and amenities? Federal money?
488 is right. I suspect that 24% is mostly a subset of the 27% Crazification Factor cohort.
493: That plus oil taxes, I believe.
the gullible tribe I am talking about is NOT in this room.
This is not a good argument. It is like the frat boy racist who says "I'm not making fun of all blacks, just niggers." (And no, I didn't like it when Chris Rock tried that move either.)
OTOH, I just spoke with a long time lurker who takes tripps side.
If you want to propagate misogynist memes against Palin, the target audience shouldn't be some imagined segment of ambivalent women, but the actual voter segments that respond to sexist appeal, namely men.
Specifically, if Hillary Clinton (as the right-wing trope goes) reminds every man of his first wife, I submit that Palin reminds them of that stuck up bitch who thought she was all that--or, at least, she could if the meme were propagated with sufficient force.
Sarah Palin: the girl who smiled sweetly and flirted when she wanted a ride in your car, but then ignored you all night at the party.
Propecia or Lemonjello
There's a reversal-- Keneisha, LaShonda, Hayley, Hayden, and Jordan are all girls.
Trig, Kick (surname Gurry, a pointless celebrity), Andre, and Calvin are all boys.
Gaijin,
For the record 'Tripp' is a nickname from my old and established and well-respected southern family. My given name was Griffin Lyle so you can understand why I took the nickname.
You can image how much I disliked Linda Tripp and what she brought to the name. Ugh.
I can't wait to hear that now that the GOP has a heterosexual pairing for P/VP, the DNC pairing looks... kinda gay. I also can't wait to hear John McCain slip up and start barking orders to Palin like she's one of his lackeys. McCain the Maverick's never had to have a partner before. He's used to interacting the way dogs do---either dominate totally or roll over and show your belly.
That plus oil taxes, I believe.
Technically, oil royalties. A royalty is TOTALLY different from a tax, you see, because it's levied by a Republican government.
You know who must really be nervous about a possible McCain win? The Vietnamese. I can see it now, in their politburo or whatever they have there:
Party Official A: Hey, remember that dude we tortured the snot out of for five years a couple decades back?
Party Official B: Yeah, so?
Party Official A: Well, he's old and cranky now, still calls us "gooks", and is about to be put in control of the largest nuclear arsenal in the world.
Party Official B: Fuck.
What would you call a group of people who drop by to call me an asshole and then leave?
My friends and acquaintances. You?
I realize that her novelty accounts for part of Palin's high profile at the moment, but I can see McCain having some difficulty stepping out of her shadow, because he's kind of a dullard. Good, bad? I don't know.
Speaking of dullards, there's a Stanford economist on the radio right now agreeing with some yahoo who accused Obama of being a Marxist. What kind of school employs such boneheads?
To take Tripp's argument seriously for a second, you can't target over-the-top misogynistic nastiness to just a small market. I'm sure a couple of hundred women somewhere would really go for it, but the other 100 million are going to be pissed when Fox News starts screening the ads for them.
Just publicize the damn book banning thing and let everybody draw their own conclusions.
He's used to interacting the way dogs do---either dominate totally or roll over and show your belly.
The formulation I've heard of this is "Either at your feet, or at your throat."
The more effective whisper strategy is probably just repeating the Heathers/Tracy Flick comparison. Because Palin really does give off that vibe, right down to the high school cadence of her speaking and the too-cute-by-half crinkle of her nose when she delivers an applause line.
Knecht, Tripp: cut it out. Thinking of high-school bitch stereotypes is going to be done for you by those actual sexist cretins who are still making up their voting minds. You don't have to wander around doing your best sexist cretin imitation for the next two months. No matter how fun it feels to you to say that shit, it makes the women and non-sexist men here really angry.
Knecht,
the actual voter segments that respond to sexist appeal, namely men.
In my opinion it is not just men who respond to sexist arguments. I don't like it, but I think it is true. Some of the most vicious sexists (meaning sexists against women) I've seen have been women, and it is usually done with a fake smile.
I know this is cliche. I know. I've seen it with my own eyes though, and as a man it is very hard to counter it.
#500: I think Griffin Lyle is an awesome name, whereas Tripp just sounds like you're trying too hard to be a cool tough guy. But to each his own, etc.
Speaking of dullards, there's a Stanford economist on the radio right now agreeing with some yahoo who accused Obama of being a Marxist. What kind of school employs such boneheads?
The Hoover Institution?
504: Stanford, the U. of Chicago, George Mason U., Oral Roberts U., Bob Jones U.
Some of the most vicious sexists (meaning sexists against women) I've seen have been women, and it is usually done with a fake smile.
True or false, why are you suggesting we craft our arguments to appeal to vicious sexists of either sex? This seems (a) counterproductive, and (b) evil, to me.
Anal Roberts U., on the other hand..... oh, never mind.
tripp, you are right, women can be the most dreadful misogynists.
In any case, my SO just described this thread as "a bunch of people hatin' on Sarah Palin for 400 comments, and then suddenly when one person hates on her, and gets called misogynist."
I going back to not talking about Palin at all.
Is there a way to write a little script that will make my computer give a warning beep every time I type "Palin"?
AWB,
I respect you. I'm not going to dwell on this. For the record it wasn't fun for me to say those things. I did not like my observations. I really am on the side of empowered women and I could have made my points without using offensive language.
I apologize for that.
511: Awesome. He's right there on the homepage.
513: As long as it's said by surrogates only lightly connected to the Obama campaign, we can argue that it's wrong to hold him responsible in any way for it.
Is there a way to write a little script that will make my computer give a warning beep every time I type "Palin"?
"catty-like typing detected"?
I think both Tripp and Griffin are awesome names. One of Caroline and Joey's little friends is named Griffen. He's a sweet kid.
For the record it wasn't fun for me to say those things.
I...just...forget it.
He's used to interacting the way dogs do---either dominate totally or roll over and show your belly.
McCain is definitely not the type to show his belly. Psychologically, I think the maverick thing has something to it. He did a lot to try and fuck around with Bush for years after Bush screwed him over in 2000, and the two clearly still don't like each other. It was only when he realized that he could be President that he really started going along with the party line. And now his whole campaign is built around that maverick/rebel/shake up the system act that he's clearly most comfortable with.
Thing is, it's a cult of maverick personality -- there's no underlying policy vision beyond toughness, the default Republican line of endless tax cuts and endless wars is all there is. A big difference between the Republican and Democratic conventions is that the Democratic convention was completely plugged in to a positive policy vision that is rich, traditionally Democratic, and should play well this year. The Republican thing is all bio/personality, with a side of threadbare, played out red-baiting.
The formulation I've heard of this is "Either at your feet, or at your throat."
I don't think I've heard this before, but it's nice and pithy and sort of midcentury Britishy sounding, just like lots of novels that I like more than I should.
And now his whole campaign is built around that maverick/rebel/shake up the system act that he's clearly most comfortable with.
Umm, what? Palin is the base-approved pick he took when he was told that his first couple of choices (Lieberman, Ridge) would revolt. Morever, she was picked over more obvious female candidates because, as moderates, they were all seen as too unfriendly to the Bush base.
This article makes Palin look like a good replacement for Cheney.
525: But what aspect of her image was she pushing last night? Her ideological alignment with the base is a given to them, and it's not something they're ever going to have to bring up. Meanwhile, "thanks, but no thanks!"
Palin has this kind of high school queen-bee quality to her that I don't think makes people want to follow her.
Mean girls. Nasty, and not in that call-me-Miss Jackson kind of way.
513: because vicious sexists get a vote too? The Civil Rights Act and associated stuff was morally the right thing to do, but it clearly gave the South to the Republicans and kicked off their period of ascent we hear so much about.
The formulation I've heard of this is "Either at your feet, or at your throat."
The German language, unsurprisingly, has a wonderfully evocative expression for this: Radfahrertyp ("bike-rider type"), meaning someone who genuflects to those above him and stomps on those below him.
But what aspect of her image was she pushing last night? Her ideological alignment with the base is a given to them, and it's not something they're ever going to have to bring up.
You're not suggesting that Democrats actually campaign for the Presidency, are you? A bit gauche, my friend, a bit gauche. But maybe just this once we'll try it.
English does too: bureaucrat. This behavior is SOP within any hierarchy.
English does too: bureaucrat.
I thought you were going to go with "German."
You know who must really be nervous about a possible McCain win? The Vietnamese.
This is 100%, diametrically wrong. McCain, to his enormous credit, was instrumental in neutralizing the taboo on normal relations with Vietnam. Along with John Kerry, he was one of the leading advocates of rapprochement in Washington, which is one reason the crazified faction of Vietnam Vets (led by the "they never released our POWs" crowd) hates both of them.
BTW: The teleprompter did not in fact break or get way behind last night as reported somewhere above.
True, there was a report on NPR this morning about McCain's Vietnamese supporters. The guy who got the most airtime spoke well of him but obviously knew bupkis about his politics.
525: you're drawing too sharp a dichotomy. Palin is the intersection of two different things -- McCain's personal need to see himself as rebellious, new, shaking up the system, and his practical need to satisfy the pro-life social conservative wing of the party. I think she genuinely satisfies both needs.
All I'm saying is that the first need is very real and McCain is not a submissive type at all. Never has been. He's willing to sell out to win this thing, in part because he doesn't give a damn about the policy content, but that's different. He can see the chance to be the most powerful man on earth, but at core he's curmudgeonly and independent and doesn't like authority one bit. He probably chose Palin in a fit of a pique when he realized he couldn't make it without the Rove-ites. On a psychological level it's just really odd to describe him as nothing but a standard mid-level bureaucratic bully who brown-noses up all the time.
He's trying to sell independence as a good in itself, but McCain isn't independent *in the name of* anything. He has no causes besides his image of his own honor and nobility (except perhaps the U.S. military tradition, he really believes in that). That's why it was so easy for him to sell out on tax cuts, torture, on and on in order to get elected.
530 - I think the McCain doggy dynamic is somewhat different from the "kiss up kick down" personality. Guys like John Bolton (who was the person about whom I first heard "kiss up kick down" used) need hierarchy in order to feel comfortable, but once they know where they are they're pretty comfortable. I think McCain needs to be at the top, and if he's to be somewhere other than the top he requires regular smackdowns.
534: NPR had interviews this morning with a large number of Vietnamese, about their opinions on the American presidential race. Many supported McCain precisely because of the rapprochement with Vietnam, and this included people involved with his capture and captivity. Others supported Obama. They all sounded so well informed about the election I couldn't decide if they were Vietnamese-Americans or just Vietnamese. (I missed the opening of the segment.)
In the end I figured that if they were well informed, they can't be living here.
I seriously believe that the messy middle of Undecideds will be settled by emotional whatnot, but taking for granted that nasty sexism is the way to get there is wrong and potentially extremely alienating (and how we got into the HRC revolt). But let's think about the emotional stuff that's already there.
Obama and Biden are comfortable with each other. They both have smart, capable, supportive spouses and heart-flutteringly cute interactions with their kids (and grandkids). They seem to know and support one another in a genuine way based on years of working together, and they have clear outlines for policies, mixed with pleas that touch the heart of every fantasy about what America is and can be. Biden comes off as a smart, proud uncle supporting a wildly talented and good-hearted nephew.
McCain and Palin met each other briefly a year ago and just started being in each other's presence full-time this week. They look awkward together, and McCain doesn't know where to put his eyes or what to do with his hands. He's clearly nervous around her, and she makes him look a thousand years old, and not in a cute grandpa-type way. Everyone basically hates or fears Cindy McCain, who is so literally brittle a handshake put her wrist in a giant cast all summer. Palin is a little too much like a woman who lives on your block who pretends to want to be your friend, but is constantly trying to get you to go to church, even though her family situation makes you roll your eyes at her pointed piety. McCain's children are not in the picture for some reason (Meghan's an Obama fan) and Palin's are way too busy with their own crises and childcare for her to throw themselves into campaigning.
Also remember that it was the evangelicals who got McCain in the hotseat before. Remember Hagee? Palin sounds like an evangelical exactly in the Hagee mold. Her pastor equates Jesus with the President, and there's probably a long and solid history there of bashing Catholics and Mormons (which all evangelical protestant pastors do, even the nice ones) and talking crazy talk about End Times. Her abortion/birth-control/sex-ed policy is a million miles removed from the majority of Americans, and even pretty extreme for a pro-lifer. (My mom's an extreme pro-lifer, does volunteer work, etc., but she would never ban birth control, sex ed for high schoolers, or abortion in cases of rape or incest. She's also on the fence about criminalization.) Also, Palin is going to be eviscerated in any kind of interview or debate. She has a nervous habit of saying "cool" and "dude" when she's not sure what to say, trying to sound young and flirty, and that makes people INSANE WITH RAGE. Watch the news networks rip her to tiny shreds. They're hungry for someone it's OK to look smarter than, and they know Palin was chosen so that when the SS McCain finally goes under, only one random-ass Republican's career will have been trashed. 2012 is their only focus now.
||
Quote of the day, from Jack Abramoff, about to be sentenced: "I am not a bad man." Dude, maybe you should wear a different-colored hat.
|>
Glenn Greenwald calls for personal attacks.
531: Huh?
If they don't bring it up, we can. It's not like there isn't tons of evidence.
All I'm saying is that the first need is very real and McCain is not a submissive type at all. Never has been. He's willing to sell out to win this thing, in part because he doesn't give a damn about the policy content, but that's different.
Virtue, vice. The choice can be characterized in any way by anyone with a tongue to do it, but he's behaving in the same way as any Republican candidate with the Republican base would. As Mike Murphy noted on the live mike, this is how you run a Texas election, and not the McCain the McCainiacs expected.
538 is good, and like I said earlier in the summer, it explains a lot of McCain's quirks. Have a campaign run by lobbyist despite asserting your hatred for lobbyists? It's because you're The Maverick, and would never be influenced. Willing to torpedo your chances in 2000 by speaking truth to power about the religious right? Maverick! Willing to crawl back to them in 2008? You're not really crawling back, because you're a Maverick! Write a piece of campaign finance legislation that pisses off your party? Maverick! Evade it later? You're The Maverick -- it's not about you, it's about other people!
McCain's hyper-aggressive self-confidence was one of the reasons he was so attractive to me and many other people without a great deal of enthusiasm for his policy positions in 2000.
Yeah, I read 542 like three times, and felt a little more reassured each time.
544: interestingly, he's calling for the Democrats to stop treating voters as purely rational actors and to acknowledge that they have emotional, cultural, and otherwise "irrational" desires. Who are these Democratic political thinkers, economists?
If they don't bring it up, we can. It's not like there isn't tons of evidence.
Oh, yes, I was going to add something about that. By the looks of Obama's abortion ad, we already are.
McCain's hyper-aggressive self-confidence was one of the reasons he was so attractive to me and many other people without a great deal of enthusiasm for his policy positions in 2000.
Maybe some (military) surrogate goes with, "The Vietnamese couldn't break him, but the Republican base just did."
Here's an odd little entry in the culture wars in the form of a letter to the editor of the Washington Post:
The possibility of our vice president being a mother of five is ridiculous Motherhood is the most important role a woman can fill. If a woman doesn't believe so, she should not have five children and then let someone else raise them. Is motherhood not rewarding enough for Sarah Palin?
It goes on like that.
McCain's hyper-aggressive self-confidence was one of the reasons he was so attractive to me and many other people
Really? You didn't just think -- "what a colossal prick?"
552: real? or the work of some sinister democratic rat-fucker attempting to alienate the base? Sifu, have you been writing to the Post again?
553: it seemed for a little while like he was mostly interested in being a colossal prick to Republicans.
I'm scratching my head trying to figure out why 498 was beyond the pale (according to AWB's 508), but 542 is to be celebrated for its penetrating psychological insight.
"[T]rying to sound young and flirty, and that makes people INSANE WITH RAGE" is mining a vein of sexism just as surely as anything I suggested. I suppose AWB can claim to be writing purely descriptively rather than prescriptively, but I don't see much of a difference in this case.
[/defensive]
Well, one obvious reason is that 508 and 542 are written by the same person, but I imagine you're asking for some reason beyond the trivial.
How about: a passing comment on how Palin's demeanor might play in a debate doesn't really compare to a series of comments about how she's an uppity bitch?
(Just sayin'. Please don't punch me when I come to your house Saturday.)
Use more words, Knecht. Safety in numbers, all that.
McCain has known her for one solid week and can say, without a doubt, Palin would never, ever have an affair. Never. Ever.
Really? You didn't just think -- "what a colossal prick?"
Not really - I mean, he was running against George W. Bush, and I simply didn't know much about the man at the time other than McCain-Feingold (which has turned out to be a ginormous clusterfuck; the Reasonoids were, in fact, correct). Speaking out against "agents of intolerance" was enormously appealing to me. Even though I didn't trust Gore (which I felt validated in when he picked Lieberman), I probably wouldn't have voted for McCain in the general, but I would have considered it, particularly because then as now his base in the media does a terrific job softpeddling how anti-choice and nascent-authoritarian he is.
557: not that it particularly matters, but "uppity" and "stuck up" are VERY different accusations.
556: I don't think it's sexist to suggest that when a politician sidesteps content by acting as young and inexperienced as possible while trying to seem unnervingly flirty, people get frustrated. I didn't suggest that they were frustrated because, just like that bitch in high school, she didn't go on to fuck them.
So is the problem for voters going to be that Palin is avoiding content and issues by flirting, or that she doesn't fuck them after flirting with them? I'm going to go with the former, because even vicious misogynists are not necessarily insane.
re: 561
Yeah, well compared to Bush who is basically the ur-prick he looks great.
