US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

Of those, which was Sarah Palin's favorite, btw? "Umm....all of them. Tied for first", she said.

The teleprompter attack always struck me as some sort of Rove-style "attack where your enemy is strongest" attempt but in reality it comes across as some pathetic response from an 8-year-old. They're desperately trying to grip at some line of assault on the guy who's currently the country's leading orator, but going "oh yeah?! oh yeah?! well well well he's just using a TELEPROMPTER!"

I.e. his vaulted speechifyin' abilities are nothing but the creation of some backroom cabal of Evil Libruls who type all this up for the Sheeple/Uneducated Masses & Evil Librul Media to lap up.

They're trying to boil it down the gradient: "O is speaking in public" -> "he's performing a pre-written speech" -> "he's reciting just whatever words are put on the screen there by other people" -> "he only mouths whatever others have said and doesn't believe any of it"

Like the dude is an Empty Suit and Inauthentic. It becomes shorthand for just saying "Dude is fake."

I mean, yeah, it also has the nice little side-effect of obscuring the fact that dude's predecessor couldn't speak for shit and reassuring the attacker that they're not so completely without guile that no Mere Pretty Words could _ever_ work on them.

Oh and ignores the countless times the President has spoke or done Q&As without prepared remarks of any kind, but hey, you construct your framing correctly, you can crowd out plenty of inconvenient stuff to the sidelines.

If we get real, this speech was given to 1000 people at an event populated only by batshit fringe groupiess with no corresponding comparable group on the left - no matter what false equivalencies a Tea Party type manufactures while citing teleprompters and whatnot. Her fans don't do change because in number and mindset, nothing changes with them. The media reaction is its own feedback loop; other than the snow it's a slow news day and the swivelheads who find Palin compelling are probably now hunkered away watching the Super Bowl with everybody else. 2012 is a long way away and there are numerous opportunities for Palin and her pals to get cocky enough to tip their hands or say something more shockingly insensitive than 'fucking retard' in public.

Also, remember that lawyers(and especially _trial lawyers_) are Always The Enemy to these guys. Lawyers(and scientists, in a related way) offer a check on Authoritarians, as they can call you on your shit, and offset the power balance and domination you try to achieve. For folks who campaign on Law & Order, they tend not to give a shit about the former in pursuit on the latter.

Also, trial lawyers donate heavily to Democratic candidates. Tort reform is a related issue to this.

Oops, switched from 2nd-person to 3rd-person in consecutive sentences there. Still, you get the idea.

this speech was given to 1000 people at an event populated only by batshit fringe groupiess

^This. NYT reported it was like 600 people. I bet only 500 at most were actually in attendance. Sarah's hype machine rolls on.

well yeah but didn't they charge like a million dollars to attend?

“We’re at war and these are acts of war that these terrorists are committing and we need to treat them differently,” she said. “I don’t think terrorists are worthy of rights that people like my son fight and are willing to die for.”

^anyway this is the kind of horrifying shit we should be attacking, not sarah's hand notes

BBC said the audience for the address numbered 1100 - and they have no skin in this game. Batshit insane coverage on the same BBC did take up half the morning.

that reads to me as boilerplate Reupblican stuff, not horrifying or unexpected in the least xpost

o well if the BBC said it it must be true

ha well you're implying that most of what republicans believe isn't awful

BBC are operating under something like Fairness Doctrine standards compared to US media generally.

She also said that she was willing to be a martyr for America, which is the DANGER WILL ROBINSON take-away from the address.

“I don’t think terrorists are worthy of rights that people like my son fight and are willing to die for.”

see this may be where we're not gonna see eye to eye kev cause like while i'd love to feed this into the olbermann outrage chamber to get a real kick out of some righteous indignation, i don't think the notion that enemy combatatants should be denied constitutional rights sounds all that horrifying or nutty to the vast swaths of america who listen to rush limbaugh on lunch

xxp ah, there it is then

ha well you're implying that most of what republicans believe isn't awful

no i'm not--i'm saying it sounds like what every other republican says

ok so let's lol @ her crib notes and call it a day, A+ job as usual dems

xp

i'm not a dem but her saying ridiculous/scary things is a given and at the same time writing meaningless shit on your hand for a big talk because you don't know what you're talking about is still funny, to me.

ok so let's lol @ her crib notes and call it a day, A+ job as usual dems

are you willfully ignoring the posts where some ilxors explain this is because it highlights the hypocrisy of the obama-teleprompter zings, or is this a genuine oversight on yr part?

yeah writing on your hand is never not going to be funny

er, not you "she doesn't know what she's talking about"

I wrote on some guy's back once, but the poem was no good.

yeah i mean it's hilarious, c'mon

and honestly pulling a WE SHOULD DEBATE SARAH PALIN ON THE ISSUES is striving for a higher moral ground that doesn't exist in her world

“To win that war, we need a commander in chief, not a professor of law,” she declared.

I don't understand this at all. Is she saying that professors of law are less well-equipped to assume the role of commander in chief than other professions? Or is she saying that Obama approaches the commander in chief position as a lawyer, and he shouldn't...deliberate so much? Because that's what lawyers do - think about stuff a lot and weight different options? Or...or...? What the fuck is it supposed to mean?

