Top Ten Minor Complaints about Palin by Andrew Sullivan

by: tremayne

Thu Sep 18, 2008 at 22:48



Andrew Sullivan has been a one-man McCain-Palin wrecking crew. Here are some of his best lines from the last four hours four days:

10. I know it's terribly elitist to believe that a potential president might actually have a single coherent public statement on foreign policy before her selection as veep-candidate; it's unforgivably snooty to believe that someone who had no opinion on the surge except that it should be an exit plan is self-evidently unfit to be John McCain's running mate; I know that it's now hyper-lefty and condescending to believe that a candidate should actually care whether what she says is true or not.

9. Almost the entire world is appalled at the farce of the Palin pick, and what it says about McCain's contempt for foreign policy and national security.

8. All she has is ambition, the willingness to lie at any time about anything - and the ability to placate the two central constituencies: the Christianist base and the neocons.

7. In so many ways, Palin is the apotheosis of the neocon dream.

6. Cronyism, debt, lies, religious fanaticism, and utter ignorance about foreign policy. You want another four years of Bush? McCain-Palin is the ticket.

The top five are inside.

tremayne :: Top Ten Minor Complaints about Palin by Andrew Sullivan

5. And my working assumption now is that she is a pathological liar - even about things that are objectively checkable…..There is far too much at stake to be intimidated into silence or to pretend I can accept this absurd pick as anything other than a farce masking too many lies to count.

4. Palin fits the Bush mold, but ratcheted up one more notch toward absurdity, and several more notches toward puppetry.

3. For real! The candidate for vice-president of the United States actually responded to a question from the press! Amazing.

2. Increasingly, she seems like a character in a Ricky Gervais comedy: caught in endless confabulations and not skilled enough to get away with them.

1. I cannot say anything about this candidacy that takes it in any way seriously. It is a farce. It is absurd. It is an insult to all intelligent people. It is a sign of a candidate who has lost his mind. There is no way to take the nomination of Palin to be vice-president of the world’s sole superpower - except to treat it as a massive, unforgivable, inexplicable decision by someone who has either gone insane or is managerially unfit to be president of the United States.

I think Sullivan is still trying to make up for supporting George Bush in 2000 and supporting the Iraq War. 

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Top Ten Minor Complaints about Palin by Andrew Sullivan | 41 comments
I think Sullivan is manifestly disappointed (0.00 / 0)
After all - there could only be but so many responses to the shock of Sarah Palin - disbelieve eroding into anger or shock evolving into elation.  Andrew just got there pretty quickly.

QT

Visit the Obama Project

Searching for John McCain?



Is there any possibility (4.00 / 1)
That McCain's cancer has spread to his brain?  Just asking, in light of everything since the Palin pick, including the Pain in Spain is Mostly on McCain issue today.

John McCain--He's not who you think he is.
[ Parent ]
Or (0.00 / 0)
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medline...


McCain Has a Republican Healthcare Plan for the 21st Century
[ Parent ]
Guilt Is Good (4.00 / 7)
I think Sullivan is still trying to make up for supporting George Bush in 2000 and supporting the Iraq War.

When you're that guilty, at least it is.

If only the liberal hawks felt half as guilty.

"Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition"

Guilt IS good. (0.00 / 0)
While Andrew Sullivan bears a heavy share of it for his atrocious attacks on those who knew better than to fall for the Bushwa, it is at least a sign of potential improvement that he hasn't bought Evita's version of Bush's greatest hits.

His assumed pose of superiority and his high moral dudgeon really aren't that different in the two cases, though. It's kind of hard to take the assumption of sophistication seriously after watching him develop a man-crush on Bush.

[ Parent ]
The fact that Sullivan hates Palin (0.00 / 0)
makes me want to take a second look at her.

Come to think of it, isn't he the most prominent piece of slime that undermined the efforts to legitimately critique Palin by publishing the rumor that she faked her pregnancy?

Sullivan is Matt Drudge without the influence or class.

 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!

WTF??? (4.00 / 4)
Andrew Sullivan knows that he has been gregiously wrong in the past.  That alone puts him far above Drudge in any remotely plausible ontology of good and evil.

"Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition"
[ Parent ]
Actually, (4.00 / 1)
Sullivan knows how to keep a readership, as does Drudge.  They are moral equals.  