I suspect machismo* of any kind in politicians just doesn't really play well with me. It just pushes all the wrong buttons.
* particularly the false machismo that is by far the commonest type.
"uppity" and "stuck up" are VERY different accusations
What about stuck uppity?
Around 1962-3 when Democrats were talking about nominating McCain as a Democrat, I referred to it as the "submissive wetting strategy". Just go to your opponent who seems nicest and try to ingratiate yourself with him by abasing yourself.
This isn't particularly on-topic at the moment, but this is the active election thread, so:
The good news in all this is that there is a respectable news outlet that simply won't give Palin a pass. The Anchorage Daily News is playing things very straight, and that makes it a lot harder for the national press to sweep everything under the rug. Not that they can't or won't, but when the fact checking is right there on a silver platter, it gets harder for them to hand-wave it with a "Well, we looked into it, and opinions differ." All it takes is one national outlet running with the stuff that the ADN is putting out to make the other nationals look incompetent.
1962-3 when Democrats were talking about nominating McCain as a Democrat
Um, what?
2002-3. Not before you were born.
568: don't interrupt grandpa John's stories.
Actually, I think that poaching McCain in the early aughts would have been a fine move for the Dems. At the time McCain was solidly identified, in the public mind and in the press, as the anti-Bush, and as the conscience of the Republicans/American politics/whatever. So the message wouldn't have been - as it is whenever a D president selects an R for a national security post - that Dems needs Rs to be serious; it would have been that serious Rs belong in the Dem party.
Not to mention, of course, that it would have neutered his presidential ambitions.
I think both Tripp and Griffin are awesome names. One of Caroline and Joey's little friends is named Griffen. He's a sweet kid.
Thanks, I guess, but I think that sweet kid is gonna have to learn to fight.
I don't want that. I'm just saying.
572: Not if McCain, who is hard right, had ended up having any influence in the Democratic Party.
In the Republican Party of today, you count as independent and enlightened if you have any reality sense at all, and if you aren't Karl Rove's zombie slave. Even at his best there wasn't really much good about McCain.
513: because vicious sexists get a vote too? The Civil Rights Act and associated stuff was morally the right thing to do, but it clearly gave the South to the Republicans and kicked off their period of ascent we hear so much about.
Yeah, sad but true. Here is my answer to LB:
It depends. Do you want to be pure and right or do you want to run this country?
This is a serious question. This is a tough choice.
Personally I'm willing to appeal to the bad side of some people's nature if that gets my guy elected.
Politics is a dirty business, there is absolutely no doubt about it. It always has been and it always will be. Power corrupts.
If this was a nice TV drama there would be an easy ending but this is politics in the real world of today, bad as it is.
Do you want to be pure and right or do you want to run this country? This is a serious question. This is a tough choice.
My interpretation of LB's position is that she sees no contradiction between doing the right thing (refraining from bogus sexist imprecations against Palin) and winning the election. Moreover, she thinks it would be positively counterproductive to try to take the low road on this one.
Anyway, I'm surprised to see Tripp making the argument from political necessity (surprised, but encouraged; maybe in the future he won't find it damnably impure to run on a platform that doesn't explicitly call for voluntarily reducing American living standards to Third World levels).
This struck me as essential:Chris Matthrews is always wrong, & opposed to our interests. Like Republicans Barnett & Sullivan & Cole, the MSM should never be accepted as even tempoary allies.
the blogosphere needs to learn not, not ever, follow the Village-Americans in their narratives. The Village attacked her person as a way of seeing if she would play on a national stage, to see if she had the June Cleaver Teflon. Having made it through this, the Village-Americans, and even their British counter-parts, are now throwing themselves at the latest Republican creation. Palin is not going to be dragged down, but lifted up after having been knocked, and not too hard.
Palin is proof that politics has not changed, that we are given the average between a soft Reaganite like Obama, a bankruptcy bill loving Biden, and a warhead McCain, and extremist Palin. This covers the American political spectrum from about L to X, and thus averages, where it has for some time, on R.
And that's why I trust & respect Newberry more than the so-called liberal bloggers who try to tell me, or hell even believe themselves, that Obama is a progressive.
493: New Hampshire lacked both income taxes and sales taxes for a while. The property taxes were fierce though, and the school funding was extra specially inequitable.
My interpretation of LB's position is that she sees no contradiction between doing the right thing (refraining from bogus sexist imprecations against Palin) and winning the election.
That's about right. There are some bad things I'd do to avoid what I saw as worse outcomes, but I just don't see a strong argument that sexist nonsense directed at Palin is necessary, or even helpful, to win the election. If I were convinced of the truth of such an argument, I'd have to do some hard lesser-of-two-evils thinking, but I'm not.
She does have one obvious qualification for the vice-presidency: she's shorter than John McCain.
Not if McCain, who is hard right, had ended up having any influence in the Democratic Party.
I meant to say: I don't think he would have. I think he would have gotten to lead (and get great press) on the mavericky things he likes that Dems want to do*; I think he wouldn't have cared about the vast majority of issues, voting with the Dems when they needed it and none of his glory was at stake, publicly breaking with Dems when it would stoke his ego but not much harm them. Once he's jumped, he's anathema to the Rs, so he has to go along to get along WRT parliamentary stuff.
It's not that I don't recognize how hard right he is and was; it's just that he is, ultimately, not much more than a self-aggrandizing pundit, and, in a Jeffords-like role, I think he ends up being neutered as far as actual policy is concerned. And I think that the optics stuff is a net gain for the Dems - yes, he'd be a Lieberman-like thorn on occasion, but it's not like he costs them a liberal seat, and the message that the Dems are the serious party for serious patriots would far outweigh him going off-message occasionally.
* Further, I think his bipartisan bills would have ended up being more liberal than they were IRL - Dems would get more influence in shaping them, and it's not like he cares about details
KR,
Would you care to unwind the negatives in your last sentence? I'm not sure what you are accusing me of.
I think it is debatable whether taking the low road would be counter-productive in this case, especially if one took the low road behind the scenes.
Negative campaigns work, and they work best when they can be disavowed. All that slimy human nature at your disposal with none of it sticking to your candidate.
Shoot, in the weird distorted fictional 1950s world-view that is the way to get your slimy jollies while claiming virtue.
And as long as I'm on my high horse in the current weird 2008 world-view a similar thing is happening with globalization. We get our low low prices and ignore how we get them. We ignore the fact that Santa's elves are really the world's poor making our toys. Well, the poor and machines, which we had no guilt over, but global businesses figured our the world's poor are even cheaper than using automation.
Moreover, she thinks it would be positively counterproductive to try to take the low road on this one.
I think she's right, but the open questions are (a) to what extent is that wishful thinking on both our parts, and (b) if it is, what follows? In any case, it's a factual disagreement between Trip and LB that can't easily be settled, so resolution is hard.
LizardBreath,
I agree that it is a judgment call. I'm just kinda mad that my assessment of the past two elections turned out to be wrong, so this time I'm more in the camp of 'do everything helpful just in case.'
As I said earlier though, there are others who are on the job in this case, so we don't have to personally get dirty. The paid TV and print shills can bleat all they want but if the National Enquirer actually gets some dirt people are gonna read it no matter what.
As easily as this has become the old debate over whether we should use dirty tactics, the original tactic in question doesn't make much sense—smearing Palin as uppity when that's all the right is doing to Obama? It's not even a plausibly effective attack on its face.
Speaking of 'uppity', meet Georgia representative Lynn Westmoreland.
Surprisingly, the Newberry link in 578 is actually really good. The point is that Palin needs to be attacked on her politics, which I think is exactly right.
(don't judge it by the McManus' excerpt calling Obama a Reaganite...that's silly. Politically Obama's right around the Clintons, and if you can't tell the Clintons are to the left of Reagan then you shouldn't be commenting on American politics).
587: Grievance trap. Don't fall in.
Grievance trap. Don't fall in.
He didn't. The article notes that the Obama campaign did not note any racial overtones in the phrase.
I think we also learned during the primaries that when your candidates' supporters are nastily sexist, women are less likely to care about voting for your candidate. Republucans don't have much stake in the black vote, so they don't mind courting racists. Women are pretty important for securing the Democratic vote, so trolling for misogynists is pretty fucking unwise.
589: Making fun of him as cluelessly mannerless isn't falling in, right? "Heh, there's someone who doesn't know that calling a black man 'uppity' makes you sound like a Klan member. What a pathetic bozo!" Not from the campaign, but I think that's mockworthy.
589: No need to. Speaks for itself, I think.
591: I think everyone--with the possible exception of Tripp--agrees with that. However you want to divide it--women, white women, white women who aren't young--the group is so huge that no side can really afford to anger it.
Even Tripp might agree; he might be arguing that there are sub-segments of that group that can be attacked without angering other parts of it. I'm suspicious about how deft we are about making those sorts of subgroup attacks, especially among a huge group. Further, I'm even more suspicious of male abilities to see the appropriate fault lines here. If there are to be attacks of this sort, let women suggest them and perform them. Mostly, I think we just stay away from those attacks. Certainly guys should.
Thinking of high-school bitch stereotypes is going to be done for you by those actual sexist cretins who are still making up their voting minds. You don't have to wander around doing your best sexist cretin imitation for the next two months. No matter how fun it feels to you to say that shit, it makes the women and non-sexist men here really angry.
Personally, I have been avoiding the whole 'she's a woman' thing. It has been bugging me all week, from the first picture I saw of her: 'She looks like....She looks like...huh. She looks like...hrmmm.' However, it finally connected when I watched the speech, and calling her a Heather is not the right description. She looks like a porn star. [Thus the joke.] The fake glasses, the affected bun, the slightly off taste in suits, the possible surgery, and the biggest thing of all, the fake tan (in Alaska?!). Straight out of every fuck loop ever made involving a 'teacher'. Or straight off the Fox News desk.
Kay Bailey Hutchinson does not look like a porn star. Or a Fox News anchor.
And she knows what she looks like; the glasses are fine tuning to allow her to get away with the tan. In turn, her appearance is exactly why McCain picked her, and why most women seem to hate her, unless they buy into the whole 'she's a good Christian woman' act. Which is going to come apart at the seams when the affairs start coming out.
Personally, I'd be fine with a porn star in the White House if she knew what she was doing, because perhaps then this country would remove the stick out of its ass. Palin, on the other hand, is clearly far more ambitious than talented from the evidence.
Ergo, forget attacking her and stay on McCain, because that's where the weakness is. The reporters are apparently going to carry the ball on Palin. (Shock! Horror!) After they lose, she'll eventually turn up on a reality TV show in a year or two, since I expect that's her real vocation, show business.
Nobody likes beating up on an old man, especially one who served his country as gallantly as John McCain did so long ago.
John McCain is a lying, two-faced maniac who wants to blow up the world. Kick the living shit out of him. If he's that tough, it won't matter, and if he isn't, the whole POW thing is just a bunch of bullshit.
max
['What is this respecting John McCain crap? Make it go away!']
If there are to be attacks of this sort, let women suggest them and perform them
Where's HRC today?
Making fun of him as cluelessly mannerless isn't falling in, right? "Heh, there's someone who doesn't know that calling a black man 'uppity' makes you sound like a Klan member. What a pathetic bozo!"
My own opinion is that reminding people, even indirectly, that Obama's black and that African-Americans have ever complained about anything--language, segregation, slavery--amounts to falling in. At a minimum, I think there are a lot of people who think, "I don't always know what words are considered 'racist.' Gawd, I hate black people and PC liberals." I wouldn't complain/mention/make jokes about it, just as I would think it a mistake to make a big deal about people calling Obama articulate.
595: Jesus Christ, max. What the fuck. She's a perfectly ordinary looking attractive middle-aged woman; lay the fuck off her appearance.
Making fun of him as cluelessly mannerless isn't falling in, right?
Only two problems with that: It really was racist, and salt-of-the-earth American voters don't like you elitists mocking them for their stupidity.
Where's HRC today?
Dunno. But there are other women in the party. Or so I've been told. If they aren't doing it, I assume it's because they don't think that's a great strategy after all. I think we should follow their lead.
Here is some information about Sarah Barracuda that sounds believable and is from a woman:
Anne Kilkenny
Westmoreland is the guy on Colbert who couldn't remember more than about three of the ten commandments, right?
I'm wishing that the Obama campaign (and the media, but you know, as if) would get going on Palin's lying, hypocrisy and incompetence. There's enough there to take her gender and her family off the table.
smearing Palin as uppity when that's all the right is doing to Obama? It's not even a plausibly effective attack on its face.
I regret using the word uppity. That was my bad.
Nope. Read the link in 601. Her highschool nickname or Sarah Barracuda is genius because it came from people who knew her well and who had no ethics to hold them back.
Sarah Barracuda has made enemies, even in her own party, and you just know some people will want to air their grievances.
597: Is there any line? I mean 'boy' and 'uppity' are lot closer to 'nigger' than they are to 'articulate,' and I assume that if a Member of Congressman referred to Obama as a n***** we'd be allowed to refer to it.
Or is it 1947 again, and they can headhunt Jackie Robinson all they want, and he just needs to be the Stoic Race Man?
What AWB said in 591. And just to be clear: women are not a significant minority within the Democratic voting public. They are in fact the majority of the Democratic voting public. To put it another way, there are more female than male voters who consistently and reliably vote for the Democratic candidate.
2004 gender gap (warning: .PDF document):
The gender gap in the 2004 presidential election was not produced by the votes of any particular subgroup of women. Rather, the gender gap is evident in almost all segments of the electorate. Across many different demographic categories, women less often than men voted for George W. Bush. (See the table below.) For all voters, the gender gap - the difference between the proportion of women and the proportion of men voting for the winning candidate, George W. Bush - was 7 percentage points according to Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International Exit Polls. When compared with men who shared their demographic characteristics, women of different races, ages, marital status, and levels of education less often than men voted for George W. Bush and more often voted for John Kerry. Similarly, women who considered themselves independents and who lived in the suburbs were less likely than men who shared those characteristics to cast a vote for the Republican candidate.
Lots more on the gender gap in electoral politics here.
Using tactics that insult and potentially alienate over half your voters is not a hard-nosed act of realpolitick. It's a seriously stupid thing to do.
603: His campaign's been good enough that I mostly trust its judgment.
596: Yeah, I'd like to hear HRC responding to Palin by saying, "You call me a whiner and then tell me you're so grateful for the 18 million cracks made by me and my Sisterhood? Shame on you. Obama '08."
Tim is making a lot of sense in 594/597. When men criticize women, they're often not sensitive to the nuances that make something sound fucked up and sexist, just like white people can be really ignorant of the stuff that sounds fucked up and racist.
A Howard-grad friend of mine was telling me how great it was to be able to get recommendation letters for grad school that talked about his intellectual achievements instead of just saying what a nice and cooperative student he was. As a white person who writes a lot of recommendation letters for minority students, I suddenly hoped this was not a sin I'd committed. I often write about how cooperative and nice a student is, but it hadn't occurred to me that black students might see this as the only kind of rec they can get (as in, "Don't worry, grad program; he's black but not, you know..."). And as a woman, I am a bit rankled by how many of my own recommendation letters talk about how fun I am, like, "Don't worry, she's a woman but not, you know..." It's these tokenizing comments that the dominant population just doesn't hear with the same "OMG, not again" quality.
And it's the same with criticisms. I do think there is a subtle but important difference between saying, "Look at how Palin avoids talking about policies by being flippant and flirtatious" and saying, "Doesn't Palin remind you of the Homecoming Queen who was only nice to you until she got your vote and then never fucked you?"
607: Yeah, so do I. But I'm impatient, and the misogyny is counterproductive and vile.
And it's the same with criticisms. I do think there is a subtle but important difference between saying, "Look at how Palin avoids talking about policies by being flippant and flirtatious" and saying, "Doesn't Palin remind you of the Homecoming Queen who was only nice to you until she got your vote and then never fucked you?"
You know, I don't think the difference is that subtle.
I regret using the word uppity. That was my bad.
It's not the word, it's the concept. Democrats shouldn't call Palin inexperienced, or presumptuous, or ambitious. Unless you have an overwhelming advantage—which is practically impossible to have with questions like these, as they are all image and bluster—you shouldn't pursue the same lines of attack as your opponent. Palin can be a corrupt, power-abusing liar. Besides being charges made against Bush and not Obama, these have the bonus of being (unlike "high school bitch") demonstrably true.
Or is it 1947 again, and they can headhunt Jackie Robinson all they want, and he just needs to be the Stoic Race Man?
I think it might something like that. IIRC--and I don't love baseball, so I might be wrong--Robinson was helped by big newspapers that approved of the project. One assumes that Obama could count on something like that effect, especially with the increase in various kinds of diversity among newspaper staffs and admins. Moreover, as I recall, the reason Rove, et al., wanted to come across as friendly towards African-Americans is that it helps with white women (maybe even suburban white women). Gawd willing, this sort of effort--which I assume we'll see a lot more of--will amount to the McCain campaign shooting itself in the foot with a demographic it really needs.
At some point, the line will be crossed, but I assume Obama's campaign will give a signal and have surrogates to lead the charge. I suspect that one thing Obama and his team have thought about much more than most everyone else is how to defeat exactly these sorts of base insults/grievance traps.
Jesus Christ, max. What the fuck. She's a perfectly ordinary looking attractive middle-aged woman; lay the fuck off her appearance.
Max is right, though. I hinted at that conclusion in 451, but max was less circumspect. I don't hold it against her, and I suspect that it probably helps her more than it hurts her in the country as a whole, but her look is uncannily like the librarian/secretary/teacher in every porn flick just before she gets her kit off. I don't know how to put a pretty face on it. It's just so.
