posted
The Palin Brand - hope posting this isn't too provocative, but thought this was an interesting piece worth reading.
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Thats brilliant! Man, why did the Daily Show take two weeks off!?
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posted
The New York Times has no love for Palin for some very decent reasons, and they go a bit beyond her contempt for the media and for the city and state of New York. Anyway, this editorial is not shy about characterizing Palin as a cynical luddite attacking the media for reasons of vanity and cash profits. That's not an extraordinarily tough case to make.
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posted
Orincoro: I was not suggesting that the New York Times is all wrong, but I remember clearly as I used to read their editorials daily that the day McCain announced her as his running mate they were positively dripping with venom before they could find any sort of justification for it.
I'm not a fan of Sarah Palin in any sense of the word, but I also think the NYTs was a bit too fast to get the hate train rolling.
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edit: maybe you're referring to this one? It is several days later, after there was more time to form a judgement. NYTPosts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
Somebody actually tried to get away with stealing a speech from Obama? That seems a bit hopeful considering how many people have heard his speeches.
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Somebody actually tried to get away with stealing a speech from Obama? That seems a bit hopeful considering how many people have heard his speeches.
Part of the whole: "these people are blindingly stupid" point of the editorial. Such brash and unapologetic hypocrisy is "the Palin Brand"
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Now in the interest of full disclosure the moment I read about Sarah Palin I was surprised and then quickly disappointed, but I didn't feel like the NYTs or TWP were ever less than critical of her as a candidate.
But since she was a terrible choice I guess I should rescind the idea that they weren't ever going to like her. I guess we can never know because there isn't a universe where Sarah Palin is a good candidate.
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posted
I just remembered Ms. Palin spending a lot of time condemning then Senator Obama as being "just a Celebrity, not a politician." Now she is the one who is surrendering her political life for that of a celebrity.
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quote:Originally posted by Teshi: Somebody actually tried to get away with stealing a speech from Obama? That seems a bit hopeful considering how many people have heard his speeches.
You're giving Obama too much credit. The speeches he gives aren't his own. Palin can give a speech with a one word crib note on her hand. Obama stumbles when the teleprompter crashes.
I don't really care for Palin. I agree with most of her positions but I can't stand listening to her. I hope she never runs for political office again. Her best roll is as a political commentator.
Linking a New York Times Blog doesn't carry any more weight than the comments on Hatrack.
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posted
Agreed. I have much respect for the intellectual honesty and consistency here....even from people I disagree with.
Hatrack doesn't have an agenda, unlike the New York Times. Hatrack has people expressing their ideas. The New York Times picks and chooses what it thinks is news worthy. They ignore stories that are against their ideals and trump up non-stories to benefit their ideals.
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posted
The New York Times is wonderful for many things. Their political coverage and their disdain for large portions of America is distinctly not one of them.
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posted
You're one to talk about disdain. As usual, the ad hom against the Times works much better than anything substantive you might have contributed, like why anything they said in those editorials was wrong. But you haven't done that. Neither of you. You haven't even tried. It's easier to whine.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: but I didn't feel like the NYTs or TWP were ever less than critical of her as a candidate.
I must ask, what exactly should one expect? It was so utterly clear from the first moment that she was a disastrous choice (before she even opened her mouth, you understand, but on a political level and her experience alone, a disastrous choice), that I think it probably took a fair amount of restraint from the Times to not lead off with "WTF?: Palin named VP candidate."
The day she was appointed it took me approximately an hour of research to understand what a mistake her candidacy was. Are they required to give her one freebie editorial before they pounce? What function would that serve? Why would their readership trust them if they pulled their punches? Why would anything they had to say matter if they didn't share their opinions in the editorial section? And before you snap back with "give her a chance-" she was already a public figure, and that which she had done up to that point was more than fair game- it would have been negligent to ignore it. Part of the idiocy of her candidacy was that the public was so unfamiliar with her exploits in Alaska, each piece of negative news hit with a resounding splash- one for which no spin or filter had ever been applied, or needed outside of Alaska. McCain took a problematic person and turned her into a problematic giant in one day- the problems just look 100 times bigger on national tv, and all of them were new to everybody.
