The Gift That Keeps On Giving

You know what I love about Sarah Palin? Well really, nothing. But I do love that she gets in front of the TV cameras and says stuff like this in response to the unnamed sources from the McCain campaign talking about how she didn't know what countries were in NAFTA and that Africa was a continent, not a country (emphases mine):

“Those were taken out of context and that’s cruel. It’s mean-spirited. It’s immature. It’s unprofessional and those guys are jerks if they came away with it, taking things out of context, and then tried to spread something on national news.”

Oh please, please, please sweet merciful Sarah Palin's Imaginary God, please make her the face of the Republican Party for the next generation.

Her and that crazy Mitt fellow.

From "Maverick" to "Rogue"

 
I'm not sure there's much to really chew on in this report that some McCain aides have been struggling with Palin and accuse her of going rogue. It seems pretty clear that only the rock-solid GOP faithful are willing to keep up the charade that she's a legitimate candidate, when it is in fact clear that what she is, really, is a risky-political-choice-that-backfired in expensive pumps.

But what most struck me was the description of "diva" that was referenced in the article. Here's the quote:

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves, as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom." (emphasis mine)

This strikes me, particularly the last highlighted bit, because it sounds so much like W. He may be, in fact, a picture-perfect example of a heterosexual male diva.

And I think it goes further than that, because there is something in the diva-ness that the Right eats up. They love these "courage of their convictions" types that care little for science or diplomacy or basic intellectual curiosity. They attach to leaders that believe themselves "the beginning and end of all wisdom."

This resonates so deeply with me I propose we start attaching the term "diva" to the GOP and all her minions. Or maybe divas for the leaders, and diva-lovers for the minions, as at best anyone who would willfully vote for Palin is a groupie, toadie, or spineless personal assistant.

CNN: Palin's 'going rogue,' McCain aide says

Palin's Corruption - A Gift That Keeps On Giving

The woman just has no scruples at all. This article just popped up:

AP INVESTIGATION: Alaska funded Palin kids' travel

Seems that Palin liked to take her kids with her when she was traveling on business for the state. Hey, any working mom or dad can understand wanting to do that. But I would guess that most of them don't send a bill to their employer for their kids' airfare and hotels.

She later ammended expense reports to say that the kids were there on official business.

Awesome to know you can do that. After my daughter is born I'll call her my secretary and charge my boss for a full-time salary

This is a woman who claims she's going to "clean up Washington?"

Riiiight....

The Sarah Palin Poll

A few days ago, I received this email from a very Right member of my extended family:

PBS Poll on Sarah Palin - Takes 2 seconds !

Here's the link: http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html AFTER YOU VOTE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO YOUR LIST OF CLEAR THINKING PEOPLE, ASK THEM TO VOTE AND THEN ASK THEM TO FORWARD IT ON TO THEIR E-MAIL LISTS. LET'S SHOW PBS WHAT REAL AMERICANS THINK!

I am not what the author of this email would call one of the "clear thinking people" (and doubt he/she realized that leaving out the hyphen that should be between "clear" and "thinking" transforms the meaning of that phrase to "people who think and are also translucent"), because I think Gov. Palin is woefully underqualified, dogmatic, abrasive and easily-manipulated. So, I went to the link and clicked the button signifying my feeling that no, Palin is not qualified to be VP.

But the thing stuck in my craw for a while. I told TBO about it last night and conjectured that the desire to influence the results of the poll was particular to the right. I even went so far as to call the manipulation of this unscientific measure of reality part-and-parcel of Right ideology, as well-versed in reality-avoidance as they are, and suggested that this was something the Left, with our many tribes of focused interests, is less susceptible to. Such email campaigns wouldn't work on the Left, I ventured, because too many Letfies would have reservations about passing the thing along, and then made some drunken analogy to PC and Mac users and viruses.

Now I find that this was not the case. In fact, there were mobilization efforts on both sides, with wild swings in the results as either side crashed the servers before it settled into a 50/50 split (which should have been a tip-off).

And this saddens me, not because I find the effort to skew the poll results a silly waste of time that apparently my compatriots on the Left have accepted. It's what the desire to change affect the poll says about our political system. That this uncontextualized, issue-less metric would be given so much weight as to actually encourage mobilization efforts speaks to how shallowly much of the electorate actually engages. We have learned that presidential elections aren't about substantive issues but which side effectively projects their view of reality into the world.