"Uppity" is bad, but the real damage will be if they start calling Obama a "buppie".
OK, I just read the actual Westmoreland quote: "Just from what little I've seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity," Racism aside (and it's stone-cold racist), that's just clumsy phrasing. I mean, I know that spoken word often transcribes awkwardly, but "thinks that they're uppity"? How about "seems to hate himself," or "the kind of bitch who would castrate you"?
Where's the competence, I ask you?
Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod. Spending this much time considering the proper approach to attacking Sarah Palin is a complete sucker bet. John McCain is the Republican Party's nominee for president. Fortunately, it seems pretty clear that the Obama campaign is much less rattled by the Palin pick than the Democratic electorate as represented in the blogosphere.
Also, MC, if you're still around, I want to say thanks for taking some of your time to got to a battleground state. I'm planning to travel to my parents' home in Ohio for a week in October. While there, I'll spend chunks of my days registering voters.
they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity,
Paging W-lfs-n.
608: AWB,
I agree completely, and this is a mine field of mistakes waiting to happen but geeze I hope some women actually do respond very forcefully.
I hope this doesn't sound wrong or like criticism.
I am worried that victims of sexism will hesitate to be aggressive because they have been victimized by aggression and they don't want to be an aggressor, and to me that is giving up some of your potential power.
Sometimes not only assertion but actually aggression are OK.
As an empowered woman fight back!
I do think there is a subtle but important difference between saying, "Look at how Palin avoids talking about policies by being flippant and flirtatious" and saying, "Doesn't Palin remind you of the Homecoming Queen who was only nice to you until she got your vote and then never fucked you?"
I submit that there isn't a significant difference between a male saying either of those things. Tim has this right: Gender-oriented attacks are unwise and, if absolutely necessary, must be executed by women.
When I posted 552, for instance, I did not even hint at any delight I may or may not have felt.
Further to 616: I should have been clearer. Everyone gets to worry about what they want to worry about. I'm just weirded out that people are this wound up about Sarah Palin. She's a sop to the base, a manifestly underqualifed choice for a running a mate, and very likely an excellent attack dog. Whatever.
OK, now they're just teasing us:
Democratic vice-presidential nominee Joe Biden said yesterday that he and running mate Barack Obama could pursue criminal charges against the Bush administration if they are elected in November.
As an empowered woman fight back!
Tripp, you should really write a self-help book.
I hinted at that conclusion in 451, but max was less circumspect.
Yes, that was quite a subtle hint you gave when you linked to Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" video.
Al Franken: "These attacks worked on two levels. The obvious level was the literal. If Kerry thought terrorism was just a nuisance, then he was obviously the wrong man to lead the fight against it. But there was another level. The subtext of the constant attacks on Kerry's toughness was that the Bush team was tough and Kerry wasn't. It's what blogger Joshua Micah Marshall called the Republicans' Bitch-Slap Theory of Electoral Politics. By slapping Kerry around continuously, the President was sending America the message that 'Kerry is my bitch'."
Sounds familiar...
Ari, are you going to be in the NE Ohio area? Perhaps you could meet up with me redfoxtailshrub, snarkout, & p/h oudemia.
Also, I regret even briefly flirting with using the bimbo stereo type against palin. [Hey, why is my computer beeping?]
This, from Rosa Brooks, seems like a good angle (to be taken by women (and maybe moms) only, I'd think):
Watching Palin was like watching a cross between Ann Coulter and Michelle Malkin-- only Palin accessorizes with babies.
They *think* that they're uppity, but they're really...what? How does that work?
I have a suggestion that's totally radical and based on the idea that Palin is the VP candidate. Go after McCain.
Also, everyone swooning over Palin needs to get out more. She's a reasonably attractive middle-aged woman, which makes her way hotter than every other Republican in national office, but sheesh.
First evidence that the gap in the polls is closing after last night's speech is here.
It will be interesting to see where the polls are in two weeks.
Okay, serious question: why do people think that attacking Sarah Palin, regardless of the nature of the attacks, gets the Obama camp any votes? The press has already done the dirtiest of the dirty work. And industrious reporters will continue to dig up more scandals as time passes. Also, trooper-gate isn't go to disappear. So, again, can someone explain to me the upside if Obama surrogates focus on Palin? I'm just not seeing it.
ari,
much less rattled by the Palin pick than the Democratic electorate as represented in the blogosphere.
We're the blogosphere. It's what we do. shrug
Tripp, you should really write a self-help book.
I don't know if that was sarcastic but I admit that one of the unselfish things I do in real life is be a coach for youth sports, and the past few years my coaching has been with my youngest daughter's softball team.
My coaching style is the 'get going try harder you can do it build yourself up' style. I think it fits for boys and girls, and hopefully it will help them even beyond the sports, because realistically not a one of the kids I have ever coached will be a pro at sports.
So, yeah, I probably sound like a self-help book and most likely the people here don't need one. I'll try to keep that in mind.
631: Poll was conducted before last night's speech.
explain to me the upside if Obama surrogates focus on Palin
I don't see it either. She's a sideshow. However, after last night's hatefest, the campaign needs to start swinging back at McCain and quit talking about what an honorable, stand-up guy and dear friend he is.
I agree wholeheartedly with ari's 620 and Cala's 629.
No one's swooning over Palin, just noting that the combination of a pant-suit, her glasses, her tan and her bun are remarkably like a porn archetype.
It's sexist as hell to be talking about this—and completely irrelevant—, but she really is the only national female figure (that I can think of, anyway) who combines every attribute in that way.
Cala is right. And in the long run, anything superficially attractive about Palin makes McCain look truly miserable. He can't read from a teleprompter, he's hideous to look at and has a freakishly inappropriate smile, he's repetitive and then suddenly unpredictable, and instead of having very few comments on record, we have decades of random McCain flip-flops, gaffes, threats, and flippancies to point to. (I love love love the angle of pinning McCain down on his attitudes toward evangelicals, esp after reading this week's NYer. He thinks End Times theology is crazy, and is on record as saying so.) Even on the level of shallow crap, McCain/Palin is a losing duo.
Obama and Biden, OTOH, make each other look really good on all points.
638 gets it right. The bun is not commonly seen in American public life, though it is omnipresent among Everyday Soccer Moms. Tina Fey plus a bun.
Of course those of us like destroyer and I from the younger generation are unfamiliar with so-called porn "movies" that have actual narratives and acting, anyway.
I agree that Sarah Barracuda is just the flavor of the day. Still I think it is kinda cathartic to mull her over so to speak, at least for one day. Isn't that what the blogosphere is for? Besides, the day the Obama campaign asks for my opinion is the day I lead the Vikes to the Super Bowl. I mean what's wrong with a bunch of nobodies chewing the fat for a day, saving the world? We don't take ourselves seriously, like in a real world way, do we?
638: Maybe this is just an academic thing, but updos + pants + glasses is about as common as cat shit. If I put on a suit, that would describe me about 85% of the time. I guess this means I could be a really hot Republican.
Abramoff gets four years in the pokey.
640: Yeah, I am no expert but wasn't the bun in fashion, um, like awhile ago?
Regarding porn 'movies' - you didn't miss much. Trust me. Seeing a couple out of curiosity was plenty for a lifetime.
634: I was being absolutely and completely sarcastic. It's a low form of humor, I know. But you might try to remember that nobody here is on your daughter's softball team. Better yet -- and easier to remember -- nobody here is your child or your child's age. We don't need coaching.
435: I stand corrected. It looks like a pretty crap poll anyway. Rasmussen and Gallup are not picking up much movement at all.
Cala, don't become a hot republican. We like you as you are.
||
So now that our man Musharraf is has been thrown out by a democratic movement, Pakistan is our new enemy?
|>
updos + pants + glasses is about as common as cat shit
Don't get me started on cat shit porn.
642:
Cala - Ruh Roh. I swear to God I didn't see 642 when writing 644. Honest.
Maybe this is just an academic thing, but updos + pants + glasses is about as common as cat shit.
Cala, I can't articulate why, but the simple juxtaposition of these ingredients does not a porn trope make. Palin's getup has that certain je ne sais quoi that unfailingly evokes a stock character from early 1990s feature-length porn. I'm not suggesting the Dems promote this meme, I'm just stating it as fact (or, more precisely, concurring with max). If you can't see it, you haven't watched enough of the relevant genre.
643: Racism and sexism are problems in this country, I'll grant you. But until we stamp out antisemitism, nobody can be truly free.
until we stamp out antisemitism
Nice job excluding the crippled, asshole.
You forget the Armenian and Circassian holocausts. Also, Gypsies. Bigot.
ari,
nobody here is your child or your child's age.
My youngest daughter is 25. I'm old.
John Stewart was immediately all over the porn-stereotype thing - he compared Palin to a Cinemax librarian, I think the night she was picked.
656: Jon Stewart. You don't need to anglicize Yonaton, antisemite.
650: notice that destroyer added "a tan" to the list of elements.
See, your normal academic is as pale as a clammy ghost. taking someone with a tan and adding the academic accoutrements means that he/she is only faking the academicity and can revert to his/her normal free state at any moment.
Palin's getup has that certain je ne sais quoi that unfailingly evokes a stock character from early 1990s feature-length porn.
She's attractive and wears a lot of make-up. So the updo and thick glasses seem prop-like. It may be from porn, but it's also from every 80's sitcom ever.
Boy was John Laroquette surprised when the librarian wanted to have SEX with him in Harry's office!
My youngest son is 35. By and large, I do not speak to him pedagogically any more.
Cala can be as hot a Republican as she wants to be.
Kobistan is worried about being invaded by Russia.
As for the Palin porn star perception, I think that it's a prosperity theology thing instead. Priosperity Christians can be very joyful, optimistic, peppy, cheerful, stylish, and sexy. It contrasts with the old Christianity of guilt and duty. But this isn't really an advance, because they're also hard-hearted, anti-intellectual, self-serving, dishonest, usually bigoted, and often sleazy.
So the updo and thick glasses seem prop-like.
Gotcha.
Those are books, Apo. That's hardly proper pornography.
I love that the reviews in 665 always mention how realistically the library is described.
This is making me realize that I could totally be Sarah Palin for Halloween. Though, the tan thing is a real problem, & wearing heels would be a still bigger problem.
I noted it in the relevant thread, but it bears repeating: RNC protesters are facing terrorism charges
Here's the link to that Jon Stuart video from Friday.
668: stylish, and sexy these two at least are optional. But your larger point holds.
This is making me realize that I could totally be Sarah Palin for Halloween.
Or you could be Bristol.
Crazy Congressman Michele Bachmann, the one who groped Bush, is an archetypal prosperity theology babe.
t Jon Stuart
And now you're just trolling me, right? Mine are the chosen people, friend. Keep that in mind before you next hit post.
Nice job excluding the crippled, asshole.
And who is more disabled than those who find themselves crippled by the vile hatreds of sexism and racism? Where is the love for David Duke?
678: But "Jon Stuart" is part of his real name.
I thought his full name was John Luke Matthew Stuart?
676: yeah, esp. since I actually have a younger, tanner sister who could pull off Sarah a little better--if my third sister will let me carry her infant as Trig we could really have something.
If I'm showing by then, maybe Jammies and I can be Bristol and Levi. That would be awesome.
Your sisters are tanners? Artisanal vegan tanners, I would hope, tanning vegetable hides.
But "Jon Stuart" is part of his real name.
Is this going to turn into yet another interminable discussion about the New New Pretender?
I'm thinking the next U.S. civil war will include a general named J.O.N. Stuart, and the forthcoming Democratic dirty tricks scandal will feature an perpetrator named Jon Stuart Magruder.
John Luke Matthew Tudor Stuart
The Tudor monarchs were God's chosen people?
A friend of mine says that all great North American Canadians are black, Canadian, or Jewish. By taking the name Stewart, J. Stuart Liebowitz appropriated the quaint, self-hating Canadian culture, the way New Age peopleo pretend to be Native Americans. I guess he thinks that Jewish humor has been played, and that the comedic future belongs to Canada. He's no better than the Danes, really.
689: Duh. Aren't you, like, a(n) historian?
all great North American Canadians
"all great North American comedians".
I blame my genes, or maybe the aluminum pans my mother used to cook with.
all great North American Canadians are black, Canadian, or Jewish
I have a truly marvellous proof of this proposition which this margin is too narrow to contain.
691: No, you're thinking of that South American Canadian named MC...
Emerson, every time you mention the Danes I feel a little surge of anger in my blood.
1400 years of pillaging and raping, MC. Remember Lindisfarne!
The tragic thing is that like most persons of Irish descent, you almost certainly bear the stain of partially Danish ancestry.
Librarians in pornography.
Trouble, oh we got trouble,
Right here in River City!
With a capital "T"
That rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Palin P()rn,
That stands for P()rn.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City,
Right here!
Gotta figger out a way
To keep the young ones moral after school!
John Luke Matthew Tudor Stuart
He's a uniter, not a divider.
Knecht, max? Eh. I've written and erased a couple of versions of this, all of which are humorless™. But for your own future reference, because it might be useful to you should you run into other women whose reactions are similar to mine: I am quite sincerely and intensely angry with both of you for casually reducing an ordinarily dressed woman, trying to participate in public life, to a porn stereotype. I don't have any reason to think you care much, but you might as well know the reactions you're inspiring.
699, agreed to the point of wondering if i ever want to even read here again.
That'd be overstated, two people aren't everybody and both max and Knecht are generally decent. It's just when repeated pleas to stop calling her a slut and so forth get capped with the 'no, she really objectively is a porn stereotype', that I lose my patience.
The couple things I've thought that have been interesting:
That Gov. Palin represents the new American Dream, the one where you're picked out of nowhere and win the whole thing. People have compared her to a reality show contestent. I was wondering if Americans have come to this because they've acclimated to the tournament model of work, where lots compete for a few glamorous positions, rather than the career model, where lots progress through career stages. We got used to it on American Idol as well. If this is a turning in the American Dream, it is a crappy way to take care of a big workforce.
The other thing I'm turning over comes from looking at pictures over on BagNewsNotes. For months he's been putting up McCain pictures and there are just no women in the whole thing. Maybe some far away in the crowd, but he is always surrounded by a ring of men, or talking to a male military recruit. Just this week, of course, women burst into all the pictures.
And here's the thing that astounds me. I'm not surprised that Gov. Palin upstages Sen. McCain, because she's pretty photogenic. But you know who else upstages Sen. McCain? Bristol. Yes. In every picture with the two of them, Sen. McCain fades besides the presence of a sixteen year old girl.
I haven't resolved quite what I think, but with all those pictures of girls at Sen. Clinton's campaign stops, and then girls and women taking up about half the view in Sen. Obama's campaign pictures, and now women utterly dominating Sen. McCain's pictures (after being absent for so long), I'm halfway to feeling like I'm seeing the Rising of Yin or the Rebirth of the Goddess or Unleashing of the Feminine. I'm not usually mystical, but the old man fading out next to the shiny young mother is so blatant.
So what you're saying is that if we sacrifice McCain and spread his blood on the fields, the crops will be fertile for the next year? Or am I confused?
Well, interesting in my own head at least. And the comparison of Gov. Palin to a reality show contestant came from somewhere else that I don't think I can get back to now.
LB, I'm not sure I know how to ask this without raising your ire, which I'm definitely not trying to do, but: do you disagree that there are a few stereotypical "looks" in mainstream pornography, or do you just dispute that Palin has one of those stereotypical looks?
(I suppose there's a third option: stereotypical porn "looks" may exist, but whether or not an ordinarily dressed woman trying to participate in public life has one of those "porn looks" is a question too offensive even to ask, much less try and answer.)
703 - Something like that. I haven't followed the thought all the way to its conclusion. It might just mean having sex in fields on full moon nights.
To elaborate on 705 a little, I'm just genuinely curious which part of the statement offended you so much. I don't think Palin looks especially much like a stereotypical porn star, but I wouldn't have expected the comment to draw growls.
701, Dear LB,
I know it's a mixed audience, and snark can be rough, but my anger is overdetermined; not simply the raw sexism is what is taking the skin off my bones, but the fact that you are the people on my side -- and at this level of discourse there's really no difference between you and them.
Like most, I have a limited amount of time to peruse a lot of data streams, I really dislike being pulled through a sewer to find a few gems, and I've thought several times tonight about deleting your link in my favorites list.
I really dislike being pulled through a sewer to find a few gems
Something tells me you won't like it here, sexism aside. I'm not joking.
It might just mean having sex in fields on full moon nights.
Isn't the water table higher then? Some people like it muddy, maybe, but...
702: Over the course of my life I've noticed an increasing emphasis on connections, networking, impression management, and luck as the path to success, as opposed to hard work, study, talent, and frugality. The reality shows especially, but also the way people talk about higher education -- Harvard is contacts and connections, not a better education, and a lot of Harvard students seem to slack through. And there's "dress for success". And at the bottom end, the lottery for last-chancers.
The magical thinking has always been there, though. The Horatio Alger story wasn't about someone who worked hard, improved his skills, saved, started a new business, invested, and became rich by that possible but difficult method. It was about someone who disciplined himself in such a way that when the rich man finally showed up on the scene, he would recognize his worth and make him rich.
there's a third option: stereotypical porn "looks" may exist, but whether or not an ordinarily dressed woman trying to participate in public life has one of those "porn looks" is a question too offensive even to ask, much less try and answer.
While the phrasing is tendentious (not that you necessarily meant it to be, just "a question too offensive to ask" sets off my 'OMG, teh CENSORSHIP' alarm), that's pretty much it.