BTW, this is a small sample of his pro-war rhetoric:

"At this point, it seems to me that a refusal to extend the war to Iraq is not even an option. We have to extend it to Iraq. It is by far the most likely source of this weapon; it is clearly willing to use such weapons in the future; and no war against terrorism of this kind can be won without dealing decisively with the Iraqi threat. We no longer have any choice in the matter. Slowly, incrementally, a Rubicon has been crossed. The terrorists have launched a biological weapon against the United States. They have therefore made biological warfare thinkable and thus repeatable. We once had a doctrine that such a Rubicon would be answered with a nuclear response. We backed down on that threat in the Gulf War but Saddam didn't dare use biological weapons then. Someone has dared to use them now. Our response must be as grave as this new threat."

His apology was based on three reasons:

1.  He "overestimated the competence of government" especially about WMDs.

2.  Narcissism.  Apparently, as he describes it, this is another aspect of competence - the idea that the military could take on anyone.  A better word for what he describes is "hubris."

3.  Not taking culture seriously enough - that is, underestimating the degree of sectarian strife.  Basically, this is another "we shouldn't have lost" argument.

http://www.time.com/time/magaz...

In other words, he still misses the point.  Hell, not just THE point, every point.  The issue wasn't the competence of the intelligence, it was the lying.  The issue wasn't that we failed to win, and lost our credibility through torture - the point was that the Bush Doctrine itself was wrong, that we were wrong to act unilaterally.  If we don't learn those lessons, and reduce the error to honestly flawed intelligence and military planning, the United States remains an outlaw state.

Sullivan is a tool, period.  His CDS is off the charts.  When he reluctantly endorsed Kerry, he praised Bush's tenacity, vision of democracy, humor, and faith, and said he "admired" him.  He jumped on the Obama bandwagon to increase his readership.  He bashes Palin because he likes snark.  That doesn't mean he's an ally, and he's certainly no ally to truth or reason.  



 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!

[ Parent ]
Unclear on The Definition of "Moral" (0.00 / 0)
Actually,

Sullivan knows how to keep a readership, as does Drudge.  They are moral equals.  

Not exactly.

"Senate passes expanded GI bill despite Bush, McCain opposition"

[ Parent ]
We're even (0.00 / 0)
I was having the same problem with "gregiously."

 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!
[ Parent ]
You might want to (0.00 / 0)
look up the definition of ontology, while you're clarifying the definiton of moral.  I believe it's the study of that which IS.  Seems to me, good and evil are qualities of things that are, namely, human persons.  I kind of think that if you had substituted "phenomenology", you would have been literally correct.

Pardon the pedantry.

[ Parent ]
I think your hatred of Sullivan is clouding your vision (4.00 / 2)
He's been relentless.

And - isn't he more conservative than not? His being in Barack's corner should be celebrated and paid attention to more - he offers another perspective that is needed to win this election.

QT

Visit the Obama Project

Searching for John McCain?



[ Parent ]
Quite the opposite (4.00 / 1)
Sullivan stands for nothing progressive.  

His only real objections to Bush are his fundamentalism and his incompetence.

His support for Obama - on largely bone-stupid grounds of tokenism and ageism - has been quoted and cited no end.  There isn't any lack of celebration.

Sullivan makes me wonder, once again, about the "progressive" netroots, which largely appears to be people following and admiring people who are not progressive - Huffington, Kos, Sullivan - who are basically Republicans who (or in Kos' case, a "libertarian, New Democrat")that lost patience with incompetence, but are basically unprincipled.

You may not agree with me 100% on Sullivan - virtually every word he has ever written is cringe inducing, a combination of arrogance and stupidity that sounds, to my ears, like a pseudo-intellectual Bush (I put quite a bit of Christopher Hitchens - although he does have his moments - and all of Camille Paglia in the same category, inconsistent, stubborn, narcissists). Surely it is more than warranted to take his ramblings with skepticism and derision.

Consider: I agree with him, today, on Palin.  She is an embarrassment.  But I felt that way about Bush in 2000.  Millions of us understood that Bush was temperamentally unsuited for the demands of office, regardless of his policies.  But in 2000, Sullivan swooned over the same faux folksy charm and straightforward, proud ignorance that he ridicules in Palin today. Hence, I find it a little rich that he speaks of Palin so dismissively and arrogantly, as if he were above this sort of approach.  

