by Blaine Fridley
So far I've sat through one RNC speech, two hilariously painful interviews that she had weeks to prepare for and now a debate, or rather make that a "debate". And from those wonderful opportunities to define herself to the American public, this is what I know about Sarah Palin:
1. Like McCain, she's a maverick.
2. Her lack of syntax, folksy "ya betchas" and "ya darn rights" mixed with an ability to meld unrelated talking points into meandering, convoluted, mega run-on sentences all team up to make my head hurt very badly.
3. Did I mention the McCain/Palin ticket is a team of mavericks? Well, if I didn't, just ask Sarah Palin a question, ANY question, and she'll be sure to bring it up 3-7 times within her answer:
So, Gov. Palin, what Top Gun character would you say you would model your vice presidency after?"Maverick."And your favorite NBA franchise?"Mavericks."Mel Gibson movie?"Mad Max. HA! You thought I was going to say Maverick didn't you? Well, I didn't…because I'm a maverick!"Are you aware that you're a vapid wasteland of nonsensical ramblings?"I'm gonna have to look up the definition of vapid and get back to YA."I loathe you."Maverick."
We all know there's only ONE Maverick. And he looks amazing playing topless beach volleyball in skin-tight jeans.
Last night, in the first and only scheduled VP debate, fans of schadenfreude and train wrecks everywhere tuned in to see what we thought was going to be the inevitable Palin breakdown.
Ultimately though, we were let down. The catastrophic embarrassment many of us were hoping for did not happen. Instead, we had to settle for just regular ol' embarrassment. Nothing really worth bumping The Office for, anyway.
It's that subterranean bar that has led people to speak of Palin's Thursday night performance as competent. I can think of one "c-word" to describe Palin, and it sure as hell isn't competent.
From Ezra Klein on Prospect.org:
"Palin turned in a genuinely competent performance, and Biden turned in a superlative one."
Marc Ambiner on Atlantic.com:
"Averaging expectations, style and points, it was a wash. Partisans have reason to be satisfied; I honestly have no idea how undecided voters will react…"
Adding: "…she did nothing negatively indelibly memorable, and, at times, was positively impressive."
"Palin, who struggled with questions in televised interviews, came to Thursday's debate well briefed. She did not stumble over names of foreign leaders. . She had quick comebacks when Biden challenged her or went after McCain."
"Palin defies critics and delivers punchy performance in debate against Biden."
"By surviving her encounter with Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. and quelling some of the talk about her basic qualifications for high office, she may even have done Senator John McCain a bit of good, freeing him to focus on the other troubles shadowing his campaign."
Were we watching the same debate?
Just because Palin didn't shit her pants and then, terror-stricken, stare into the camera until her head blew up like that scene in Scanners, doesn't mean her performance was competent:
In fact, it was FAR from it. Here's a typical response from last night's debate:
Now doggone it?
What are you, an 1840s prospector?
"Our schools have really got to be ramped up in terms of funding…"
…and you plan on doing that by NOT raising taxes while simultaneously
hemorrhaging billions of dollars in Iraq?
"I come from a house full of school teachers…"
Really? Are they the ones who taught you about sentence structure and verbal punctuation?
Limited talking points and broad ideas with not even an attempt at further clarification. This is all we got last night. If this were a high school debate class, she would've received a D+…maybe.
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3 comments:
For the time being, I'm going to leave out commenting on the comically-low expectations she had going into this, and how that plays into what would be a career-ending performance for any competent politician being termed a "victory" simply because she didn't cry, pass out, or wet herself. I'll take a pass on grinding down what's left of my tooth-nubs any further as I silently lament the apparent triumph of golly-gee "folksy charm" over substance, experience, and character. I'll refrain from making hay about how she ADMITTED SHE WAS GOING TO FORGO ANSWERING QUESTIONS IN FAVOR OF HAMMERING the GODDAMN TALKING POINTS.