But wasn't there also the 'get a manufacturing job and house with a picket fence, retire to play golf and fish' thread of the American Dream? If that is (realistically) in ebb, then could Gov. Palin be seen as an embodiment of the new lottery-style Dream?
I didn't intend to be tendentious. I had to look it up just now to be sure what it even meant.
But you should stay anyway!
Fuck that noise. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out, ehj2.
I wouldn't have expected the comment to draw growls.
Yeah, I could see that in a different conversation it might not have rubbed me the wrong way quite so badly. In the context of a long conversation about how gender based attacks on women are counter-productive, including a bunch of requests to Tripp and others to stop making such attacks on Palin, it pissed me off.
I don't mind random, casual sexual objectification all that much. It's the sort of thing people do, I do it to men some, it's probably not going to stop and it's not the end of the world. But having my nose rubbed in the fact that there just seems to be no way to effectively ask people to stop it, even in a limited context, even people who are basically kind of reasonable, gets to me sometimes.
709-710, & 716,
I invited that and these comments are fine. Flail at me all you want, you don't weaken the progressive cause. But stereotype Palin like this, in a public forum of intellectuals, simply because you're hardwired to be tribal and consequently need to stereotype people quickly and easily, puts you on the wrong side of the Obama Campaign you claim to support.
Is this the worst Unfogged comment thread ever? Look what Sarah Palin has done to us, people! Remember what brought us together! (Wait, what did bring us together?)
Huh. I suppose that makes sense. I haven't read anything before 595.
I had to look it up just now to be sure what it even meant.
And you call yourself a lawyer. Must be a litigator word, I can see it not coming up much in transactional work. All I meant is that while that was pretty much it, you managed to put it in a way that made me feel like the prissy thought-police. I really don't think you were trying to, it just worked out that way.
But honestly, it really is offensive to look at an ordinarily dressed woman and talk about how porny she looks, even if she does, truthfully, match some stereotype. Just like, e.g., it's offensive to look at some randome woman and talk about how much you'd like to bend her over the hood of the nearest car and fuck her, even if that's true. If there's any use at all to the concept "offensive", that's what it's for.
720 to 717, even though it works well to 719.
Remember what brought us together!
For me, Walt, it was your jawline. Step aside, Todd Palin. Rowr!
717: Yup. To violate the analogy ban, it reminds me of how meat-eaters talk to vegetarians. You tell me how much you're enjoying eating a plate of meat, and I am delighted for you, even if I don't order the same thing. If you spend the rest of dinner making fun of me for being too prissy to eat your fucking steak, I'll think you're being weirdly defensive. I take some of the "No I won't stop making increasingly misogynistic comments here!" stuff to be a similar kind of defensiveness.
Apparently ire makes me unable to spell "random". Who knew?
Flail at me all you want, you don't weaken the progressive cause. But stereotype Palin like this, in a public forum of intellectuals, simply because you're hardwired to be tribal and consequently need to stereotype people quickly and easily, puts you on the wrong side of the Obama Campaign you claim to support.
I think I preferred this line as originally delivered by Jack Nicholson at the end of A Few Good Men.
726, Josh,
even for you, there must be more to life than snark. do you think we're in a movie here?
(Wait, what did bring us together?)
Half a Persian kidney, IIRC.
ehj2, did you ever read this site before? Do you go to sites that are dedicated to movies, and complain that there are things in life more important than movies?
718 makes me feel ashamed that 710 used an Exclamation Point of Earnesty. I save those for very special occasions.
You know, I'm suddenly struck with a need to see an editorial cartoon of McCain with a scythe holding baby Trig, dressed as the Old Year and the New Year. I can't quite see what the point of the cartoon would be, but the image is working for me.
Ejh2, I'd be happy if you stayed. This place is about 1/3 politics, 1/3 misc., and 1/3 snark, very sloppily mixed. And we do play with stereotypes, sometimes going over the line. And we fight the battle of the sexes on a regular basis.
Over the course of my life I've noticed an increasing emphasis on connections, networking, impression management, and luck as the path to success, as opposed to hard work, study, talent, and frugality.
Huh. I know that I see some of this around here. The academic profession is more tournamenty than anything this side of music or acting. Some aspects of leftish politics play up luck as the dominant factor of success as a means of defending the poor and efforts to help them.
I don't know how widespread the attitude is in the culture at large; in my world it seems like being lucky certainly helps but working hard is both important and effective.
even for you, there must be more to life than snark.
For a line like that, I expect pastries.
I can't quite see what the point of the cartoon would be, but the image is working for me.
Vote McCain for four more years of mentally retarded governance?
I ban myself.
Oh, man, I forgot about the Down Syndrome. I was just thinking old man/new baby = Happy New Year picture, sort of riffing off Megan's mysticism in a dopier kind of way.
Oh, man, I forgot about the Down Syndrome.
You don't see color either, right? "Black? White? They're all just people."
As a card-carrying elitist, I'm OK with an America in which Trig Palin can't dream of becoming President. But he is an awfully cute baby.
724 gets at what has been making me uncomfortable quite well. Actually I pretty much want to endorse everything LB has said upthread on this issue.
McCain turning his scythe on... funding for shelters? Polar bears? Baby Trig's future?
Hmmm. I want to go somewhere with the theme, but I don't have it yet.
What about Baby Trig wresting the scythe from McCain? And turning it to plowshares!!!!!!
Am I the only person here who hears "Trig" and thinks "Trigonometry" and how that's kind of a cruel thing to name a kid who will probably never be able to understand it? Am I a bad person for thinking this?
No, you're a bad person for many reasons.
742: I was just thinking about that. Yeah, despite trampling all over the analogy ban, 724 captures it, and made me smile.
NO I AM NOT MAKING UNSOLICITED EDITORIAL COMMENTS, NEVER!
Am I a bad person for thinking this?
I think the causation runs the other way: you're thinking this because you're a bad person.
Damn you, ari. You're a bad person too.
So I haven't been reading the thread, but I've been thinking Sarah Palin looks sort of librarian-porny. Anybody got any thoughts on this?
735. Damn server ate my comment, but anyway The whole lottery/ tournament thing vs. the meritocracy is a theme that needs more discussion, IMHO. A lot of people at the top have worked hard, some have made it by "connections", but most of "luck" is being prepared when the spotlight shines on you. I don't know what Governor Palin will do, and she certainly has been plucked from relative obscurity to national prominence rather quickly. But so too was Barry Obama. He would still be a state senator from Illinois if Jack Ryan wasn't such a weirdo.
751: This is supposed to come off like adorable little-boy flirting by dipping the girls' pigtails in the inkwell? I ask purely for information.
I'm OK with an America in which Trig Palin can't dream of becoming President
Yeah, but I'd consider letting him try out for the Olympics using prosthetic spring legs.
752: He would still be a state senator from Illinois if Jack Ryan wasn't such a weirdo.
He had the same name as a Tom Clancy hero and everything. How do you fuck that up, honestly.
751: Actually I was thinking her teeth look funny. Also Obama's ears stick out; don't deny it. Biden looks like he might have dentures. And maybe McCain should have had some work done on those jowls. Did you hear they've moved the stage for his speech tonight so that he'll be surrounded by audience members on three sides?? All I can think is, Oh christ, they'll just be able to see his jowls better.
753: Uhhh, maybe. What is this "inkwell" of which you speak?
More accurately, I think it's technically known among the Welsh as "taking the piss."
ari never would have written #747 unless he knew that w-lfs-n was dead. Tell us what you did with the body, ari.
752 - I'm more interested in it as a shifting of the national self-conception (if it is). That's one hell of a pyramid scheme, if everyone now accepts it as a workplace model.
technically known among the Welsh as "taking the piss."
No, for that I think you're supposed to say something clever.
He had the same name as a Tom Clancy hero and everything. How do you fuck that up, honestly.
Dude was straight out of central casting. I am trying to decide if his deadly sin was more lust or pride. Forcing your smokin hott wife to go to the sex club so you can show off is a little of both.
He would still be a state senator from Illinois if Jack Ryan wasn't such a weirdo.
I watched them both for a while before that election, and I doubt it.
But it would certainly have been closer, and required Obama to campaign hard, as he did against Clinton. And he might not have been slated as he was to give the 2004 keynote were he locked in a tighter race, which may make your point.
756: All I can think is, Oh christ, they'll just be able to see his jowls better.
The jowls of experience and the funny teeth of hockey-mom-Middle America. Democrats should be very worried that Obama is playing too much to the protuberant-ear demographic and not enough to the votes-for-jowls-and-funny-teeth demographic; Biden's dentures just aren't going to cut it.
Hah! Dentures! "Cut it"! I should go on the road with this shit.
756: I just did a little experiment where I reviewed how much older the Presidency has made GWB look in four-year increments and imagined inflicting that decomposition on McCain's jowls, and it was too horrible to share.
761 seems ill-timed, but it's likely TLL hasn't read the thread.
760: Failing that, just deliberately pissing you off will do nicely.
You know what, take off the glasses and shake down the hair, and DS looks a hell of a lot like Tawny Kitaen.
I wouldn't have figured.
I can imagine! It's like you were seperated at DVDA.
Democrats should be very worried that Obama is playing too much to the protuberant-ear demographic and not enough to the votes-for-jowls-and-funny-teeth demographic; Biden's dentures just aren't going to cut it.
He has dentures? The usual reference is to his hair plugs.
Yeah, but I'd consider letting him try out for the Olympics using prosthetic spring legs.
Republican biathlon: mentally and/or morally handicapped athletes run a marathon on prosthetic legs, stopping every couple of kilometers to shoot an old guy in the face. It will be the beach volleyball of the 21st century!
766: Certainly involves less mental effort.
Tawny Kitaen
Dude, don't get me started.
752 - But even "people at the top". People with more familiarity with American 20th century can tell me, but hasn't that been exaggerated too? The winnowing is for positions like Trump and Paris Hilton and Vice-President of the U.S.. I'm imagining a contrast against a 50's middle class dream, where you won if you could retire in your home and visit the kids in your RV twice a year.
I'm wondering if Gov. Palin is a symbol of the American Dream being traded for an inaccessible one of lottery and stardom, rather than progression through work.
I'm more interested in it as a shifting of the national self-conception (if it is). That's one hell of a pyramid scheme, if everyone now accepts it as a workplace model.
The Today Show had an interesting series on the ancestry of the hosts. Matt Lauer's family story is the one people like to tell, in that great grandpa arrived with $4 from Romania, opens a store on the Lower East Side, moves family to Brooklyn. Grandpa fights in WWI, Dad in WWII, Sonny becomes megarich tv star. A normal story until the last chapter, but by any measure the immigrant great grandpa worked hard, and the lottery didn't kick in until Matt gets the today show gig.
There are so many industries that work on some sort of tournament model to find and promote. But the underpinnings of talent, hard work and thrift are still necessary.
772: Yes, thereby allowing me to focus the remainder of my enormous brain on my ingenious three-step plan to conquer the world. Glad we're all on the same page.
Hah, but then! Because neither Dream is well defined and we're not attentive to this shift, if you fail at the lottery model, everyone will say it is still the work model and it was your own damn fault, you unAmerican slacker.
777: I understand that second step's a doozy.
Sure, yeah, lots of industries are tournament-style. But have we lost the ones that are career-style? My guess - yes. That balance has shifted. Also, people often don't understand which they're in.
778: The funny thing is that if you go back to the early 20C version of success through hard work and deservingness, the literal Horatio Alger books, I've read that they're all lotteries. The plot is always poor kid works hard and is honest and saves his money and all that, and then he rescues a millionaire from a car accident and gets adopted. No one actually goes from poor to rich by working hard.
779: Sure is. The good news is I've got 1 ("comment on Unfogged") and 3 ("rule the world!") all figured.
782: For a reasonable fee, we're willing to act as consultants on your business plan.
778: I'm not sure that the situation was fairer in the past. But, then, I'm pretty biased against the past.
if you fail at the lottery model, everyone will say it is still the work model and it was your own damn fault
Especially if you think you are working in a meritocracy, where failure is your own damn fault. Emphasis on youth hurts here, too. If one has not written a novel/ made a million/ cured cancer by twenty five well then fuck you, loser. I blame TV.
784: yeah, fuck the past. I used to live there, and it sucked.
774: Megan's right, of course, but I can't say that this seems a new thing. The shift (in national politics) arguably started with JFK, who turned the office into an occasion for personal celebrity, became more pronounced with Reagan, who started with celebrity, and on from there to dribble down to state politics as well (Sonny Bono? Arnold Schwarzenegger?). Talk to Mary Catherine about it; I think it's one of her areas of interest.
I guess you could cast Palin as a remarkable case of this, but it might be a stretch.
There's a lot of past, most of which I don't know. But I'm ignorantly guessing that there was a period of a less exalted American Dream, some 50's-ish, buy-your-own-small-house dream. The one that led to sprawl; that Audrey sings about in Little Shop of Horrors. That was reachable with a manufacturing job, which is a progressive career lots could retire from. Do the politicians from that period reflect that? Is that the middle-America that the faux-downhome politicians claim to be part of?
Going from child labor in the mills to Nob Hill is always going to be huge luck.
788: I keep on plugging him, but read everything Thomas Geoghegan has ever written. For you, start with The Secret Lives of Citizens, which is his analysis of the difficulties of civic involvement with local government. That sounds dry -- it's largely a memoir, like the rest of his books, and it's great.
But everything he writes is about how the death of the labor movement killed exactly what you're talking about -- the world where reasonably hard work would get a contentedly secure middle-class life.
Audrey sings about in Little Shop of Horrors.
I used to sing that one to my kids as a lullaby.
The shift (in national politics) arguably started with JFK
See, I was right to blame TV. We are coming to the point of Washington being Hollywood for ugly people is no longer true. Those who heard Nixon v. Kennedy on the radio (I know, it was a long time ago) thought Nixon had won. Those who saw it on tv thought Kennedy had. Turning point. Now many people would rather be famous rather than rich, because the former can lead to the latter, while the reverse is much more difficult.
The 50s were atypical in that the rest of the developed world had just been bombed to rubble and/or had a dramatic reduction in the percentage of the population healthy enough to serve in the military. With more or less the only functioning industrial society left at that point, Americans were rolling in money.
Computers and telecommunication have also had an under-appreciated effect on returns to education, administrative ability, and certain skills. Unskilled labor has pretty much taken it in the shorts.
Hey, I didn't know he'd written anything other than "Whose Side Are You On?", which is great. I'll have to check out some others.
where by & I mean 7, of course. Stupid fingers.
I did read a book by a labor organizer that you recommended. Same author? It was grim. But if he's got one on local government, that's exactly my speed.
****
OK, but my immediate obsessive focus is on my theory:
availability of different classes of jobs --> shift in American dream --> new style of politician.
All of this heretofore undetected!
792. True dat. Also pent up demand from the Depression and the War meant people had jobs, money and stuff to buy that they needed. So they had a baby boom, from which we are yet to recover. Maybe the American Dream has a scaling problem. there is enough to make everyone "middle class", but not enough to make everyone "rich". So we are left with the lottery/ tournament.
Same guy. Also grim. But I just reread it, and was thinking of you all through it -- it's about exactly the difficulties of local government communicating with citizens and vice versa that you blogged about.
(Also, traditionally all the sails are white (sometimes beige if they're Kevlar) except the big puffy one up front which is called a spinnaker. That can be white, but often gets brightly colored. And they're way, way fun to fly -- it's like hitching your boat behind a big, poorly controlled kite. But Sherry probably told you already.)
791
"... Now many people would rather be famous rather than rich, because the former can lead to the latter, while the reverse is much more difficult."
Really? It seems to me that really rich people can be as famous as they want to be.
Nope, she hasn't filled me in yet. I've been wondering if part of the answer is that colored sails are déclassé.
Really? It seems to me that really rich people can be as famous as they want to be.
Outside of Bill Gates and possibly Warren Buffet the average american would be unable to name some one who is famous for being rich. Plus the truly wealthy know that privacy is an asset to be treasured.
But I'm ignorantly guessing that there was a period of a less exalted American Dream, some 50's-ish, buy-your-own-small-house dream.
My suspicion is that there is a lot there to be untangled, including the divergence of the dream from the reality. Even if we leave aside race- and gender-issues related to the labor market, my sense is that there were, in the past, many more irrelevant markers that were likely limit your prospects. You say stable career, I say path you can't jump up off of, whatever your efforts to do so. (I don't know how true that actually is as a description of the experience, and I don't know how you'd account for the effects of a continually growing economy.) The changes screwed some people--and perhaps the people who could least afford to be screwed the most--but I'm not sure that there aren't a fair number of people--maybe mostly swipple--who have benefited.
802
"Outside of Bill Gates and possibly Warren Buffet the average american would be unable to name some one who is famous for being rich. Plus the truly wealthy know that privacy is an asset to be treasured."
Donald Trump, Paris Hilton, George Steinbrenner. It is true that many rich people don't want to be famous but they could be if they wanted to be.
799 not for the Mirror dinghy, which is what I learned to sail on. Those sails are red, as befits the politics of the newspaper that funded its development. It's an ass kicking little boat.
Donald Trump maybe, but he first came into the public eye by writing a best seller, and now he has raised his profile considerably by being a TV star. Paris Hilton had internet sex tape and a TV show. Steinbrenner is famous for fucking up the Yankees, not for being rich. The guys who own google are far wealthier, and not household names.
I don't think opportunity is so much less today, it's that the thirst for celebrity is greater. In the 50s, after the Depression and WWII, a reasonably nice house in a suburban neighborhood, a car, and a decent retirement was a truly satisfying level of life success. Now, it's boring as hell.