 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!

[ Parent ]
To Know (0.00 / 0)
Sullivan knows how to keep a readership, as does Drudge.

Just because someone keeps a readership doesn't mean that someone knows how to keep a readership. There might be some technique by which one keeps a readership, but until that technique is illuminated to me with facts and reasoning and then compared to Drudge's and Sullivan's practices, it's not an awful assumption to think that they're just lucky.

In sports some of the best players are the worst coaches. Why? Because they don't know how they did what they did on the field. They just did it, not through knowledge but through instinct and habit.

In fact, if you claim to know that Drudge and Sullivan have this knowledge, then to be able to prove and understand that they're not just lucky, you must also have this knowledge, and I don't think that you do.

[ Parent ]
How did he undermine the efforts to critique her? .. (4.00 / 2)
Aren't those efforts still ongoing?  and besides .. there are things like TrooperGate .. besides .. that whole pregnancy thing led to finding out about the racist b/f of one of Palin's kids

John McCain: Bush right to veto kids health insurance expansion
[ Parent ]
Because (4.00 / 1)
by pushing illegitimate, unfounded, out of bounds criticisms, he gave McCain ammunition to portray Palin as a victim.

I fail to see how the fake pregnancy allegation led to the discovery of any information that wouldn't have been otherwise revealed.


 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!

[ Parent ]
McCain was going to portray Palin (4.00 / 2)
as a victim no matter what anyone said. How long have you been following this stuff? That's how the system works. That's why he nominated a "girl" in the first place.

Besides, I still don't believe a woman in labor delivers a speech and gets on an airplane for a seven hour trip. Those are her own very words to the Anchorage Daily News. She has never explained that. Maybe you believe her but I don't, because I have actually been through labor and delivery myself.

If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain

[ Parent ]
Above, we were discussing morality (0.00 / 0)
People shed a certain degree of privacy in public life.  That is necessary.

Claiming that someone faked a pregnancy is a bizarre allegation, extremely personal, and hurtful.  No matter what the context, and no matter who the target, such an allegation should be made only on strong evidence.

So, I'll amend my comments.  Whether Sullivan undermined the legitimate critiques of Palin is secondary - although the more outrageous the allegations, the easier it was to invoke sympathy.  Apparently, though, in your view, the very fact that McCain would seek false sympathy justifies a false and destructive allegation.  

The main issue is whether this allegation has any more place in discourse than the allegation that Obama had gay sex in a limo with that mental patient. That is another reason why Sullivan is loathesome.      

 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!

[ Parent ]
How many children have you birthed, if you don't mind (0.00 / 0)
my asking?

If you have birthed any, or even been present while someone you cared about did so, then please tell me honestly what in the world would motivate you to board a plane for a seven hour flight after labor had begun.

Palin is a fucking liar, coasting on Republican privilege. She's always gotten away with lies, so she expects to keep on getting away with them. I don't like Sullivan but I am glad he called her out.

If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain

[ Parent ]
I do mind your asking. (0.00 / 0)
Palin's kids and pregnancies are not any of your business.  Nor are mine.

I don't care how many kids you've birthed either, and I'd prefer you not volunteer.  What is it about "none of your business" that you have a hard time grasping?



 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!

[ Parent ]
That's what I thought. (0.00 / 0)
You believe Palin because you don't know any better. See that's what she's counting on -- people like you being gullible, and people like me being complicit.

Only I am not complicit.

So go scold someone else.

If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain

[ Parent ]
Actually (0.00 / 0)
I prefer to discuss the actual issues: eg, lies about the Bridge to Nowhere, rather than the scurrilous, lowlife gossip that you wallow in.

No need to scold you, since you're proud of what you are.



 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!

[ Parent ]
Bullshit (0.00 / 0)
You always get all high and mighty when you get tangled up in your own foolishness. It's downright comical.

You just said of Sullivan: " isn't he the most prominent piece of slime that undermined the efforts to legitimately critique Palin by publishing the rumor that she faked her pregnancy?"

Yet you have no evidence that a) Sullivan undermined anything or
b) Palin told the truth.