I mean, really, a fucking yes/no/maybe online poll? It has about as much bearing on anything as that Sorting Hat quiz I took that kept putting me into Slytherin.

Palin Abused Powers

Not a surprising outcome of the Troopergate investigation, given what we've seen and heard of this woman so far: the investigation finds Palin abused her powers and created conflicts of interest in her and husband Todd's efforts to get their former brother-in-law fired (though not in firing the troopers boss, as she is empowered to do so without cause).

This I did find, well, if not surprising at least laughably disgusting:

In an e-mail statement, [McCain-Palin campaign spokesperson] Ms. Stapleton said the report showed that the investigation was a “partisan led inquiry run by Obama supporters and the Palins were completely justified in their concern regarding Trooper Wooten given his violent and rogue behavior.” (emphasis mine)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't this investigation already a month in when Palin was tapped for the VP nomination? Meaning that the investigator was in place well before Obama and his supporters gave a flying flip about Palin, or likely even knew who she was.

Seriously, does that campaign care at all about the truth? Even a little? Or is reality just a plaything to be molded to their preconceptions and desired ends?

New York Times: Alaska Inquiry Concludes Palin Abused Powers

This is what a counter-punch looks like

I have to say, for me, Palin's recent humping of the Ayers dog has been a low point of the campaign so far. Her attempt to paint Obama with terrorist taint because of his acquaintanceship with Ayers, despite that fact Obama denounced Ayers former activities, is sickening, and frankly an attempt to tie into racist leanings that want to connect Obama to every dark-skinned, funny-named monster lurking in Joe SixPack's collective psyche.

So, here's the counter-punch, and the Obama campaign ought to go ahead and use it. David Talbot talks in Salon today about the Palins and the Alaska Independence Party. Founded by a continually-armed man whose rhetoric was incendiary to say the least and who spoke at the UN under the auspices of Iran, the AIP held Todd Palin as a member and their tactics were given the old Sarah Palin wink-and-nod when she was governor.

It is time for the Obama campaign to step things up a bit. If they want to fight a personality campaign, let's expose just how wretched, self-centered and hypocritical their personalities are.

In Al Franken's book Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, he tells the story of the time Paul Wolfowitz said to him "Fuck you!" at the White House Press Dinner. And Franken concludes the book, which exposed so much Right-wing dissembling and treachery and malice, saying, and I paraphrase, "The next time an asshole like Paul Wolfowitz says 'Fuck you!,' look him in the eye and say, 'No, fuck YOU.'"

It is time to counter-punch, it is time to say to these two ruthless, lying (sons-a-)bitches, "No, fuck YOU."

Pre-Debate Reading

I'm a big fan of Steve Chapman, a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He took a lot of heat a couple of years ago for daring to suggest to the Republicans that, yes, in fact the war on terrorism is a crime-fighting endeavour despite all the derision of that suggestion by the Bush administration. He is one of the first mainstream news people I've read that came out to challenge the notion that we can't fight terrorism with the rule of law. And he's no hard-core lefty. (Can't find the article, Trib's archives are not free)

Anyway, he wrote a great column for today's Trib about Palin's small-town snobbery.

Go read the article. It starts like this:

Americans disdain snobbery in all its forms except the most popular one: reverse snobbery. Joe Biden would never get up in front of a crowd and suggest that the citizens of Manhattan are morally superior to the residents of Possum Gulch, Ark. But Sarah Palin was happy to tell the Republican National Convention that
the very best people come from the country.

It goes on to challenge the whole myth of life being better in rural America. He also points out that if it were so great there, why does 80% of our population live in metropolitan areas?

I was bitching about this during her speech and wondered why no one else was picking up on the fact that she was insulting the majority of Americans. I only wish more of the media would also point out that she's not really from small town America, she's from suburban America (Wasilla is even on Anchorage's water system). That's a big difference.

Anyway, I hope you'll all be here for our live blogging of the debate tonight. We might not suck at it.

Palin's New Yorker cover

Our copy of The New Yorker came in the mail yesterday. I love the cover.

Upon Digestion

So, Maureen Dowd thinks that Obama had the ball hanging over the middle of the plate, a set hovering one-ball over the net, a flanker on a deep route with the safety stumbled on his ass, and he didn't capitalize.