I was constantly put off by this game the Palin camp played throughout the election. The accusation that the media was being, not unfair, but *not nice,* as if she needed their niceness in order to shine through with her better qualities. One could easily discern from everything she said that niceness was an absolute necessity- that if one were the least bit uncharitable with anything she said or did, her house of cards would fall down. The victim complex stacked on top of the penchant for lying and prevaricating made Palin's relationship with the media intractable. That was not the media's fault. Those lies had been told already, and her approach to the massive immovable object that is the media proved that she was not, herself, an unstoppable force. And anyway, she thrust herself and was thrust at the behest of others into a spotlight she had no business inhabiting, and never should have been given the chance to jump into. Extraordinary circumstances with absurd results- the whole thing was just an unfortunate business.
quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: You're one to talk about disdain. As usual, the ad hom against the Times works much better than anything substantive you might have contributed, like why anything they said in those editorials was wrong. But you haven't done that. Neither of you. You haven't even tried. It's easier to whine.
posted
Seriously? You're going to whistle that? I think it would help if you got punished for wasting Pj's time, because there's no way he's going to come down on your side.
posted
It's not even a matter of being rude. It was a genuine criticism, and it was well placed. She just didn't like it because she's a whiner. Yes Kat, you are a whiner. Always have been.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: It's not even a matter of being rude. It was a genuine criticism, and it was well placed. She just didn't like it because she's a whiner. Yes Kat, you are a whiner. Always have been.
posted
anyway, I want to comment on the OP's article.
It is surprising to me actually how consistently terrible Palin's vetting has been. And I don't mean surprising normal. I mean surprising for Palin. Like I already anticipated her political involvements to be in poor taste, but this is just beyond the pale.
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quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: anyway, I want to comment on the OP's article.
It is surprising to me actually how consistently terrible Palin's vetting has been. And I don't mean surprising normal. I mean surprising for Palin. Like I already anticipated her political involvements to be in poor taste, but this is just beyond the pale.
Whistled for being on topic!
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posted
It's more than a little disturbing that there's a significant portion of the electorate for which things like substantive, real-world application of the principles candidates espouse doesn't seem to matter nearly as much as expressions of admiration and hatred for the "right" groups.
In what world does dropping out of the gov's seat because you find the job too hard to take leave anyone thinking you're qualified for the highest elected position in the world?
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posted
I think that's a bugbear you need not concern yourself with. A Palin candidacy would be an unmitigated disaster for whoever might choose to finance or run it. We don't need to worry about Palin- she is too weak politically and intellectually to be a serious candidate. Granted, a lot of people support her right now, but she'd never win a Presidential race.
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: I thought the same thing about Bush II. I won't make that mistake again.....
Interesting point, but think back on it. Bush was a dufus, but was he anywhere near this kind of unmitigated disaster? He was also far more moderate than Palin is.
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I think Bush II was far smarter than people thought he was. I am fairly smart, yet I stumble over words all of the time. Lack of pronunciation skills doesn't make you stupid. It just makes you SOUND stupid.
Trust me, I know.
But there have been a lot of people who have underestimated me because of stupid things like that, and most of them were very wrong to do so. It is easy, maybe TOO easy, to mock things like that and not realize that the person you laugh at will end up being your boss one day.
Or POTUS.
I doubt Palin could get elected, but I won't sit back and say nothing because I doubt it. I'll work actively to make SURE it doesn't happen, because we can't AFFORD it to happen.
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posted
Hearing about things like Bush's refusal to read newspapers or learn of the different factions in Iraq caused me to feel that the man probably wasn't the brightest bulb. He did have a lot of intelligent people behind him. Unfortunately, those people were also far more partisan and unscrupulous. I think Bush himself was stubborn, occasionally vindictive, and decidedly out of his depth, but probably not himself an awful human being.
Palin displays a similar lack of competence, but she's also learned all the most disquieting tricks of the political playbook of the last twenty years or so: stay on message, blame the questioner if you're wrong or don't know, repeat yourself until you're believed, spin deficits like being ignorant or out-of-touch into being an "outsider" or a "maverick", connect your image to qualities that your audience sees as virtues but will never actually demand to see demonstrated (especially if attacking those credentials could be spun as an attack on the "virtue" rather than the candidate)... She's the perfect front for people who have decided that ignorance of the greater world is patriotic, those for whom even a five-minute interview is too long for their attention spans. She gives a great sound bite, and she casts aspersions on all the right people.