Then again, Im not surprised someone who admires Clarence Thomas would be a Sarah Palin fan. It's probably not a coincidence.


If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain

[ Parent ]
Interesting (0.00 / 1)
I have not said I'm a Sara Palin fan.  Quite the contrary.  I've noted in this very thread that she lied, and I've repeatedly stated that I dislike her.

In fact, my signature line on this board disses Palin.

As to evidence, and undermining claims, I note several things:

First, the obvious, which is my insistence in this thread that such a bizarre and personal claim be supported by substantial evidence.  In other words, it isn't my position that anyone needs to disprove the claim, but rather that making the claim bears a high burden of proof, which Sullivan (and you) did not meet.  

Second, this came up first on kos, in a diary that was quickly removed.  Kos later posted a diary with pics of Palin visibly pregnant at the relevant time, noting that the issue had been laid to rest.  The folks at kos, who are not shrinking violets when it comes to making strong allegations, saw this as toxic and untrue.  Only truly sick individuals are pushing the tale at this point.

Third, anyone reading this thread can see you are a liar.  Plainly I am not a fan of Palin.  Which makes you and Palin soulmates - two hateful dissemblers who have no standards when it comes to pushing partisan agendas, who treat everyone as too dumb to notice.  


 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!

[ Parent ]
Nice. (0.00 / 0)
Now explain to me why you believe Palin told the truth.

So far you've called me names, impugned my motives, and invoked the authority of Mighty Kos, but you have yet to explain why you believe the story Palin told to the Anchorage Daily News.

I know she is lying because I have the personal experience to back it up. I don't know what the real story is, but I know what it is not, and it is not the story she gave the reporters.

Whereas you .. well you're just a pitiful little blowhard. Faking it and getting mad when you get caught.

If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain

[ Parent ]
Finis (0.00 / 1)
I have better things to do with my life than obsess over conspiracy theories about Sara Palin faking a pregnancy. I also have better things to do than debate with foul-mouthed liars on the net who won't address anyone's points.  Even if your tinfoil hat theories - which are not given credence at this point by anyone, not even Sullivan or kos - were true, it would have nothing to do with policy.  No, I don't care about your pregnancy one bit, or Sarah Palin's, and no, it isn't about your "experience."  Palin lied about her record as a public servant.  It is a difficult job just to explain the easy and important lies to the public.  You are free to believe what you want. I'm sure it helps you make sense of your life some way.  Take care.  

 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!
[ Parent ]
Wow, you really got your ass kicked that time. (0.00 / 0)
It's obvious that your whole objective with your ever deteriorating comments was to strut around and show how superior you are.  Instead, even though you had a valid point, you made yourself look like a fool.
[ Parent ]
Superior? Of course. (0.00 / 0)
But it's nothing to strut over, since virtually everyone else on the web is intellectually and morally above repeating this vile tale.  

I suppose there's nothing any of us can do about the 1% of lowlifes who continue to spew this garbage.  No point in arguing with the uneducable.  I won't try in the future.


 I knew Incitatus. Incitatus was a friend of mine. Sarah Palin is no Incitatus!

[ Parent ]
The Faux Effect (0.00 / 0)


McCain Has a Republican Healthcare Plan for the 21st Century
[ Parent ]
He's had the best anti-Palin stuff (0.00 / 0)
until the Gibson interview, there were those on the edge wondering if he had gone 'off' somehow. After the Gibson interview, only GOP lackies couldn't say,

'Andrew, you were on the money'.  

I like the aggressive reportage that Sullivan has done on Palin, however... (4.00 / 1)
this line:

"And my working assumption now is that she is a pathological liar..."

just reminds me of his hysterical, and largely irrational, reaction to the Clintons, where everything they did was ascribed to pathological motives. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, and all that, but we shouldn't forget that Sully can apply that brand of toxic psychoanalysis to Democrats just as well as Sarah Palin.

Except that she is. (0.00 / 0)
Up is different from down, right is different from wrong.  A woman who forced every one of her employees to resign on day one in a Stalinesque loyalty test is, yes, pathological. A woman who denied rape kits to rape victims because they contained the morning after pill is pathological.

Sullivan was wrong about Clinton, but he's right about Palin. He's like the proverbial broken clock that's right twice a day.