I'll admit I was surprised a bit by her reaction. There was a flavor of buying the Right's talking points on Obama, as though they should dictate his responses more than his vision. And there was a thirst for baiting partisanism, thinking, I believe, that "we" had the upper hand.

None of that do I support. I think he played his game well, especially considering that this was supposed to be McCain's strong suit debate. That, at worst, Obama played McCain to a standstill should be a victory.

Except...

Did you notice McCain was speaking, at times, a different language? Maybe you read it as confusion or circular logic. But, no. He was speaking a patois AM radio listeners recognize. It is a cadence meant not to communicate in the moment, but to plant phrases in consciousness. Naivete. Fundamental. Experience. The language he speaks parses out differently than, y'know, human speech. It serves a different function, and I believed it served him well.

I'm guessing that is, subliminally, what Dowd was reacting to. She could feel that McCain was somehow scoring points, and wanted her man to do the same.

I still think Obama "won," for what it's worth.

But to really understand what we are up against, check out the comments in response to the proliferation of Palin's pageant video. Chilling, if you dig.

Why fact-checking Palin doesn't work

Let's say that you've been dieting, working out, trying to drop a few pounds. Perhaps 175lbs is your target weight. You step on the scale one morning and it reads 175lbs. Great! You step off the scale and go about your day.

But, what if the scale had read 177lbs? What does the average person do then? What would you likely do? Step off the scale, let it reset, and then step back on, weighing again. And, as you do get some variance from the everyday bathroom scale, it might very well now read 175lbs, in which case you go about your day happy, or it might read something else, in which case, step up again.

This is an aspect of attributional bias - a cognitive bias that affects the way we see causality and judge effects. We tend to stop questioning once we arrive at the answer for which we were looking.

And this is why fact-checking Palin won't, for a vast majority of her supporters, make any difference. Yes, even as egregious as her bumbling, dissembling public comments are.

Because the genius of the Palin pick for the McCain campaign wasn't her experience, because she has none, but how comfortably she fit into a narrative niche that the Right had ready and waiting. They were ready for a tough, maverick social conservative who also looks great in a skirt, lives up to her womanly duties and won't talk down to them.

There are those who can be swayed. My mother was in town recently, declaring herself a former McCain supporter but now undecided, and this shift was due mainly to discoveries about Palin's beliefs, particularly her stand against abortion in every situation, even incest, rape or the health of the mother (she supports abortion in the latter only in the case of imminent danger to the mother's life).

But the rest? Those still, today, supporting her despite the revelations since her nomination probably can't be moved. Their logic, their narrative is hard-wired. They will find a way around every Palin-trocity sent their way, they will keep stepping on that scale until they see the weight they want.

There was an example I used to use with my composition students, taken, as was my wont, from a book more pop-culture than lit. In Jurassic Park, the mathematician Ian Malcolm repeatedly stresses to the dino-keepers that, despite their best efforts, life will find a way to push forward. They respond that their computer monitoring system, which counts the dinosaurs every day, prevents this; they check on their dinosaurs every day. But, as Macolm points out, the system stops counting when it reached the expected number of dinosaurs. Malcolm asks them to take that restriction off, to allow the system to count beyond the expected number. And, lo and behold, many, many more dinosaurs than expected show up. They've got a big problem.

I used to tell my students after this story, "Keep asking questions, or your going to leave a bunch of dinosaurs running around." But, as satisfying as I find wrangling Palin's rampaging dinos, her supporters don't care. They are done asking questions. They've reached their precise number of dinosaurs and weigh 175lbs on the button.

Frankly, they wouldn't recognize a T-rex if it bit them on the ass.


Salon: The fungible candidate

And, just for fun:

ThinkProgress.org: The Sarah Palin Digest

The "Interview"

In case you missed the hard-hitting interview of Sarah Palin by that champion of journalistic integrity, Sean Hannity, I have written a summary of the interview to save you some time. For you types that liked to just read the Cliff's Notes in high school to get straight to the point, here is the whole interview, in a nutshell:

Hannity: Governor, you are just so cool aren't you?

Palin: Yes Sean, I rock.

Hannity: That tax-loving, Muslim, Arugula-eating, elitist Barack Hussein Obama just sucks doesn't he?

Palin: He sure does, Sean.

Hannity: Thanks for coming and answering all my tough questions, Governor.