Now, it's boring as hell.
I don't think boring, just done. It is not success to merely attain what the previous generation had obtained, one must surpass that. Poor man want to be rich, rich man want to be king. Well, there can be a lot of rich men, but only one king.
One of the changes, which Brad DeLong talks about (and Knecht has, too) is that 100 years or more ago being poor meant a real risk of being undernourished, ill-housed, or without medical care, and most people were poor. Whereas nowadays someone at about the 30th income percentile up from the bottom can actually have a pretty good life, even though they can't participate in the Standard American Good Life (TM).
It's just when repeated pleas to stop calling her a slut and so forth get capped with the 'no, she really objectively is a porn stereotype', that I lose my patience.
FTR, I never called Gov. Palin a slut, nor did I intend any such implication.
Because I generally credit LB with wisdom and restraint, and because I don't think she is prone to being humorless™, I am going to infer that the merits are on her side and I should shut up.
I've been thinking Sarah Palin looks sort of librarian-porny.
On behalf of librarians, I object to this! Even librarians don't look librarian-porny any more. These days, we're all hipsters .
Even librarians don't look librarian-porny any more.
It's a fallen world, alas.
806
"... Paris Hilton had internet sex tape and a TV show. Steinbrenner is famous for fucking up the Yankees, not for being rich. ..."
Paris Hilton likely would not now be famous if she had not started out rich. Thousands of women have sex tapes, most are not famous.
As for Steinbrenner, if you are rich and want to be famous buying a sports team is a good option. And Steinbrenner's Yankees have won more than their share of championships.
I think part of the implications of the game theory model of a tournament is being missed. If the labor market works as an ordinary market, then everyone works the socially optimal amount. If the labor market works as a tournament, then everyone works too hard. In so far as you can take economic models seriously (which may be not at all), a tournament-based society is socially less efficient than a market-based one.
Thousands of women have sex tapes, most are not famous.
They're all famous to me.
On behalf of librarians, I object to this! Even librarians don't look librarian-porny any more. These days, we're all hipsters .
Right ... excuse me.
I'm happy to believe that everyone works too hard. That seems to be borne out as well.
The first real manifestations of the mainstreaming of the "tournament" approach I recall were a series of PA Lottery TV commercials which basically made fun of people's ordinary lives and jobs (late '80s, maybe earlier?). There was some comment against them at the time (seems quaint now), especially as it was not that far removed from debates over the "morality' of running a state-sponsored lottery at all. I do think it is part and parcel of what keeps the Republican positions on taxes (and estate taxes in particular) from being a bigger scandal ("It could be me some day!")
And Megan is right, this is a powerful force part of the Palin narrative. I view it as an intelligence/integrity test for the nation.
If the labor market works as an ordinary market, then everyone works the socially optimal amount. If the labor market works as a tournament, then everyone works too hard.
huh? That doesn't follow.
People seem to be referring to lotteries or "winner-take-all" systems here rather than tournaments. Technically, tournaments are totally different and they just mean that you're paid according to a rank ordering in a hierarchy rather than directly according to output. (But of course your promotion in the hierarchy depends on your output).
Geek off.
What do you mean? Tournaments with effort modeled as an explicit choice lead to more effort expended than is Pareto optimal.
I think he's confused because I've been sloppy about the tournament/lottery distinction. That's because I didn't carefully define it for myself, either. You should understand it to mean whichever supports my argument at the time.
yeah, I'm getting too wonky about it.
Walt -- not how I remember it, as I recall tournaments and piece rates can be exactly equivalent under many assumptions so it's very difficult to make blanket statements, but whatever.
Pareto's got your number, PGD. Way to be non-optimal.
On behalf of librarians, I object to this! Even librarians don't look librarian-porny any more. These days, we're all hipsters.
We're bookbabes, and don't you forget it, populuxe.
I view it as an intelligence/integrity test for the nation.
Don't say that, dammit! I'm trying to remain optimistic.
If the labor market works as a tournament, then everyone works too hard.
A point that cannot be repeated too often.
Technically, tournaments are totally different and they just mean that you're paid according to a rank ordering in a hierarchy rather than directly according to output. (But of course your promotion in the hierarchy depends on your output).
Depends partly on your output, but there has to be a slot open. Another things it depends on is perceived loyalty to the instituion, which should be nearly absolute. Rank becomes less stable and less dominant when there are jobs that need to be done and only some people can do them.
Beyond treating jobs as tournaments lies treating life itself as a tournament. Something completely natural to most Americans, and abhorrent to me.
The lottery and magical thinking aspects shows up to the extent that competitors are uncertain as to how the choice will be made made, or have no real control over their chances. I've run into a certain number of ambitious, optimistic people who were totally clueless and believed that all of life is a lottery.
For some forms of Calvinism, getting into Heaven is a pure lottery, because God forgives some and not others (all being guilty) for reasons we should not try to understand. That feeds into the justification of predatory law of the jungle capitalism.
Some companies have made a rule of firing 10% of the employees every year. Essentially that means that it's a tournament for everyone, and not a job or career for anyone. Starbucks isn't quite that bad, but my brother went from the doghouse to the winner's circle back to the doghouse in about seven years. They demand continual growth from each store at the same time that they saturate areas with more stores than the areas need. A consistently low-performing store stays open, but people keep getting transferred into it as their last chance.
Some companies have made a rule of firing 10% of the employees every year.
That would basically be illegal here. I'd have thought it'd be illegal there, too?
ttaM's naive faith in America is touching.
I think they're all salaried employees, notn labor. But I believe that some companies have everyone either on salary or as a contract worker.
That wouldn't make any difference here.
Employees on temporary or short term contracts can generally dismissed fairly easily but salaried employees cannot. The employer can be penalised for unfair dismissal.
Of course, lots of employers can fake up a reason to dismiss someone: set unrealistic targets that they cannot meet and then fire them for repeated performance failures, etc.
However, it's not been my experience working in large corporations that they do do that. They'd be in danger of falling foul of employment legislation. In fact, my experience when I was in junior management, was that it was really really hard to fire someone without fairly gross misconduct. Being moderately crap at their job certainly wouldn't have been enough.
That would basically be illegal here. I'd have thought it'd be illegal there, too?
Uh, no. Employment rights here are pretty much limited to if you can prove you were fired for a short list of improper reasons -- racial discrimination, sexual discrimination and so forth.
There's a neat little Orwell essay about the literature of the American West -- Mark Twain's Roughing It and so forth -- where he comments on the exuberant bizarreness of people's behavior, and attributes it to a labor shortage, saying that that's how people behave when they're not always afraid of getting fired.
I sometimes think of a lot of the differences between US and UK culture, now, as coming down to that: the difference between a country where everyone's a little afraid of getting fired all the time, and of what would happen if they didn't have a job, and one where that just isn't a constant background fear.
The Republican war on unions wasn't an attempt to stop the clock. Their intention was to turn back the clock, and take back every single thing that the unions have ever won. They've been fairly successful, though their attack on Social Security failed.
I forget to mention that, while George Will admits to admiring Coolidge, his hero is William McKinley, because Will is opposed to Theodore Roosevelt's radical innovations. He sneaks in these little revelations every once in awhile, and people either miss it or else they think he's kidding. But I don't think he is.
Amen to John and LB.
In the Orwellian country we live in MN is a 'right to work' state, which near as I can tell means 'right to work without a union' which means employers can fire you at any time for any reason at all, or none at all.
LB mentions the federal categories of 'protected workers' based on civil rights but those are very very hard to prove as an individual, and we all know how hard the GOP drum has beaten to remind people they are individuals and any sort of collective action is bad.
including a bunch of requests to Tripp and others to stop making such attacks on Palin, it pissed me off.
OK, now I'm dragged back into this. In context please remember that I was not calling Palin anything, I was saying one way to take her down would be to indirectly call her things. Also I apologized for using offensive language here.
I gotta tell you though a drive-by shooting from the feminist patrol or whoever that gang was that cruised in to call me an asshole and ran away doesn't hold much weight with me.
And ehj2 - in a public forum of intellectuals,
What?? I mean WTF? Is that what you think unfogged is? Does it say that in the description?
I think you put your finger on something that has been nagging at me for a long time. When did intellectuals or maybe feminist intellectuals start to think they run this place?
If that is what unfogged has become then I'm out, period. Near as I can remember unfogged attracted bright people who were willing to talk about taboo subjects without getting their feelings hurt. It was refreshing to take down the defenses and be able to share a little honesty.
If this is gonna be a goddamn PC enclave of intellectuals tut tutting about the problems of the world and thinking maybe they should research a paper so they can publish in the future and that will help things then screw that. Put that in the title of Unfogged and watch your readership drop to the same closed group of people who read each other's papers up in their ivory towers.
In the meantime if your precious time can't be wasted here then see ya later. Don't whine to me that I'm not satisfying your need. That's your problem.
I gotta tell you though a drive-by shooting from the feminist patrol or whoever that gang was that cruised in to call me an asshole and ran away doesn't hold much weight with me.
WTF? Tripp, pretty much everyone who was arguing with you there comments here as much as or more than you do (there were a couple of low volume commenters, but mostly regulars). Now, they don't get any special rights from being regulars, but neither do you, and trying to claim them is bizarre.
And this:
Near as I can remember unfogged attracted bright people who were willing to talk about taboo subjects without getting their feelings hurt. It was refreshing to take down the defenses and be able to share a little honesty.
You know what? When people look at an ordinarily dressed woman and feel the need to make it clear that she really, objectively, is dressed up as a porn stereotype, that honestly makes me angry. The fact that that kind of shit makes some women angry and upset is a taboo subject a lot of places, but here, I feel like I can let down my defenses and share honestly how it makes me feel.
If the honesty is too much for you, I'm sorry you're not enjoying the discourse around here, but I don't see it changing to make you more comfortable.
(And to make it clear, you didn't say the 'porno librarian' stuff. You were the one using 'slut' in the context of suggested political tactics, though.)
I gotta tell you though a drive-by shooting from the feminist patrol or whoever that gang was that cruised in to call me an asshole and ran away doesn't hold much weight with me.
Oh, grow up. Look, your schtick is to come in here with your pants down with some half-intuited alleged truth, and then whine about people not being PC when they point out that your pants-down-half-intuited truth is bullshit.
That's not us being PC. That's you not being able to keep up.
836: If that is what unfogged has become then I'm out, period.
To the extent there was ever a "feminist patrol" problem, it's died down quite a bit (though LB does still come across as sort of obsessed with having the last word about this kind of thing). Do a Google search for "nasty old crone" and "Unfogged" and you'll see what I mean.
Glad to know the feminists around here aren't annoying you too much these days, Slack. Not annoying you is sort of a personal goal of mine.
... well, this certainly wasn't the best thread choice for breakfast reading.
Sup, feminist O.G.s! Do we get a gang sign?
841: Oh, you still annoy me, don't worry. (But if you're trying to tell me you miss threads like the one I just referenced, I flat-out don't believe you.)
843 is brilliant.
LB and Cala,
Calling my BS BS is fine if you can back that up. Calling me an asshole with no discussion is not.
Calling names is about the worst debate technique possible and if you are calling names you are losing.
My complaint is that many of you exhibit the knee-jerk reaction to trigger words that gives the PC label validity and which discredits you.
I say "one way to discredit Palin to her base it to label her this" and because my "this" is one of the nasty bad trigger words that contains a "u" then I'm piled on by offended people who can't even seem to determine that I was not personally calling anyone anything.
A couple other people mention that Palin looks like a stereotype from a genre of porn films and all the sudden they are jumped as well.
Wow, that is some out of proportion response. Please list the items that may not be discussed here because they are simply too offensive or bad.
And this will really get a sarcastic response from ari but in my 'self-help' book pants-down experience the things you absolutely cannot talk about are the things that will bring trouble.
Speaking of which, what gives you the right to talk about my sexuality and to refer to my genitalia? I have never, ever made any such reference to you or about any of the females here.
So you want to tell me if personal genitalia is fair game, or is that just another double standard?
Calling names is about the worst debate technique possible and if you are calling names you are losing.
No, you really aren't. This is one of most frustrating 'memes' out there. It's playground stuff.
Abusing people and calling them names can be both big AND clever.
re: 843
Surely the correct gang sign should be more of a 'cupping then snipping' motion.
I say "one way to discredit Palin to her base it to label her this"
One way to discredit Obama with a large section of the American electorate is to point out that he's black, and has a Muslim middle name and a Muslim stepfather.
People who're pushing that angle are douches, and so are you.
846: Tripp, I was sort of trying to be sympathetic to you, but FWICS your proposal did in fact get plenty of actual discussion in the above thread, bulk of the consensus being against. It ain't exactly like you brought up this totally fabulous idea and were just called names from the get-go.
I kind of shared your opinion that reaction to the porny librarian thing was over the top, which is why I was twitting LB about it, but come on, man:
Speaking of which, what gives you the right to talk about my sexuality and to refer to my genitalia?
This is like the same damned stupid thing that gets written by every dumb-assed testicular troll ever to encounter feminists on a blog. You've got to be better than that.
Cala,
Oh, grow up. Look, your schtick is to come in here with your pants down with some half-intuited alleged truth, and then whine about people not being PC when they point out that your pants-down-half-intuited truth is bullshit.
So like the others you throw a personal insult to me, although your insult was about my genitalia, and then run away.
At least I apologized for using offensive language. When will I see your apology?
a "feminist patrol" problem
Seriously, this is weird to me. I could see being bored by threads like the one you refer to, but you've got a scroll bar, and there have always been threads on subjects other than feminists. What the "problem" was, that's subsided, is kinda mysterious.
846: Well, by that standard, looks like you've won any possible argument. Enjoy the victory.
Tripp you're a fucking tool.
Go ahead, wait for my apology.
852: What the "problem" was, that's subsided, is kinda mysterious.
Ogged stopped posting, and B is busy? Just throwing that out there.
Also, I have a funny feeling we're going to be having one of them big ol' humorless metathreads right now!
MR. BURNS: By the way, thank you for not poking fun at my genitalia.
MARGE SIMPSON: ... I thought I did.
853: Eh, didn't want to go there. The "kinda mysterious" line looks snarkier than I meant on rereading -- I had thought Slack and I were just kidding around upthread, and I was sort of in the process of trying to figure out if he thinks we've got a real disagreement or conflict or something going on, and if so what it's about.
DS, Let me be clear about this. I think references to personal genitalia should be off limits for everyone. I think this is a valid point. I really don't care who else has brought that point up before.
I think this because it should happen as a matter of mutual respect and also if you let things get that personal you're gonna have a free for all.
But if there is a case for allowing such insults then let's hear it.
Tripp, your combination of provocation and self-pity is really unbearable. You got whiny with me awhile back, and I backed off for a week or so because I know I really do tend to be too harsh at times, but now you're having the same effect on others.
Often you come in with the idea that you're sharing new ideas that we've never heard before, but they're usually things we've already heard too many times. Sometimes you even have the attitude that you're this wise, experienced man, whereas the rest of us are naive college kids, and that's utter bullshit.
Almost everything you post is argumentative, and when I've agreed with you I've supported you, whereas when I've disagreed I've opposed you. Those are really the only ways to respond to arguments, except to ignore them.
Almost everything you say about sexual politics seems calculated to annoy feminists, and I can assure you that a lot of women here clenched their teeth a number of times and kept silent when you posted, just so as not to stink the place up.
At the beginning I actually thought that you were deliberately playing the provocation game and wanted people to come right back at you, and I responded in kind, but apparently that's not what you wanted. But if you keep saying the kinds of things you say, you're going to keep getting the responses you've been getting.
So about Palin - does anyone have any kind of evidence about whether adding her to the ticket actually has improved McCain's standing with the fundiegelicals, in concrete terms?
But if there is a case for allowing such insults then let's hear it.
Insults are funny, and some people deserve 'em? Shit, they are funny even when people don't.
P.S. I don't think there was any reference to personal genitalia above, anyway.
Funny, I'm actually much more comfortable with obscene insults directed at someone here who can return them or respond how they see fit, than with people who aren't participating in the conversation. I'm not stating this as a matter of principle, although I might get there after thinking about it, but it's my snap reaction.
855: oh. Okay. It's all your fault, then.
I don't mind people mocking my genitals. Kind of turns me on actually.
/hung like a brontosaurus
855: We were just kidding around, don't worry. (I mean, sure I sort of do disagree with you about the librarian thing but it's obviously not a big enough deal to have a fight about.)
856: What happened about willingness to talk about taboo shit? Now you're delineating taboos? Fuck that; I'd rather chip in and get you one of these.
854 is an unwarranted intrusion of humour into what should be yet another humourless metathread.
Tripp, I don't have time to get into this right now, I'm too busy being a gullible mother and I have go pick up my kid. But your stance of injured virtue and outraged innocence really is a bit much here.
Oh, that's good. Even after an unconscionable number of hours wasted like this, I still run into the "no body-language or tone of voice" problem every so often, leaving me unsure as to what just happened in a conversation.
Even after an unconscionable number of hours wasted like this, I still run into the "no body-language or tone of voice" problem every so often, leaving me unsure as to what just happened in a conversation.
Which is why the ban on emoticons is criminal.
862: That's an entire sub-genre of the sex trade, apparently. Which itself could be the basis for a humorless meta-thread! The Humorless(tm) isn't quite recursive yet, but maybe if we keep trying...
I'm happy if McCain does well with the base, because I don't think that he can win with a base strategy. He's had to spend the last year sucking up to them, since they were initially hostile, and that's made it much harder for him to attract anyone else.