If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain

[ Parent ]
Somebody suggested... (0.00 / 0)
that Palin was "Cheney in lipstick," but I prefer to think of her as "Bush in a skirt."
I think of her as Nixon reincarnated. (0.00 / 0)
Though she is a few years too old.

Still, how else can you explain her precocious gifts for abuse of power?

If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain

[ Parent ]
She's a good looking white girl (4.00 / 1)
with a mean streak a mile wide.

What more do you need?

McCain Has a Republican Healthcare Plan for the 21st Century

[ Parent ]
she does seem to represent (4.00 / 1)
the ultimate "Queen Bee".  Its no wonder a certain segment of women admire her and see a leader in her.

She needs to be schooled by Tina Fey......

oh wait, she already has been :)

McCain is anti-choice

[ Parent ]
I'm not focused on her being a woman (0.00 / 0)
It's the mean streak.  The white skin and the good looks just help her to make her meaness look more presentable.

Don't even have to be good looking - money helps in the same way.

McCain Has a Republican Healthcare Plan for the 21st Century

[ Parent ]
Maybe she's his love child? (0.00 / 0)
She is the right age for that.

The Nixon's Bastard Daughter theory would explain so much ...

If you liked Bush, you'll love McCain

[ Parent ]
It could make a good movie script (4.00 / 1)


McCain Has a Republican Healthcare Plan for the 21st Century
[ Parent ]
Andrew's shock .... (0.00 / 0)

Andrew just drew the rational conclusions from the Iraq war, and is completely shocked that someone he admired (McCain) wants to double-down on a catastrophe.

I think this has unbalanced him a bit. Most of what he has written on Palin is spot-on, excepting the bits about Trig and Bristol. He should really follow Obama's advice there.

more Palin stories under the radar (0.00 / 0)
Wall Street crashed and that took all the press attention so some more Palin revelations were not as visible as they should be. These stories will get more press soon I hope.

1. Palin lies about pay cut as mayor. She is saying As mayor I took a voluntary pay cut, which didn't thrill my husband; on the stump. The truth is

she voted against hiking the mayor's salary from $64,000 to $68,000, but it passed anyway. When she came in as mayor, she passed the ordinance which brought her salary down to $61,200. But that may not actually have taken effect, and Council-mandated raises brought her actual salary up to $68,000.

http://tpmelectioncentral.talk...

2. Cronyism and mismanagement at Wasilla creamery. Palin is not a fiscal conservative, she is not a reformer.

Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin promotes herself as a small-government conservative. But when Alaska government officials wanted to shut down a money-losing creamery, the governor overturned the decision after dairy farmers near her hometown complained the loss of subsidies would cripple them.

"Things are kind of a mess right now with what's happening with Mat-Maid, and we're going to clean it up," the governor said at the event. She then sacked the creamery board and replaced it. The new board, headed by one of her childhood friends, ordered the creamery kept open. Six months later -- after the business racked up more than $800,000 in additional losses, according to state officials -- the new board ordered it closed again.

http://reno.wsj.com/article/SB...

3. First the polar bears, then the wolves, then the Beluga whales. Governor Palin Urges Feds to not list Belugas as Endangered


Governor Sarah Palin has told the federal government that the state is extremely concerned about a proposal to list Cook Inlet beluga whales as an endangered species under the federal Endangered Species Act, and urged the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) not to list the species. ?Our scientists feel confident that it would be unwarranted to list Cook Inlet belugas now,? Governor Palin said.

http://www.votesmart.org/speec...

"The experts agree - the science to list the Cook Inlet Beluga is clear," said Bob Shavelson of Cook Inletkeeper. "But the oil industry and their friends in the Bush & Palin Administrations prefer to blur the science to meet their political needs.

http://www.defenders.org/newsr...

Gov. Sarah Palin may eventually have said "no thanks" to a federally funded Bridge to Nowhere. But a bridge to her hometown of Wasilla, that's a different story. A $600 million bridge and highway project to link Alaska's largest city to Palin's town of 7,000 residents is moving full speed ahead, despite concerns the bridge could worsen some commuting and threaten a population of beluga whales.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200...

Top Ten Minor Complaints about Palin by Andrew Sullivan | 41 comments
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