Ad: Patriotic Act, & Why I don't want Biden's job

It didn't take the McCain long to jump on Biden's Good Morning America comments on tax increases for those making $250,000+/year and release this ad:



Deni handles well the underlying problem with McCain's attacks in the previous entry (how is paying taxes not patriotic, especially when fighting a war? - just because it isn't on the budget doesn't mean it ain't tax dollars feeding and clothing the military), and the independent Tax Policy Center has already done a better job of debunking the claims made than I could ever do. I just want to talk for a moment about this ad as an ad.

Because the first word that comes to mind is "slapdash." Seriously, this ad could be created on my 3+ year old Mac laptop in an hour. It isn't meant to have a long life, except to be passed among party faithful. It's the photocopied flyer version of a television ad.

Which I take as a recognition, somewhere down in the reptilian brain of the McCain campaign (how you like that illiteration?), that these kind of attack ads are nothing more than jabs, meant to keep the opponent off-balance and reactive while accepting that none of them will be a knock-out punch.

(I think that's why I didn't like this ad much - it seems like a cheap jab, when the opponent actually dropped the hands far enough to be taken out with roundhouse.)

All it took was one moment, one perhaps-not-ideal choice of phrase, by Biden to open up the attack.

And this is why I don't want Biden's job. Because he has to debate Palin.

Do I think Palin will "beat" Biden? The very idea made me spit-take tea all over the aforementioned laptop. No, that's not the problem.

I can't imagine being in his position, knowing you can mop the floor with this clueless, inexperienced candidate, and yet having to do it so carefully knowing that anything that can be spun into a misstep will be all over the campaign ads the next day. If he so much as smirks at one of Palin's ditzy non-answers, he'll be crucified. Hell, if he holds back, he'll still be crucified.

If something so benign as referring to the paying of taxes as a patriotic journey unleashes a flurry of jabs, how much of a minefield will it be to step into the ring with that intellectual flyweight?

Good luck, Joe. My best advice? Ignore the jabs, don't jab yourself, but take that uppercut opening when it comes, then walk quietly back to your corner for the standing eight. Then do it again.

No smirking. And watch your footwork.

AP via Yahoo!: Biden: Paying higher taxes patriotic for wealthy

Country First?

During an interview on Good Morning America, while explaining the Obama plan to cut taxes on 95% of Americans while raising them on people making over $250,000, Joe Biden said, “It’s time to be patriotic. Time to jump in. Time to be part of the deal. Time to help get America out of the rut.”

Of course the shameless people from the other ticket took that opportunity to slam Biden.

“To the rest of America that’s not patriotism. Raising taxes is about killing jobs and hurting small businesses and making things worse,” said faux hockey mom Ms. Pit Bull Lipstick.

Let's forget for a minute that that is not quite what Joe Biden said and also forget that Obama's tax plan will cut most people's taxes. Basically what Biden was saying was that it is time for the wealthy to step up and pay their fair share in this time of crises, but that wouldn't be attack-able enough for the shameless duo.

But let's address their slam anyway. Why isn't it patriotic? Isn't paying taxes an incredibly patriotic thing to do? Contributing to your country so it can function, so that we can have fire fighters, police officers, school systems, transportation and a national defense seems to me to be an incredibly patriotic thing to do.

And as Jonathan Cohn points out, paying higher taxes during a time of war has always been seen as the patriotic thing to do.

We are at war, are we not Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin?

When exactly did "every man and family for themselves" become the patriotic thing, and helping your country survive and not pass on a huge debt to our children, the unpatriotic thing?

What McCain-Palin are doing is not even shameless.

It's shameful.


Read - Biden and Palin Tussle Over Taxes from the NYT politics blog
Read - Patriotism from Joe Klein at Time

The Fool's Quick Hits on The Barracuda

Just a few quick thoughts on the Palin interview.

Um, we can't second-guess Israel? I heard that three times. In a row. So, they have carte blanche and we have to help out in any brawl they start? Man, that's gonna be a little hard to swallow if they propose a "final solution" to the Palestinian problem.

Wow, something so specific as Charlie's question on the Bush Doctrine stumped her*. Obfuscating, empty answer, clearly not understanding the question. And then Charlie educates her a little bit. After which he has to ask her how many times to get a real answer?

Watch for this talking point in coming days - "We must not blink." Came up in her "answer" to Charlie's Bush Doctrine question and earlier to his initial question as to whether she had any doubts on accepting the candidacy. That's no coincidence.