My dream is for the base to drag McCain down in a crushing defeat, and then for the Republican Party either to be reformed as a moderate party, repressing the base, or else become totally captive of the base and become a regional (South, Great Plains, Utah, Alaska) rump party.
At some point the quasi-rational Republicans are going to get tired of being jerked around.
A cultural history of luck that might interest people here. There's quite a bit about the tension between a Puritan work ethic and our interest in good fortune.
Also, Tripp, leaving my inclination to call you names aside, you might want to consider that Cala and LB, two of the most reasonable people on this blog, have both told you that your behavior is crappy. If you didn't see Knecht's extremely mature and rather admirable reaction above, you might want to scroll back and check it out.
869: Rrrrgh. Ari, while I love you like a brother, after I've just given Tripp a hard time for trying to pull 'higher-status commenter' rank on the people who were arguing with him, I hate to, myself, be seen as pulling 'most reasonable person' on the blog rank.
I mean, I am, of course. I'd be right about everything except that I think I've disagreed with heebie once or twice, making me wrong about whatever that was. But still reasonable!
870.1 is, hilariously, reasonable to a fault.
Requested from the library, Ari. Thanks.
It occurs to me that Sen. Obama fits the tournament meme fairly well. Sometimes, like with Kelly Clarkson, it does select someone with genuine talent.
I mean, I am, of course. I'd be right about everything except that I think I've disagreed with heebie once or twice, making me wrong about whatever that was.
You've disagreed with me at least once. Which I take as a priori proof* of your wrongness on several occasions. Heebie or no heebie!
* near Euclidean in the perfection of its reason ...
P.S. I don't think there was any reference to personal genitalia above, anyway.
Maybe I misunderstood the point of the "pants down" in the following. Cala hasn't clarified. Now to me it sounded like a euphemism for "waving my dick around" but I'm willing to hear a different interpretation.
Oh, grow up. Look, your schtick is to come in here with your pants down with some half-intuited alleged truth, and then whine about people not being PC when they point out that your pants-down-half-intuited truth is bullshit.
Mary Catherine, sigh, I don't see you as a gullible Mom. Sheesh. I was pointing out that such a group exists in the GOP base and saying how to influence that group.
And DS, I'm all for having no taboos unless there is a very good reason, and in my experience allowing personal references, especially about genitalia, leads to such a bad place that a taboo is warranted. For example look at the people who have left because someone referred to a public figure as looking like a porn character. Do you really think it would work when the references become personal?
LB, you raise an interesting point in 860. Insults are bad if they are against a third party who can't fight back? What about a third party who is a public figure? In this case what about Palin herself?
I really do want to understand the strong reaction I got when suggesting a possible attack against Palin.
I like it when people talk about my imposing genitalia.
870: Funny, I don't think of being reasonable as having anything to do with status on this blog or in this country. But whatever, suit yourself, you're a moronic hothead. As is Cala.
I really do want to understand the strong reaction I got when suggesting a possible attack against Palin.
Switch Obama and Palin. Under those circumstances, if you were talking about possible attacks that would appeal to the segment of the lowerclass white electorate who will see Obama as an uppity black man who doesn't know his place, you'd get your head bitten off for (a) contempt for the electorate you're trying to appeal to and (b) suggesting the use of evil tactics. Same thing.
I really do want to understand the strong reaction I got when suggesting a possible attack against Palin.
849.
It occurs to me that Sen. Obama fits the tournament meme fairly well. Sometimes, like with Kelly Clarkson, it does select someone with genuine talent.
Kelly Clarkson is an example of the winner-take-all meme, in that several dozen people with basically the same degree of talent were assembled, and all of them except one were sent home, and one of them was given all the rewards.
869: Ari, don't you think, though, that the Christian doctrine of forgiveness, justification by faith alone, the parable of the Prodigal son, and the Calvinist idea that God's ways are unknowable and he saves and condemns people (who are all sinners and worms crawling on the eareth) for reasons we can't understand, all enable a sort of lottery way of thinking? Obviously that wasn't the original version, but it seems to be pretty easily derived from Calvinism, and actually was so derived.
Some prosperity theology churches discourage chronically ill people from attending, because a.) it harshes the bliss, and 2.) obviously God has some issues with them if they're sick.
878: given that, is it okay if I make jokes about Mark Penn's balls being like little shrivelled up raisins?
Is there another sort of raisin, that is not shrivelled up?
869. Speaking of names. Thomas Jefferson Jackson Lears.
I like it when people talk about my imposing genitalia.
Yeah, the jokes write themselves, but in all honesty I don't like it when people whom I like and respect make disparaging remarks about my genitalia.
And LB, in my opinion you are an authority here because you are one of the writer's of this blog. Like it or not your opinion carries more weight because of that.
Now I've been told by a couple other writers that they don't understand why people seem to take such offense to me but I do respect what you say, because you are thoughtful and you back your statements up with reasons.
874: Maybe I misunderstood the point of the "pants down" in the following.
Hmmm, if only there were some extremely common English-language idiom we could compare it with. We can dream.
in my experience allowing personal references, especially about genitalia, leads to such a bad place that a taboo is warranted.
So let me get this straight: you come to the web's Original Home of the Cock Joke, get involved in a stupid argument about whether it's good political tactics to go after Sarah Palin's reputation or her high-school nickname, complain about PC-ness when some are unamused and would now like to complain about how references to getting caught with your pants down should be taboo, because they're about genitalia.
Okay, then.
How'd you get the beans above the frank, anyway?
885.1: Dude, the longer you go on about this, the funnier it's going to get. You realize that, don't you?
Tripp, if you really want to understand the strong reaction to your behavior, please note that several people, throughout the thread, expressed discomfort with the idea of using derogatory sex-based stereotypes to tear down any candidate for high office. And then, Lunar Rockette, most recently, pointed out how infuriated we all would be if you had said something like, "I know, we should call Obama 'uppity.' It's not that I think he's uppity. But that shit will play in Peoria."
That you then ignored people's entreaties, and that you're now stunned that people finally moved from politely asking you to stop to telling you that you're an asshole, is surprising and suggests that you're an asshole. No, check that, it suggests that you're acting like an asshole.
883: keep your pedantry off my jokes about genitalia.
881: I wonder if our being a colony/frontier nation didn't also play some part in it? Plenty of European counties with similar crazy Protestant backgrounds that don't seem to have turned out a similar culture about at all.
But dogging on Calvinists is always good.
889: I will not stand Idly by and let "md 20/400" spread scurrilous rumors about the genitalia of Pauline Hanson, a valued and respectable Everywoman and Leader.
887: f'real. Did he really just drop this?
874:I really do want to understand the strong reaction I got when suggesting a possible attack against Palin.
Your suggested line of attack validated a line of attack against women in general. I get that you were exploring a base suppression strategy by playing into the bigotry of certain segments of the GOP base, but you cant use bigotry without sending the message that bigotry is OK.
849
People who're pushing that angle are douches, and so are you.
I was not pushing that angle. I was suggesting it, and I was trying to explore the question of which is more important, non-douchiness or winning the election.
I hope we can do both but imagine if one really had to choose. LB has suggested that perhaps a lesser-of-two-evils decision might be reached, which is a good starting point for the discussion. In some of my personal decisions principle trumps everything else, but I don't see this election as one of those times.
But I want to be clear - am I a douche for even exploring such a decision?
Also, I was assuming that Cala's "pants down" comment was a joke about Tripp being anally raped by the collective commentariat. Probably via Apo's imposing genitalia. [Cue transubstantiation joke!]
Flame wars, cock jokes, and substantive discussions of the effect of theology on economic injustice: an eternal golden braid.
If you saw apo's genitalia standing alone, with apo himself hidden, you'd be amazed. "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?" you'd ask yourself. Definitely bigger than a breadbox.
LB has suggested that perhaps a lesser-of-two-evils decision might be reached, which is a good starting point for the discussion.
Not really. It's like the 'ticking atom bomb' argument for torture. Not really a good idea as a starting point for "maybe torture is okay generally".
Likewise, I think it's indefensible to start talking about "what kind of racist and sexist attacks would be useful if they were really necessary to avoid something terrible happening" unless you have a really solidly convincing argument that they are really necessary and the consequences for not using them would be genuinely terrible. And I haven't seen anything like such an argument.
Sarah Palin has sown discord in the Mineshaft. I knew she was a monster.
888.2: A very droll video, incidentally, and that guy's explanation would be great except for one thing: near the end he effectively (and correctly) notes that it's impossible to just have the "what they did" conversation, since the other party will almost always interpret it as the "what they are" conversation and try to flip it into that context. I see his commenters pick up on this as well.
you cant use bigotry without sending the message that bigotry is OK.
May one exploit bigotry in another without sending the message that bigotry is OK? I mean shoot, the GOP is all about exploiting bigotry.
Who is getting this message anyway?
Also, is it OK to exploit the bigotry of others to get into office so one can make the laws that prohibit bigotry? Remember, the people you are exploiting are also very much blind followers of the law. They are very much able to be bigotted pawns and then when a new law is passed stop at least the overt bigotry.
But I want to be clear - am I a douche for even exploring such a decision?
So, putting it in the terms you've chosen there, yes, you would be.
Syphilitic American raisins will ascend. Pauline Hanson's raisin are, hmm, down under.
(Naming a kid Victor Davis was cruel.)
am I a douche for even exploring such a decision?
Yes, you are.
You're a douche for plenty of other reasons, too, but that is impressively douchey, not just because it's vile, not even because it wouldn't work, but because it would likely actively backfire. In fact, it already has.
Speaking of "Syphilitic American Raisins", did Stanley ever say what the name for his secondary band was going to be?
The GOP is bigoted. They don't really exploit bigotry. Doing so is more problematic for Democrats.
It wouldn't be without permanent effects, either. If we palyed that game, the US would end up with one and a half sexist parties, making America effectively sexist. The same way we have had one and a half war parties since at least 1960, making it impossible to resist wars.
I'm going to exploit all this anti-Tripp bigotry to further my goal of being elected Most Reasonable Commenter.
An election, needless to say, that won't be about the issues.
This blog has gone to hell since Cala left.
908: Reasonable sources have it on good authority from other reasonable sources that Tripp's genitalia are pretzel-shaped. I'd start from there and run with it.
John, I have the hardest time explaining, in my survey classes at least, predestination as a way of upholding community mores. I always think that a community suffused with believers in predestination would become corrupt. Its members, knowing that their behavior made not a whit of difference in whether they would enter the kingdom of God, would sit around all day eating bonbons and playing Tomb Raider. But then I recall that such behavior smacked of sin, which suggested that the person eating candy and fantasizing about being Lara Croft was in fact not a member of the elect. In other words, people at the time just didn't think about these issues like we do. And luck, so far as they were concerned, was not an issue.
Over time, though, as the earliest strains of consumer consumer (seventeenth-century variety) began to take root in the colonies of the northeast, the kind of rot I describe above is precisely what the Puritan elders began to see around them. As more and more New Englanders started buying Playstations (luxury goods from England) and coveting their neighbors' stuff, church membership, and more than that attendance, began to sag. And that's what brought us the Halfway Covenant and the first North America declension narratives.
But everything above is pretty far afield for me. If we could just get back to talking about cyclonic storms, I'd be much more at ease.
I'm not so sure my bringing up this proposal has backfired yet.
John, I disagree that the GOP is bigoted. In my view the hard core GOP base are authoritarian followers who are many things including bigoted, but the GOP business people are not necessarily bigoted and neither are the GOP leaders and strategists.
What I propose is that we explore the idea of using the bigotry of the GOP base authoritarian followers against the GOP itself in order to gain power and pass and enforce the laws which the GOP base will follow because they are all about respecting the leader and following the law no matter what.
Given this proposal, LB, do you think this is a defensible topic for discussion?
I don't want to see Sifu running an election...he'd be the Karl Rove of Unfogged. All attack ads and ratfucking. Plus, killer robots!
Also, my last bit of pedantry on tournaments...from a labor econ perspective, the tournament model mostly just models why people compete for promotion to fixed job slots in a hierarchy rather than getting paid based on their output, why you see wage compression within job titles and significant discontinuous jumps in salary when people move across job titles, etc. It does not imply the things people are saying here. What it sounds to me like people here are talking about is that book by Robert Frank, "The Winner Take All Society".
I was browsing the forums for the server I play World of Warcraft on last night, and people were actually talking about the "lefties/liberals talk smack about Bristol/Sarah Palin" thing. Regardless of whether it has any relationship to the reality, "clueless liberal elitist assholes trash perfectly nice Governor SuperMom" has already taken hold as a narrative. Most of these guys are about as low-information as you can get (although they may or may not even be voters), and the vast majority of them have neither the older Republicans "bigotry" towards, what, loose women? nor the kind of self-rghteous decency fetish that would cause them to get all up in arms over this sort of thing normally - quite the opposite, really.
It was honestly depressing, in part because I really can't think of a demographic lower in information and more immune to decency arguments. And yet...
I always think that a community suffused with believers in predestination would become corrupt.
Isn't the motivation for good behavior the desire to pass as saved? If you really are predestined as one of the elect, you'd naturally be exemplary in your behavior. Visibly sinning, then, is an admission that you're damned.
You're not behaving well to stay out of hell -- there's nothing you can do about that -- just to keep your neighbors from knowing that you're damned. (And of course, to keep yourself from knowing -- if you behave well, you might be saved, whatever's going on in your head. If you're sinning, you have to admit to yourself that you're in for an eternity in the pit of sulfur.)
This is probably bad Calvinist theology, but it seems like a reasonable way for a Calvinist to behave.
Killer robots win elections, PGD. That's just how it is.
"I always knew Calvin sucked." -- God
902:Also, is it OK to exploit the bigotry of others to get into office so one can make the laws that prohibit bigotry?
Since I'm pretty much opposed to anti-bigotry laws as well as bigotry itself, that's a double loser for me.
I think there's simply no way to use bigotry as a tool without endorsing it, and endorsing it is an attack on allies, which is a bad thing in addition to the badness of the bigotry itself.
Assuming the counterfactual about bigotry being the difference between winning and losing, I think you have to consider what you're fighting for. If we as a society are so fucked up that bigotry is a prerequisite for getting power within the existing system, I think it's time to ditch the system. To be perfectly clear: I'm talking about armed revolt.
What I propose is that we explore the idea of using the bigotry of the GOP base authoritarian followers against the GOP itself in order to gain power and pass and enforce the laws which the GOP base will follow because they are all about respecting the leader and following the law no matter what.
Reasonably stated, this is still a very bad idea:
--The GOP base is certainly not about respecting the leader and following the law. Where were you during the Clinton years?
--trying to use sexist slut-shaming, or whatever you're suggesting, against Sarah Palin distracts from the fact that Palin is the most extreme fundamentalist right-winger ever nominated on a major party ticket, most of the public disagrees with her views. However, they also disagree with sexist attacks, and such attacks allow the GOP to run out the clock quarreling about sexism instead of talking about her actual weaknesses.
--if you do want to subtly attack Palin's personality, I'd suggest doing so in a way that aligns with the proper attack on her political views. Like, she wants to control other peoples private behavior through abortion restrictions, etc. can align with seeming bossy or overbearing.
Curses, I was just about to say everything in 915. LizardBreath is damned!
Killer robots win elections, PGD. That's just how it is.
My friends, that's not reasonableness we can believe in.
912: So the Democratic party is going to use sneaky bigotry to elect a black candidate. Who narrowly beat out a woman candidate. No.
Also, LB, you named Knecht and Max way earlier in this thread and not me. I'd like to think that's because I was just clarifying what was going on while calling it sexist, but most likely it's just because my commenter status is low. Anyway, sorry. I really do think Palin is uncannily like that porn stereotype, and consider an awareness of that an interesting and important thing to consider in light of the general male reaction to her—but this was not that conversation, so it was just offensive and pointless.
Take the God out of 915, and don't you pretty much have middle-class aspirationalism?
914: That was going to happen no matter what was said about Palin, you know that, right? Even if it had all been carefully confined to reasonable comments about her lack of experience, it would be "lefties/liberals are always calling Our People Stupid!!" That's standard playbook.
togolosh and others,
I'm waiting for LB to give this discussion the go ahead, but I think I have some responses to make.
using the bigotry of the GOP base... Given this proposal, LB, do you think this is a defensible topic for discussion?
Still no. Once you're into using bigotry for political advantage, you're George Wallace and you suck. There's probably nothing so evil that I wouldn't do it if I were absolutely sure it would prevent something much worse. (See Waring, Belle, By The Power of Stipulation...). But you need "absolutely sure" and "much worse" before I think it's defensible even to talk about doing evil things to win an election.
Killer robots win elections, PGD. That's just how it is.
So if I understand you right, you're saying that it would be moral to unleash killer robots to win an election, if we then used the power we gained to ban the scourge of killer robots forever.
I'd be terrified of Calvin's God. I just know I wouldn't get chosen.
i really start with the present (prosperity theology and revival Christianity) and work back. I don't know how far it goes. The phrase "visible signs of invisible grace" shows up somewhere, and in the unrestricted freemarket of the XIXc the losers were usually blamed for their problems.
Cotton Mather told my dear aunt Elizabeth on the day of her hanging that she still might be saved.
922: Have you ever considered that maybe, just maybe, the flow of imagery from real life women to porn is - to put it mildly - not unidirectional?
928: It's like the stress of trying to get picked for the basketball team, only infinitely multiplied.
927: I resent the use of the term "scourge". Americans are hurting, and they're asking us to help them, with killer robots. It's morning in America, PGD, and the killer robots are charged up and ready to go.
LB,
Still no.
Fair enough. Discussion closed. I won't bring it up again.
930: huh, huh, you implied bidirectionality.