Instead, the particular facet of the debate I'll choose to address here is her shifty, premeditated fucking duplicity. The mics were live as the candidates came out onto the dais for the first time. As she and Biden were shaking hands, she said "Can I call ya Joe?" I laughed it off at the time as simply being symptomatic of the sort of gormless, golly-gawrsh doe-eyed emptiness that has been the hallmark of her entire public life to this point.
BUT.
The exchange in the clip came near the end of the debate. When called upon for a rebuttal, the cow-faced cunt spits out "Say-it-ain't-so-Joe-there-you're-go-again-pointing-backwards-again!"
This is infuriating for a couple of key reasons.
1) It ought to be obvious even to people dumber than she is: The WHOLE REASON SHE ASKED IF SHE COULD CALL HIM "JOE" milliseconds after their FIRST MEETING was because she (or one of her wranglers) had obviously prepared that little bon mot WELL in advance of the actual debate. So the whole reason she pretended to the familiarity of the first name basis was because she PLANNED TO USE IT AGAINST HIM LATER.
2) Regardless of whether or not it was appropriate to use it in THAT PARTICULAR CONTEXT (which it wasn't), she obviously knew she was running out of time, and non sequitur or not, she would have to squeeze her little rehearsed barb in there somewhere, lest she lose the opportunity forever.
3) Given the robotic cant with which she recited this pithy little snot-bomb, SHE STILL FUCKED IT UP. Listen closely: She says, "There-you're-go-again!" IDIOT.
4) Then there's the "there you go again" itself. Of course, this phrase was first uttered within the context of a political debate when then-governor Ronald Reagan dropped it on President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Reagan pulled it out again on Walter Mondale in 1984. So. Palin dusting off this particular chestnut in order to lob it ineffectually at Biden means that, on some level, SHE IS TRYING TO COMPARE HERSELF TO REAGAN.
Look, it's become fashionable in recent years for the Republicans to speak of Reagan in hushed tones of reverence. Their rose-colored retro-specs have allowed them to forget his lackluster supply-side economics policies, questionable arms-for-hostages deals, the whole Lebanon/Grenada mess, and general Cold War escalation in favor of seeing him as a popular champion of the people who single-handedly ended the Iran Hostage Crisis, disassembled the Soviet Union like it was a stack of LEGOs, and punched down the Berlin Wall with his giant, erect penis. Fine, whatever. The overwhelming shittiness of the current president allows the GOP a little flexible perspective on what constitutes "success." He wa spopular, and is fondly-remembered, and that's okay, I suppose. Dude was, after all, a movie star.
But, even as much of a fan of the man as I'm NOT, I'm still infuriated FOR him that this cotton-candy-brained little puff pastry twat would even DARE to compare herself favorably to his memory, as if she or ANYONE has even the FAINTEST justification to consider herself anywhere NEAR the statesman he was. The unfathomable HUBRIS that indicates has me trembling with poorly-concealed rage. AND I DIDN'T EVEN LIKE REAGAN.
This woman is one of the worst human beings ever to live. She's ignorant, cocky, insubstantial, rude, short-sighted, sanctimonious, vain, duplicitious, vapid, and so disgustingly overconfident that I want to punch her in her stupid throat until she falls down.
Or, at least until she can never say "doggone it gee-golly whillikers maverick nuke-ya-ler" EVER, EVER AGAIN.
if in some way a really large scale cosmic joke is played on
us ,the unwashed masses (and often unthinkinking and undiscrimminating masses) and Mcalin is installed in the Whitehouse..might be time to add some music to the chair shuffling on the titanic..twoud be more fun
nest ce pas?
Gosh diddily darn-it.. ."teachers... God bless them.. their reward will be in heaven, am I right?"
That's the comment from her that got me the most. I know that SHE doesn't much like to be around kids, but that doesn't mean that every teacher is suffering like a fucking Mother Teresa. (Yeah, I know she's dead -- but I mean suffering like the reanimated corpse of Mother Teresa who is not even using her Zombie status to her financial advantage, but is instead suckling suffering orphans.)
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