* - Ironically, her first response to his question was to blink.

My New Favorite Political Button

My friend Barb emailed this to me...

I... I just can't talk right now

During the last presidential election, a family member I'd rather not call out was helping me out by babysitting the kidlet for a couple hours. It was the wife's first work trip since I took over childcare, and my first multi-day swing flying solo, so my nerves were understandably thin.

When I came back home after a few glorious hours of freedom, the babysitter informed me she had turned away a Kerry canvasser earlier, indicating no interest in funding his ads.

I tried to find a middle ground to send the babysitter away gracefully, muttering something about "Yeah, I wish they'd all just stop with negative ads, especially third parties like these Swift Boat wackos."

(Y'see, I was naive enough to believe a Republican could clearly SEE the hypocrisy of supporting Bush, who AT BEST was a barely adequate Guardsman, by attacking Kerry's ACTUAL REAL SERVICE record.)

But the babysitter expressed support and interest in what the Swift Boaters had to say, to which I expressed outrage (thin nerves, recall), as they had been pretty seriously undercut pretty much everywhere.

"Oh, yeah, well, where?" the babysitter asked.

"Everywhere!" I (I'll be honest here) squawked. "CNN, MSNBC, the networks...!"

"Well," the babysitter said, "those are all pretty liberal."

I stopped dead, dumbstruck, like I had just been solidly smacked across the snout with a rolled-up newspaper. Because, here I was a progressive that saw these media outlets all, everyone on that short list and so many more, in the pocket of corporate interests and cowed by the administration.

Um, did I say cowed? Those droopy-eyed mutts lapped up whatever bullshit line they were fed and fell on their backs asking for belly rubs. Ooh, nickname me next, Mr. President!

And yet here was the babysitter, proclaiming them liberal shills not to be trusted.

The Right has spun this narrative of the "liberal media" for years. And it's fucking nonsense. Conglomerate-run corporate mass media? Liberal? Please. Doesn't Rupert fucking Murdoch own half of it?

Does such a thing as progressive media exist? Yes. Of course. You can easily find the people that work for such outlets by following the smell of mace. But this monster of the "liberal media" is a myth cut from whole cloth, in which the Right casts all dissent as coming from fey intellectuals with a grudge against business and The God-Blessed America TM. (It's just one small part of the way the Right has so sufficiently shat upon the word "liberal" that even I don't want it attached to me, usually choosing "progressive" and feeling a bit shamed for being pushed to it.)

And now they're dragging it out again to justify keeping Palin away from reporters, at least for a "few more days."

So we get this vintage bullshit from McCain campaign manager Rick Davis:

"Why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called the news media that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children?" he asked.

"So until at which point in time we feel like the news media is going to treat her with some level of respect and deference, I think it would be foolhardy to put her out into that kind of environment."

Are you kidding me? A "cycle of piranhas" would have been asking the administration every single fucking day for the last six years, "So, any WMD yet? Any proof of that al Qaeda-Iraq connection? Anything? Any good reason yet for American blood and tax dollars disappearing into the desert? Anything? Beuhler?"

Pirahnas? Wait, isn't she a barracuda? That's not a fair fight?

How about this? For however long you won't let reporters talk to Palin, don't say shit about Biden. Nothing. Forget his name.

Either that, or let her talk. Because the truth is, she took the gloves off in her speech. If nothing else, the big "fuck you" she gave community organizing, which far beyond being just crucial to the survival of democracy was in fact that within which the democracy in which we currently live was born (the Tea Party wasn't an Executive Order), was a call to bring it.

Hey, Palin! May I call you Sarah? No? Ms. Madame Governor Pitbull it is. Listen, you got the chance to take your shots, you got the big hurrahs, but was that all just WWE bullshit, or are you going to come out and take some questions without whining about the big, mean, liberal pirahnas?

Oh, and listen, just parent-to-parent? You don't want questions about your family? Stop identifying yourself so centrally as a MOM! I mention that I'm a dad to anybody, the dumbass at the bus stop or the cute barista I'm trying to stop flirting with, I expect them to ask about my kid. That's the way it works. Hell, identifying yourself as anything is a social request to be asked about that thing. That's why spies never say, "I'm a hockey spy!"