924: Oh, I know. But that it works on the kind of people who, for example, think it's HIGH-larious to put "Vagina: it's not a clown car" on a picture of Michelle Duggar, and are mercilessly in mocking anyone who's too uptight/SRS BSNS? Whose main cultural denominator is the Something Awful forums? Still kind of a shock.
Cotton Mather told my dear aunt Elizabeth on the day of her hanging that she still might be saved.
Terrifying! Did Elizabeth have any last dying words? I'm fascinated by gallows speeches.
928: Well, duh, with your bad blood of course not.
Also, LB, you named Knecht and Max way earlier in this thread and not me. I'd like to think that's because I was just clarifying what was going on while calling it sexist, but most likely it's just because my commenter status is low.
I read back, and honestly it was that you called it sexist that made your comment not bother me. What set me off about Knecht's comment particularly (and I'm sure it wasn't meant that way), was that it approached Palin's purported resemblance to a porn stereotype as a neutral, objective, fact about her that should be noted for the record.
The fact that you (or max or Knecht) has your head cluttered up with a porn stereotype that she reminds you of is a fact about you, not about her. And if a big chunk of the electorate shares your associations, it might be a fact about them that's going to have some political effect, as you say, and I could see having a conversation about that. Your comment didn't bother me, I think, because it looked like it was heading toward that conversation, rather than the one about how if she didn't want to be treated as a porn stereotype, she shouldn't shamelessly go out in public in a pantsuit with her hair up.
Or maybe I just missed yours because you're low status. You never know.
938: So, would you ever consider pointing out that some random woman on the street looks like a dead ringer for a Suicide Girl or an "Amateur" as per that genre?
Because, seriously, that's basically what you guys are implying doing, just on a national level. Going up to Sarah Palin and saying "HEY, WEREN'T YOU IN HUGE BLACK DICKS IN TINY WHITE CHICKS 3?!? YOU WERE THE HOT LIBRARIAN, LOL"
"HEY, WEREN'T YOU IN HUGE BLACK DICKS IN TINY WHITE CHICKS 3?!? YOU WERE THE HOT LIBRARIAN, LOL"
Okay, now we're getting down to policy specifics.
Sifu, it occurs to me that some people might not appreciate the killer robots new `hawt librarian' skins. Just saying.
Hell, I actually look like an (admittedly super-niche) porn stereotype, about 90% of the time. That doesn't mean anyone who pointed that out (who wasn't Shine Louise Houston) wouldn't get their teeth smashed in.
Cotton Mather described his ministering to her as unfruitful, though I believe that he claimed that he broke her down in the end and she repented. But maybe not. It would be sort of an interesting play to write.
On Elizabeth's execution day Mather spoke of "Jolly Sinners" who observe that "There is one event unto all" -- i.e., that people suffer or prosper regardless of their moral qualities -- and also conclude that "The basest life here, is better than the best hereafter".
So Elizabeth was a prophetic precursor of the youth of today.
Going up to Sarah Palin and saying "HEY, WEREN'T YOU IN HUGE BLACK DICKS IN TINY WHITE CHICKS 3?!? YOU WERE THE HOT LIBRARIAN, LOL"
it's so crazy, it just might work!
Who's Shine Louise Houston?
Someone who LR wouldn't mind making a porn movie with, clearly.
that book by Robert Frank, "The Winner Take All Society".
I hate when people have already written entire books about my shocking new insights. I wish they would stop that.
How much do I have to read before I know what is out there enough to stop proclaiming that I've thought of something new?
Anyway, I requested it from the library, and LB's other Goeggghhahghgahggn as well.
942: Battlestar Galactica says you're wrong.
I think that the tournament idea can be used in other eays than the way economists have used it.
940: You'll notice that I didn't raise the comparison at all—to be honest, though I bet you won't believe this, it hadn't actually occurred to me until Knecht brought it up—and only stepped in to clarify the stereotype they were referring to, while condemning it.
You know what's really annoying, though? Yelling at someone after they apologized. Also: continuing to yell at someone after the party they offended accepted their apology.
950: Well I did say some people'. Clearly many would welcome their new librarian overlords.
Hell, I actually look like an (admittedly super-niche) porn stereotype
Can't everyone say this, if you just make the niche small enough?
So when is this porn movie about a huge black librarian from Houston insulting Tripp's genitals with a killer robot during a Calvinball tournament coming out, anyhow?
So when is this porn movie about a huge black librarian from Houston insulting Tripp's genitals with a killer robot during a Calvinball tournament coming out, anyhow?
If you can get DS to go to Boston for the meetup possibly very soon.
I really do want to understand the strong reaction I got when suggesting a possible attack against Palin.
Oh yes? Well then:
I think your suggestions re whispering campaign are silly, pointless and misogynist, but normally I wouldn't bother to comment on this, because who needs the drama? What actually pissed me off was not your remarks about the Republican base, but what you had to say about older women volunteering to work for Obama.
If this is something you've conveniently forgotten, please refer to dz's comment 418, and your response at 430:
And that group just loves to do the grass roots talking too. Oh yes.
955: Sounds like a christmas release sort of a title.
Lunar and LB,
In my opinion Palin is a public figure and some things that are inappropriate for non-public figures are appropriate for public figures. For that reason I don't think the 'would you do this to some person on the street' question is a valid comparison.
954: Well, yeah, but SLH has actually had her stuff - distributed, I suppose? Kind of a cult hit, in fact. So there's that. Plus I get the impression that most of the niche-ier porns aren't really about "looks", per se?
957: let's have a whispering campaign at the meetup this weekend! It'll be fun, like playing Telephone. Knecht'll whisper something about the Hot For Teacher video, and then by the time the message has been passed all the way around it'll be something about how eminently mockable Tripp's private personal genitalia is.
There ought to be a website where you can enter some basic facts about yourself, and maybe a picture, and they send you links to the porn sites that make a fetish out of *people exactly like you*.
I'd do a google search for "porn middle aged college professor no beard" but I'm at work. Besides, I don't think it would work. And I really only want the name. What do you call people who fetishize middle aged, beardless college professors?
964: What do you call people who fetishize middle aged, beardless college professors?
Undergraduates.
What do you call people who fetishize middle aged, beardless college professors?
Mrs. Helpy-Chalk.
952: Try revising your butthurt based on 960.
When I left this thread last night, we'd reached comity on the fact that we all work too hard. So what did you do while I was sleeping? You fucked it up. All because of Sarah Palin. Who is the devil.
967 cont'd: it's like the Aristocrats of unfogged.
"... and the title's October Surprise!"
we'd reached comity on the fact that we all work too hard.
ATM? You've got to be kidding.
Hey, Unfogged! And there I was, thinking I'd never get to say how sad I was, being lumped in with Tripp.
Oh, sorry. I didn't realize we were done arguing. I think we can all agree that Sarah Palin is the devil.
This place has gone to hell in a handcart since Cala left.
(Cala! Come back!).
There was a server error when I tried to post. Tripp, I was really glad when you came back, but I do think that there are things you do which get on people's nerves, and it would be better if you tried to avoid them. One is arguing from an ev-psych view without facts to back you up.
But it also seems to me like tempers have just flared and that people are on edge. I think it's fine that LB and Witt were really offended by the porn star comment. I hadn't really considered the question. It didn't bother me that much, but I'm not sure that I was right not to be incensed.
So, I don't want to criticize LB, but I do hope that we can all calm down a bit. I hope that doesn't sound patronizing. I value this place a lot as a community, and I would hate to see it destroyed.
At the football field in a very Republican county, the reaction to Palin has been mixed.
But, virtually all of the men and women have commented positively on her appearance.
I realize that there are huge issues with demeaning the qualities of women by discussing their appearance, but didn't we spend a lot of time discussing Edwards' appearance?
I recognize that we should strive to avoid making judgments based on physical appearance. But, how one comes across in a superficial setting like debates and speeches has a lot to do with physical appearance and expression.
Also, I don't care what you people say, Blume has great eyebrows!
I would hate to see it destroyed.
Don't let the talk of killer robots alarm you.
didn't we spend a lot of time discussing Edwards' appearance
McCain's and Obama's as well.
But I don't think the complaint had to do with commenting on her appearance per se. Nobody's said, e.g. "doesn't John McCain look kind of like Ned Beatty's character right after he got raped in Deliverance?"
One is arguing from an ev-psych view without facts to back you up.
This is almost tautological.
"doesn't John McCain look kind of like Ned Beatty's character right after he got raped in Deliverance?"
Heyyy....
"I always knew Calvin sucked." -- God
And how! ROWRR!!! -- Hobbes
we've had twice as many volunteers come in today as usual, with half of that 200% saying in so many words that Palin's speech was the catalyst they needed to get off their asses. I have no idea how she plays in mythic Middle America, but she's certainly pissing off a lot of vaguely elderly Ohio women.
mcmc:
What was wrong with this comment? You are not normally one to get fired
She wasn't responding to that comment, Will.
Bostoniangirl,
I got the same server error. I sincerely see your point and I respectfully ask this of LizardBreath.
LizardBreath, this is the current "about unfogged" description and it is hopelessly inaccurate.
The blogosphere is full of faulty logic, dubious facts, poor argumentation, strident ideology, rampant falsehoods, characters of ill repute and many other things harmful to one's mental well being. Unfogged.com aims to cut through that fog and provide clarity and sweet reason to all who read it.
Or not.
Unf and Ogged are interested in, and thus likely to blog about, the following: law, philosophy, technology, movies, music, books, politics, travel, corporate finance, golf, beer, wine, restaurants, the stock market, other blogs, life, love and everything else.
Your comments, emails, home-baked cookies and cashiers checks will always be appreciated.
I make this request although of course y'all can do whatever you want too.
I see no mention of feminism in the description. Also, you have specifically banned one topic and people I respect have told me that other similar topics (such as ev_psych, or things that irritate feminists) will get a bad reception.
With Ogged gone I think it is fair to say the community standards (whatever that means) of this blog have shifted to the feminist viewpoint, which is fine, but I think the blog description should be updated to reflect this change.
Heaven knows the world needs feminist blogs and of course this is your blog so you may do whatever you want with it.
I'm just making a suggestion. In my opinion making the description more accurate may prevent some trouble down the road.
With Ogged gone I think it is fair to say the community standards (whatever that means) of this blog have shifted to the feminist viewpoint, which is fine, but I think the blog description should be updated to reflect this change.
FWIW, this is total bullshit.
I've been (very mildly) critical in the past of the 'vibe' around certain topics -- sometimes people don't always get the benefit of the doubt* -- but it's just not true that 'this blog [has] shifted to the feminist viewpoint', if anything there's less rather than more discussion of topics around gender politics.
Just because you didn't like the response to something you said that doesn't make general claims about the 'viewpoint of the blog' true.
* and given the general tenor of the world/blogosphere-in-general this isn't really surprising.
Yes, where is the golf blogging? And where is Unf? I demand a refund.
Tripp, you could learn to take a hint.
Is it time to start playing the Shorter Tripp game yet?
I cordially invite you to go soak your head. I have absolutely no interest in preventing trouble down the road.
You know Tripp, it might be time to go down to the ballfield and find someone to hit some flyballs to or something for a few hours.
I'm just making a suggestion.
I hear Jessica Alba's not even attractive anymore. And you swim in water. And, um, cancer!
952: Try revising your butthurt based on 960.
Huh? 960 was me. For the record I'm the guy who said we should consider using the GOP's bigotry against them and I'm also the guy who used bad language. I apologized for the language, specifically part of it, but I apologize for all of it now. Specifically "Uppity" and "slut."
Sorry, and I haven't used those words since and I won't in the future.
I did not apologize for suggesting we talk about using the GOPs bigotry against them. LB has banned that discussion so that's over for me.
On the porn thing I've been an observer (of the arguments, not the porn, which yeah in college I watched a couple times and it wasn't my thing and tended to get grosser and grosser and grossed me out but that's just me) on the sidelines. My point about public vs private figures is, I think, a valid one worth discussing.
With Ogged gone I think it is fair to say the community standards (whatever that means) of this blog have shifted to the feminist viewpoint, which is fine, but I think the blog description should be updated to reflect this change.
You're fucking whining about the *blog description* now? Where the fuck are our pastries?
LB has banned that discussion so that's over for me.
Have not. I said that wanting to talk about how best to exploit your sense of the GOP's bigotry makes you a douche, and is evil, but I didn't say you can't talk about it here. If you talk about it, I'll probably keep on saying what I think about it as well, but that doesn't mean the discussion is banned.
Kobe *likes* the new feminist Unfogged. A lot! Hubba hubba!
988: This blog isn't a feminist blog, IMO - it's not about feminist issues, mostly. But most of the commenters support feminism. The crowd here probably has changed a bit in the last few years, for one thing it's much bigger.
other similar topics (such as ev_psych, or things that irritate feminists) will get a bad reception.
Look, people will argue vehemently with stuff they disagree with. You can't ask them not to do that.
As for "ev psych", there is a fair bit of well-deserved scorn for arguments that people just pull out of their own prejudices. They have achieved their own Unfogged caricature phrase "on the veldt". You've made a few "ev psych" comments here which didn't seem to me be more than just-so stories.
Tripp, you could learn to take a hint.
This is exactly what I meant by community standards. All groups have them, and all groups enforce them. I'm asking that these standards be made explicit in this case.
I know this is a topic as old as the internets but it is a crucial topic. What are the Unfogged rules for allowable speech?
999: I think it's vitally important that we continue to talk about how Tripp's a douche. Also, his personal genitalia is funny looking.
My point about public vs private figures is, I think, a valid one worth discussing.
Since it was a very poor one given in my defense, can I say—no, it's not. One might have the right to sexualize public figures in a way that would constitute harassment if done to a private figure, but the inherent tastelessness and sexism is common to both.
What are the Unfogged rules for allowable speech?
Anything from anybody but you is fine.
988: With Ogged gone I think it is fair to say the community standards (whatever that means) of this blog have shifted to the feminist viewpoint,
The funny thing is that Ogged would probably relentlessly mock you for this stupid statement.
I think blogs frequented by feminists should carry a big, flashing warning label. Something like WARNING: POTENTIAL FEMINIST CONTENT.
1007 - On the veldt, flashing labels were used by primitive man to signal dangerous trees and animals. Women, sadly, were at home with the babies and never learned to identify these signals.
What are the Unfogged rules for allowable speech?
Anything you say should be interpretable at some level as praise for Heebie. That's the only hard-and-fast rule.
What are the Unfogged rules for allowable speech?
We've banned people for being incoherently, voluably, and persistently abusive (two real loons, AFAICan recall, and one more garden-variety troll, but a really unambiguous troll) and there was one other sui generis situation which I'm not going to get into the details of.
Other than that, you say what you like, and other people will say what they like to you.
1007: "YOUR STUPID PENIS ISN'T WELCOME HERE."
What are the Unfogged rules for allowable speech?
Interesting, informative, and/or funny. Since you can't manage to meet any of these requirements, we're going to have to keep mocking your tiny, pretzel-shaped genitalia.
Here is another serious server question. Looking back over this comment section there are comments inserted that I did not initially see. How does the server present the comment thread.
I'm saying this because if the flow is not ordered then it really throws discussion out of whack. This sounds like a cop-out but I'm serious. I'll make a point, see it posted, then later see something else posted before my comment which makes my comment look stupid.
I know this sounds like a BS cop-out but reading this comment section gives a distorted view of the discussion.
Shorter Tripp: What is this 'pwning'?
Tripp, there really are no rules here, and LB in particular is very much against the idea of ever banning anyone.
You can tell from the reaction what gets the most negative response from the community, which is not centralized and doesn't have codified rules. We tend not to be friendly to ev psych, but that's not an absolute -- you really should be prepared to back up anything you say against vigorou criticism, though. Most people here are more or less feminist, though many of us including me test the boundaries pretty often. As far as I know, though, every single female feminist here actively makes a point of avoiding some of the more extreme feminist positions.
And as I mentioned, some of your contributions have an oddly condescending tone.
1013: aren't those more goals than rules? I mean, perhaps they should be rules, but then about 75% of the comments would need to go. More for some people, less for others.
Here's a clue: the "rules" are no different than they are in real life. In other words, there are no "rules", but if you piss people off they're going to snap at you, and if you piss them off severely or frequently and they're not going to enjoy your company very much.
Tripp, take JP's suggestion in 994 seriously.
serious server question
On a busy thread, several comments can be posted while you're typing your own. When you preview, if you scroll down to the bottom you can see comments posted since you previously refreshed. Even then someone else could be posting just when you hit "post".
When I started this comment, 1017 was the most recent comment - on preview it's now up to 1019.
870
"Rrrrgh. Ari, while I love you like a brother, after I've just given Tripp a hard time for trying to pull 'higher-status commenter' rank on the people who were arguing with him, I hate to, myself, be seen as pulling 'most reasonable person' on the blog rank."
I think this is a little disingenuous. You may not have explicitly claimed a leadership position but you have implicitly assumed one. You give your opinion on what you find acceptable and because you are in fact one of the most respected people on the blog your opinion is given great weight.
If we're going to replace the About Unfogged (or the hovertext) anytime soon, we could do worse than 1006.
926
"... Once you're into using bigotry for political advantage, you're George Wallace and you suck ..."
This seems a little absolutist. There have been a lot of comments here about using McCain's age against him which people seem to find unobjectionable but which don't seem clearly distinguishable from sexist or racist appeals.
1021: Fair enough, and I'm not trying to be disingenuous about the fact that as a frontpage poster and voluble commenter I've got a fair amount of status here. What I didn't want Ari to do was to explicitly say "I, and the blog as a whole, give LB's opinions great weight, so you, comparatively low status commenter, should shut up and do what she says," and he came uncomfortably close, IMO, to doing that.