I hope you're right, Orincoro. But if someone like Rove were to decide she was worth backing, powers help us all. Hers is not the face I want representing the United States in any way, shape, or form.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
I think Bush's mass appeal was naturally much greater than Palin's. Bush could draw in a lot of centrists, and he was never a polarizing figure, at least, not in the first election. Plus, he had the benefit of no one knowing who is was, which allowed for a lot of benefit of the doubt on a number of issues. He also laid off the demonizing, to a degree, in the first campaign. By the time the second campaign came around, he was a known quantity, but he had a lackluster opponent in that election, and he had a war on his hands that he could wave the bloody shirt over.
Palin is a known quantity. Her unfavorable numbers have been high for months now. She's polarizing by choice, extreme in her language, demonizing in her opposition to even the simplest of issues, and has no respect for her opposition. The only similarity I see between her and Bush is that they both use a zen-like appreciation for being clueless as a tool to gain support from a subsection of the population.
I think the thing is, she isn't going to gain any support in a campaign. She's an awful campaigner, we've seen it. And she's basically been campaigning for herself since the end of the election, with no success except among the people who already supported her. She doesn't have the support to with the national GOP nomination, and she wouldn't spoil things by running as an independent. I think there's a good chance she'll be the VP candidate again in 2012. She'll be paired with a centrist GOP moderate. She can't attract moderates, and the far right needs a reason to come out on election day. It's a good, smart pairing.
She has power, and controls an interesting subsection of the voting populace, but it's not big enough to win an election, and she isn't good enough to win over the rest. Instead, she'll end up being a power broker of sorts to whoever she's paired with.
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posted
Palin was thoroughly vetted. The DNC sent a multitude of lawyers to her home town to dig up dirt. Palin was a disaster of a candidate. Although I agree with her on many fronts, politically, she's a nightmare.
The DNC sent many lawyers to Wasilla Alaska to dig up dirt on her, without effect. If only a fraction of those lawyers were sent to Chicago and the media was interested, Obama would be dirty.
Looking forward to the Blagoyavich trials and the pay to play Sestak deal. Illinois is the most corrupt - pay to play - state in the union. Our president came from there. He didn't rise to power without playing that very same game. Joe Sestak is the tip of the ice burg. Just wait until Blago's lawyers subpoena Rahm Emanuel.
Watergate was much less obvious than this situation, but the media isn't going to approach it.
We have a pretender at the throne, the emperor wears no cloths.
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quote:I think Bush II was far smarter than people thought he was. I am fairly smart, yet I stumble over words all of the time. Lack of pronunciation skills doesn't make you stupid. It just makes you SOUND stupid.
This. Having poor speaking abilities, especially when on the spot, can be incredibly frustrating. There is an assumption that social ability and even practical intelligence is linked directly to how well people can speak. We're okay with geeks stumbling over their words, but someone trying to step out of geekland must be entirely fluent.
Sometimes brains don't work like that!
(I'm defending my poor speaking abilities, of course. Never got that bit of my brain in gear as a kid. Now it's borked.)
As for Palin, the NYT has no obligation to be nice to Palin. They only have the obligation to be truthful. Provided none of what they printed was false or misleading, they are doing their jobs in informing the country about certain facts.
This doesn't hold up when the news in question isnt true and is even worse when it's deliberately misleading or false.
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quote:Originally posted by malanthrop: Palin was thoroughly vetted. The DNC sent a multitude of lawyers to her home town to dig up dirt.
No, Mal, you are simply mistaken. You assuming it is so, because she was chosen as a VP candidate. McCain's advisers and campaign runners have admitted both publicly and privately that she was not vetted thoroughly enough, and that her candidacy was a mistake for that, among other reasons. Heilemann and Halperin's Game Change, among other writings based on interviews with most of the key personel has born that out very clearly. You have of course not done your homework.
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posted
One of the most depressing and frightening things about America today is that Palin could run for President and have a small but real chance of winning. I despair for my country's current values.
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quote:Originally posted by MightyCow: One of the most depressing and frightening things about America today is that Palin could run for President and have a small but real chance of winning. I despair for my country's current values.
That actually is precisely what keeps me optimistic about our system for electing officials. I want to live in a country where somebody like Barack Obama and Sarah Palin who are both different in so many ways still have a chance of winning.
I think what would have me cheering in the streets would be to eliminate first past the post primary systems, a complete restructuring of all our congressional districts by a group of geographers with no ties to either political party, and the elimination of party affiliation next to candidates names on ballots.
The amount of interesting candidates and platform policies would increase to the point there wouldn't be newspaper room to discuss it all.
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