Don't let them get away with this fairy tale about the liberal media anymore. Somebody wants to be in a position of power like this? Find a way to talk to the people. Your asking to work for us. Sit down for the interview.

And enough with all the short skirts and coy winking, you minx. That ain't gonna fly with this daddy. Hey, can I tell you all about my kid?

Reuters: Palin to meet media in a "few days" says McCain

A Douchebag on a Barracuda

Look, I already knew John Carlson was a douche. I knew it when he was just a talk radio host, I knew it when he ran for Governor of Washington, I saw it first-hand when he did a live version of “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher” in downtown Seattle years ago. First time I ever heard him open his mouth, I thought, “That right there is a douchebag.” But, he had to go and prove it again with his defense, or perhaps aggrandizement is a better word, of Sarah Palin.

He, like many Republicans, wants to characterize her as the scourge of liberal voters. And his main argument seems to be that she is “a successful, attractive, working class, conservative feminist.” The link is Carlson’s, and interestingly connects to a Wikipedia (great source there, John – you start essays with “Webster’s defines…” or the updated “A Google search of…” too?) definition of feminism that nowhere mentions conservative feminism, quite probably because it doesn’t exist. Feminism is and always has been a progressive movement; methinks Carlson and his ilk believe they can slap “feminist” on anyone who carries a double X chromosome, but self-interest and feminine gender do not a feminist make.

It’s much like “Pro-life feminist.” Oh, sure, because feminism is all about disempowering women from making choices. I think I recall bell hooks, when she spoke at Syracuse University lo those many years ago, saying, “Settle down, ladies. Choices are for men and white folks and those others smart enough to make the right ones, not you abortion-happy bimbos.”

And this is just the start. Carlson fills his entire article with Republican’s favorite tactic of “definition through assertion.” This has to be my favorite, coupled as it is with other great tactic of the Right: reassertion with the implication of the disingenuousness of dissent: “Some have even criticized her for choosing to have her Down syndrome baby rather than aborting it (admit it, you've heard it).”

Frankly, I’ve heard nothing of the sort, not anywhere. Never have I heard a mother criticized for bringing a baby with birth defects to term (except, I’ll admit, the eugenics-obsessed mother of a grade school friend who was convinced the education of, as she said, “a bunch of little retards” was taking resources away from the education of her own admittedly gifted children). But, Carlson and others will continue to assert this, and twist any commentary of Palin’s family in general to fit the preconception, ignoring completely the fact that choosing to carry such a baby to term is only noble because it is a choice. And they will continue to just plain call you a liar if you disagree.

Carlson, y’see, isn’t interested in furthering the discourse. He, like much of the Right’s pundit class, enjoys hearing the sound of his own voice, even or maybe especially when it is being repetitive.

He'll repeat over and over that she fought Alaska's famous pork politics, ignoring that she was for it before she was against it (morphing from supporter to critic of the "bridge to nowhere" when it was politically advantageous). He'll try to conflate her experience as a small-town mayor with Obama's as a community organizer, regardless of which has actually meant more to the political history of this country. And he'll claim again and again that she's just another of the God-fearin', animal-killin', bigass-family-havin' American's that make up the majority of the country in spite of the fact a minority of people self-identify as such. And he'll be but one of a chorus of bloviating windbags.

It’s a sign of what to expect from the coming months, and also what has to be dismantled. I’m a big fan of FAIR because they do such a good job of identifying specious arguments and reasoning in the media. I’m sure they’d have a field day with Carlson were he not beneath national notice.
But, we can’t let bullshit contributions to the political discourse like Carlson’s go unaddressed. We have to point out their contradictions and hypocrisy as often as possible. We have to call bullshit. Loudly. And we have to throw it back in the face of their assertions and reassertions.

So when a douchebag like John Carlson takes this quote from Palin:

"When the cloud of rhetoric has passed, when the roar of the crowd fades away, when the stadium lights go out and those Styrofoam Greek columns are hauled back to some studio lot — when that happens, what exactly is our opponent's plan?"

And responds with this: “In Sarah Palin's world, and in John McCain's, talk is cheap; people would rather support results than rhetoric.”

We have to point out, as tiresome as it can be, that Palin’s quote has nothing to do with results, is only cloudy rhetoric, and that simply asserting the opposite is intellectually lazy and dull.

And we can’t let it win.

Sarah Palin: the liberal voter's worst nightmare
Crosscut.com