Once you're into using bigotry for political advantage, you're George Wallace and you suck.
You have got to be kidding me.
I thought people picked on ev psych arguments just because they are almost invariable moronic. You mean there's another reason?
1023: You do have a nice knack for finding spots where I've been arguably hypocritical. I know I've made cracks about McCain being, or at least looking like, a sad old man, and I'm pretty sure I've said that I thought the contrast in looks between McCain and Obama on that front was going to be a political advantage for Obama. I don't think that I've argued that the Obama campaign should actively find ways to play up McCain's age for political advantage, but I'm not certain one way or the other, I might have done that.
But to the extent my behavior, when examined, doesn't hold up to my stated principles, I'm sticking with the principles and apologizing for the behavior, not changing my principles to make my behavior acceptable.
1023: McCain's age is an issue because old people have a much higher probability of keeling over dead, not to mention the fact that there is a certain amount of mental slowing down with age even without taking into account Alzheimer's disease.
Now that McCain has chosen a manifestly unprepared vice presidential candidate the importance of his age increases.
1028: Well, and that too. There's a degree to which age is a legitimate competence issue. But it's hard to draw the line on that one. I thought the mental slowing down in the absence of some particular age-related source of mental dysfunction was not a particularly significant factor, though, although I can't recall what I'm basing that belief on.
(I spend a lot of time commisserating with my mother about the fact that we both lose things constantly. I think that gets scary for people who've always been ditsy as they get older -- you lose track of the fact that you've never known where your keys were, so not being able to find them doesn't mean you're senile, it just means you haven't changed. Being reminded that her thirty-something daughter has all the same short-term memory problems she does seems to be comforting.)
Fuck it. Speaking on behalf of all overprivileged white guys everywhere, we're fair game.
I should note that I got annoyed with Tripp in this thread not because I'm opposed to dirty politics when practiced by people on my side (that'd be just a bit hypocritical of me), but because his comments on the topic were clumsy, toolish, and condescending.
I am moderately sympathetic to ev psych. Our brains certainly did evolve to help us stay alive and reproduce. There has been some good research already, and hopefully there will be more in the future. I think it's especially important to think about group selection and how culture interacts with biological evolution. That will go a long way toward complexifying the oversimplifications that have given pop ev psych a bad name. However, speaking of oversimplifications, I think "sperm cheap, egg expensive" is one of the better ones, in the sense that it does have some real influence on human behavior.
These have all been blunt statements of opinion that I'm not bothering to defend right now, cuz I have to go. But I wanted to advertise the stunning diversity of opinion available here in the vital Unfogged community.
Speaking on behalf of all overprivileged white guys everywhere, we're fair game.
Speak for yourself! I reserve the right to assume the mantle of victimhood whenever it suits my interests. And to make fun of LB's genitalia.
OK, all overprivileged white guys except that pansy Knecht.
Looking back over this comment section I am certain that at least at times there are comments retroactively inserted. I've just seen it happen. I dunno if it is an artifact of the server or my connection or maybe the size of the comment section but it does happen because I've seen it. I'm not talking about a race condition where somebody else's comment beats mine to the server, I'm talking about the case where the actual comment flow I see and respond to will later have other comments inserted into it.
Or I'm psychotic which is always a possibility but this time I don't think that is true. And that's a joke there.
It's a pity, because it is hard enough talking about contentious issues without the problem of having one's comment pwned or jumbled because of the infrastructure.
1027
"But to the extent my behavior, when examined, doesn't hold up to my stated principles, I'm sticking with the principles and apologizing for the behavior, not changing my principles to make my behavior acceptable."
That sounds good but it can be a problem to advocate principles that it is difficult or impossible for real people to live up to. Isn't that an objection to abstinence only sex education?
1028
"McCain's age is an issue because old people have a much higher probability of keeling over dead, not to mention the fact that there is a certain amount of mental slowing down with age even without taking into account Alzheimer's disease."
There are lots of things about old people which are true statistically. But this is also true about blacks and women. Does this make concern about these things when applied to a specific individual legitimate?
And to be clear I'm not saying any individual comment of mine is mangled. Go ahead and nail me to the wall like normal for things said within a comment. My problem is figuring out how to comment in this huge swirly jumble without coming across as an ass and yet keeping my unique quirky goodness. Cause safe generic stuff ain't gonna cut it for me and this stuttery interface is working against me.
||
On the topic of Sarah Palin, someone just sent me a link to this Open Letter which absolutely hits the nail on the head.
It is one of the better attacks on "fetus rights" as a concept that has started to spread beyond the abortion debate, and seems very well targeted at Sarah Palin.
Pause/play symbols just because I should post a link somewhere other than at the bottom of a long and contentious thread.
|>
I'm sticking with the principles and apologizing for the behavior, not changing my principles to make my behavior acceptable.
How do you live with yourself, darlin?
gets scary for people who've always been ditsy as they get older
I could see the opposite being true. When my very good memory goes, I have no back-up strategy. Everything besides good memory sounds like effort, and I'm terrified I may have to do that one day.
James, she didn't say that it was impossible for her to live up to her stated principles. She was conceding that she may not have lived up to her stated principles in one or more cases, and responding that if that was the case, her behavior was wrong, and not the principle.
This particular comment of yours seems more than usually Turing-test-failure-ish.
Isn't that an objection to abstinence only sex education?
Not exactly. The objection to abstinence only sex ed, as I understand it, is that even for that segment of the population for whom abstinence from either premarital or pre-high-school-graduation sex is a matter of principle, that comprehensive sex ed is preferable as a matter of harm reduction. There's nothing objectionable as a matter of principle, even for the no-high-school-sex crowd, about educating kids about birth control and disease prevention - they're still free to remain chaste if they choose, and the ones who don't so choose are practically better off. The argument for abstinence only sex ed is similarly a practical rather than a principled one; that comprehensive education will practically tend to make teens less likely to remain chaste.
1036: Tripp, seriously, each comment has a number, and also a date and time stamp. Are you suggesting that one of the moderators has meddled with the comment order? Look, we all know that W-lfs-n edits our spelling and grammar, but what you're hinting at just sounds truly nutty...
Oh wait. I get it. This is the Rovian whisper campaign that you've been advocating throughout this thread. Dear God! have no scruples?! have you lost all sense of decency? You'll stop to nothing to make sure LB is never elected President.
comments on the topic were clumsy, toolish, and condescending.
This is something unfogged could do with less of.
OT: The kitten has been dubbed Leif.
Oh, I know it's really late in the game to wade in -- especially without making the effort to read all the way through this quagmire. But, eh.
I was struck upthread by Tripp's complaint that the "about Unfogged" description contains no mention of feminism, that it's a "bait and switch" as it were. And then I read the blurb from the About that Tripp quoted:
The blogosphere is full of faulty logic, dubious facts, poor argumentation, strident ideology, rampant falsehoods, characters of ill repute and many other things harmful to one's mental well being. Unfogged.com aims to cut through that fog and provide clarity and sweet reason to all who read it.
And I thought to myself, "Self, that sounds like a fairly workable description of feminism -- at least on some levels." 'Cause, thing is, feminism (or my personal variety anyway) strives to cut through faulty logic, dubious facts, etc. and so forth, particularly when the faulty logic etc. is applied to gendered issues.
And so, I'll offer this thought to Tripp. Your proposal to use the right-wing bigotry to defeat the right-wing was ill-received not merely because the community standards bar the use of terms like "uppity" or "slut," but because the foreseeable result of such a strategy is winning the battle but losing the war. Could sexist crap be used effectively to undermine support for McCain/Palin? Probably. But the cost of such an approach would be to further validate sexist crap, which is sort of contrary to the political goals many of us support.
Most of us don't support Obama/Biden simply because we think those are two really swell guys -- we do it because we hope that they will advance particular causes that matter. Pursuing their victory by selling out those causes kind of defeats the point.
Mary Catherine,
No, I don't think any person has meddled with anything here. I think the server software is having difficulty keeping things in synch. I don't know what they are running but that is my guess. It might be something else but I do NOT think it is anything done by a person.
I might be abrasive at times but I am not paranoid.
There are lots of things about old people which are true statistically. But this is also true about blacks and women. Does this make concern about these things when applied to a specific individual legitimate?
Some good points above, but this is silly. Being "old" means being in a relatively advanced state of the process of physical and mental degeneration and decay that eventually kills all human beings. It's actually somewhat comparable to a physical disease. Being black or being a woman is not a state of degeneration or decay at all, nor is it at all comparable to a disease.
1032: evo psych is two things:
It is the study of how our evolutionary past influences our psychology, and it's the use of just-so stories about the veldt to argue that middle class white suburban gender relations in the 1950s reflect an immutable state from which we deviate only at the risk of doing violence to human nature itself.
There's no question that our minds are shaped by our evolutionary past - to argue against that you really have to be a creationist.
Being "old" means being in a relatively advanced state of the process of physical and mental degeneration and decay that eventually kills all human beings.
Ooh! Let's all figure out a way to style McCain and Palin as medlars!
I'm not talking about a race condition where somebody else's comment beats mine to the server, I'm talking about the case where the actual comment flow I see and respond to will later have other comments inserted into it.
This is unlikely. Human perception is less reliable than database serialization.
Here's a clue: the "rules" are no different than they are in real life. In other words, there are no "rules", but if you piss people off they're going to snap at you, and if you piss them off severely or frequently and they're not going to enjoy your company very much.
This is absolutely correct.
I am moderately sympathetic to ev psych.
The complaint was not about ev. psych as a field of study, but it's use in argument in a more general setting.
Like economics, ev. psych is often trotted out ineptly in support of a position. And like economics, it's misuse is far more likely to be encountered in a general setting that the actual practices of the field are. The typical usage is common also with creation `science' approach --- begin with a conclusion you want to prop up, and work backwards in as plausible a jumps as you can manage until you have your `argument'. This is so generally true that any use at all can fairly be met with distrust, even if there is a miniscule chance that the person is actually saying something sensible.
1048
"... I think the server software is having difficulty keeping things in synch. ..."
I doubt this. People sometimes delete comments entirely. This messes up the comment numbering so pointers go to the wrong place. People notice and complain about this which is why comments are usually blanked rather than deleted entirely.
This is unlikely. Human perception is less reliable than database serialization.
In general I agree but dang it I know what I saw. I saw comments 1,2,3,4 all timestamped, hit refresh, and then saw 1,2,newcomment3,4,5. I think there are some case, maybe stress related, where the software will insert a comment into an existing stream or jumble the order or whatever. Shoot didn't we all see replicated comments a few days ago, or was that just me?
OT: The kitten has been dubbed Leif.
Kitty! Hooray!
1054: I know there have been comment deletions, and agree that keeping the original numbering would be preferable. However, Tripp seems to be claiming that there are comment insertions, which is bizarre and doesn't match anything I've seen. There are certainly race conditions, but they don't manifest as Tripp suggests....
This is unlikely. Human perception is less reliable than database serialization.
In general I agree but dang it I know what I saw.
erm, no comment?
pesky "?" should have been "."
I saw comments 1,2,3,4 all timestamped, hit refresh, and then saw 1,2,newcomment3,4,5.
I have to say, I have also occasionally observed the behavior Tripp describes.
Did anyone else see the server error 500 earlier today? Did anyone see duplicate comments yesterday or the day before?
1060: And yet you manage to comment pretty okay without pissing people off.
Did anyone see duplicate comments yesterday or the day before?
Don't we see dup's pretty much most days?
I was wondering whether "preview" freezes the time, but it doesn't.
Did anyone else see the server error 500 earlier today?
I saw this, for maybe 15 minutes. I thought it was weird that no one else commented on it—I'm in summertime commenting mode, but there's no way I'm the worst refresh monkey here.
yeah, the 500 was there earlier. such is life.
I have to say, I have also occasionally observed the behavior Tripp describes.
This strikes me as not out of the bounds of possibility on days of very heavy traffic due to how the blog software handles page generation. It shouldn't be terribly common, though.
Did anyone else see the server error 500 earlier today? Did anyone see duplicate comments yesterday or the day before?
These are different issues.
Don't we see dup's pretty much most days?
There was a weird set last night or the night before, I believe—during a speech, someone (JRoth?) complained about getting pwned because of the server a few times over the course of ten or so minutes.
And now that I've revealed how much time I spend here, I'm getting off work and going back to school.
I notice comments I missed before on looking back over threads all the time, but I've never seen anything checkably out of order (that is, an earlier comment reacting to or quoting a comment later in the thread). Given the back-and-forth nature of conversation here, if comments were really getting inserted in the stream out of order with any frequency, it seems very likely that there'd be unambiguous textual evidence of it. In the absence of such evidence, I don't think it's happening.
Duplicate comments happen via a very well understood mechanism. Something upstream of the database gives up and signals failure while the comment insertion is still in progress. The first insertion completes, but the user doesn't realize this so posts the comment again.
Sometimes the order of recent comments on the front page will differ from the order of comments on the comment page. I haven't looked at the code so am less sure, but if the recent comments list is updated as part of a separate transaction, this is also easily explicable.
Having comments be retroactively inserted into the comment stream is much less plausible.
These are different issues.
Well, yes, except that Dr. Evil is behind both of them.
In the absence of such evidence, I don't think it's happening.
Right. It's certainly not impossible, and I haven't seen how the comments here are implemented. However, many plausible implementations are such that this will never happen. I can think of ways to make it possible, but they seem a bit convoluted.
Sometimes the order of recent comments on the front page will differ from the order of comments on the comment page.
Yes, I've seen this. It's an understandable race condition.
1070: Ah, ok. I missed that. As watermocassin notes, the usual dup comment problem is pretty straightforward.
1074 - It would have to do with the server taking variable amounts of time to do an object save and rebuild on two comments posted nearly simultaneously. Like I said, I think it's plausible but unlikely to happen frequently, unless the site is getting absolutely hammered.
This discussion belongs in the Conspiracy Piracy thread.
This strikes me as not out of the bounds of possibility on days of very heavy traffic due to how the blog software handles page generation. It shouldn't be terribly common, though.
How could this occur? It looks like MT comments have an auto_increment id, which should prevent it. created_on has one second resolution, which could lead to different orderings for comments posted that closely together, but that seems like a different issue.
1076: oh, is the timestamp calculated in the app rather than in the DB? Hmm.
1076: Right, but you can get rid of any race here by not relying on timestamps. You have to assume variable lag and near simultaneous posts, so at first blush it seems the most obvious designs will avoid this problem. Of course, you could just ignore it, but that's poor design.
How could this occur? It looks like MT comments have an auto_increment id, which should prevent it. created_on has one second resolution, which could lead to different orderings for comments posted that closely together, but that seems like a different issue.
Because the comments shouldn't be getting sorted by id but rather by their creation date (which is in turn set by localtime rather than a DB function like NOW()). The CGI environment isn't stateful so there's no processing queue involved. If there's a database hiccup and Comment A arrives but the insertion doesn't happen until, e.g., two seconds later, Comment B could sneak in between.
Of course, you could just ignore it, but that's poor design.
And I should have added, "so I assume that's not what is going on"
I could be mistaken - I'd have to look at the specific templates involved on Unfogged, blah blah blah. I'm happy to yammer about this ad nauseam (this is my day job), but most people probably don't give a damn. Feel free to email me at mynickname@gmail.com.
1076: oh, is the timestamp calculated in the app rather than in the DB? Hmm.
This allows for things like hosting blogs in multiple time zones from the same application, for instance. There's a good deal of pre-insertion munging of the timestamps.
Someone email snarkout quick so he shuts up!
/Joke.
"Munging of the timestamps"? I'm afraid you'll have to be a little more direct and specific: I'm a low-information voter.
If I do, John will bruise my feelings again. Sniffle.
Get a room, guys.
There's anothe rPalin scandal, adultery this time. Divorce papers have been hurriedly sealed.
This is too good to be true. I'm now convinced that it is a fiendish Rovian plot to snare the adulterous-wife demographic along with the parent-of-knocked-up-teenager demographic, both them normally Democratic I would assume.
Divorce papers have been hurriedly sealed.
I thought I just read that the judge refused to seal them.
The horse is out of the barn, JE. Any dirt that comes up about Palin is a smear from the left wing media, regardless of the truth of the charges.
Don't screw up my anecdata, Oudemia.
So there really is some comment wonkiness, eh? Well, Tripp, I'm sorry about my Rovian whisper campaign to smear you as a Rovian whisper campaigner.
Two candidates for the dude, Brad Hanson and Scott Alan Richter.
Oh, wait. Take the high road, forget the clown show, remember that this is very serious shit involving nuclear weapons. OK, boss. Forget I said anything.
Meanwhile, in an impassioned speech earlier today, Obama noted that, while his daughters (ages 10 and seven) are too young - even by today's standards - to offer a down-to-earth, out-of-wedlock procreation scandal in time for the election, voters should "have the audacity to think ahead. In my second term - maybe even my first - I commit to you that I, too, will have an out-of-wedlock grandchild through which I can further fortify the values I share with the commoners of this great land."
Meanwhile, in an impassioned speech earlier today, Obama noted that, while his daughters (ages 10 and seven) are too young - even by today's standards - to offer a down-to-earth, out-of-wedlock procreation scandal in time for the election, voters should "have the audacity to think ahead. In my second term - maybe even my first - I commit to you that I, too, will have an out-of-wedlock grandchild through which I can further fortify the values I share with the commoners of this great land."
I'm going to close this thread. Don't want it to crash the server.