I'm going to repeat Frank Zappa's line until I'm blue in the face -- "Modern Americans behave as if intelligence were some sort of hideous deformity."

don't call me a democrat

/morbs

I wonder if Camille Paglia still thinks Palin is smart and savvy, and we're all sexist for thinking she's a fucking moron.

lol @ giving a shit what camille paglia thinks

if that's sexist i don't want to be not sexist :)

Transcript of Palin's interview with Chris Wallace. A doozy.

My favorite bit:

WALLACE: White House Chief of Staff -- you mention him -- Rahm Emanuel. You called him out. He used the "R" word. He said, "retarded." He has now apologized for using that word, met with activists, said he's going to join the campaign to try to eliminate use of that word --
PALIN: Oh, you know, Rahm Emanuel, I think he had some indecent and insensitive ways of being, including his language. And as I said for a variety go reasons, giving the President poor advice and his heavy handedness. I think he should step down.
I'm not politically correct. I am not one to be a word police. But I do believe that his insensitivity, in a time when I had just promised in my GOP convention speech that those with special needs and families and those who love those with special needs would have a friend, and a advocate in the White House if John McCain and I were so blessed as to be elected.
That didn't stop me because our votes didn't carry the day, we didn't win. That didn't stop my passion, my commitment to reaching out and to helping the special needs community when they asked for it. And they did ask for it on this one. They reached out to me and said, can you kind of highlight the problem that we have the White House, with both the President and his Chief of Staff being so insensitive to the special needs community. And I said, I'm here. Send me. I will do so.
WALLACE: OK. But Rush Limbaugh weighed in this week. And he said this:
"Our politically correct society is acting like some giant insult's taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards."
PALIN: He was satirical (ph) in that --
WALLACE: Wait a minute, let me finish.
PALIN: OK.
WALLACE: "I mean, these people, these liberal activists are quote, kooks."
Should Rush Limbaugh apologize?
PALIN: They are kooks, so I agree with Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh was using satire to bring attention to what this politically correct--
WALLACE: But he used the "R" word.
PALIN: Using satire. Name calling by anyone -- I teach this to my children, you teach it to your children and your grandchildren, too.
Name calling by anyone, it's just unnecessary. It just wastes time.
Let's speak to the issues and --
WALLACE: But you know what some people are going to say, Governor, and have said. They say, look, when it's her political adversary Rahm Emanuel, she's going to call him out, he's indecent, apologize. But when it's a political friend like Rush Limbaugh, oh it's satire.
PALIN: I didn't hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with "F-ing retards." And we did know that Rahm Emanuel, it's been reported, did say that. That's a big difference there.
But again, name calling, using language that is insensitive by anyone-- male, female, Republican, Democrat, it's unnecessary, it's inappropriate and let's all just grow up.

Since she didn't hear Rush Limbaugh use the "R-Word," it didn't happen, of course.

This is the thread where Orbit is comfy and invites you in for tea

um i'm not getting how writing a few VERY GENERAL takling points as reminders to herself highlights the hypocrisy of saying obama needs the teleprompter to speak (which, i imagine - and i don't keep up on this kind of gossip so correct me if i'm wrong - has EVERY WORD of his speech on it). i mean, have any of you given a speech before? the bullet points aren't to remind her that "oh yeah, there's an economy, should prob talk about that!" - it's to remind her what order she wants her speech to go in and how it should flow.

it pains me to "defend" her like this because yes, sarah palin is still a fucking idiot. but this kind of gotcha gossip shit is supposed to be beneath you, and focusing on that instead of her awful ideas in the name of a few cheap lols helps no one imo

she is seriously so lame that the fact that anyone thinks otherwise lessens my respect for the human race as a whole

*plops into tea party convention*

i mean i get that we're all aware of this and are just shootin' the shit here, but i bet that's gonna be the headline on all the blogs today

xxp to myself

Im looking all over for that old Flaming Lips photo from 1990 or whatever where Wayne has 'Jesus' or something written on his hand...

k3vin k. srsly? cheap lols are ok everywhere else but here? u mad?

no i'm saying it's worse everywhere else but here

you realize that by saying "gotcha" you're echoing sarah palin verbatim

but i bet that's gonna be the headline on all the blogs today

― jew bee or nazi bee (k3vin k.), Sunday, February 7, 2010 4:11 PM

oh my god what a disaster for people who care about blogs

addressing her awful ideas seems like a waste of time though, for our purposes on this internet board

guys i actually love sarah palin, fuck it

xp harbs yeah see my 2nd post

http://s11.acephotos.org/images/orig/t/p/tprcv51kog7kvc1t.jpg

the thing is like, no politician in recent memory has gotten caught writing shit on their hand like a sixth-grader because it's not something that rationale adults do, which is why it's noteworthy, let alone the hypocrisy of the teleprompter thing

i mean, have any of you given a speech before? the bullet points aren't to remind her that "oh yeah, there's an economy, should prob talk about that!" - it's to remind her what order she wants her speech to go in and how it should flow.

i've never given a speech before, but i know that if i ever do give a speech, it's all about perception--and if someone sees me with crib notes on my hands instead of index cards or a teleprompter, than the conclusion will be that i am an idiot.

your 2nd post on this thread?

mr. que is otm

Rational adults don't write on their hands?

I'm all for tons of Palin jokes, but this is pretty weak sauce.

well i've gotten that it's all about perception to you que

am i turning into morbs y/n

not to help them give a speech xpost