Tag Archives | Sarah Palin

Barack Obama is Not a Liberal and Sarah Palin is Not a Conservative

By on October 9, 2010 in News 74

mendacityScott Horton interviews Roger D. Hodge regarding his book The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism for Harper’s:

1. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs recently derided liberal critics of the Obama Administration as the “professional left.” Was he talking about you? What do you make of this line of attack?

I’m not sure Gibbs has a coherent idea of what he means by the “left,” but if opposition to permanent war, extrajudicial assassination of American citizens, boundless state secrecy, and unlimited corporate bailouts constitutes “leftism,” then so be it. True to their Clintonian principles, President Obama and his advisors have spurned the Democratic Party’s liberal base and have sought to govern by appropriating the policies of the Republican right. Just as Bill Clinton enacted NAFTA and destroyed welfare, Barack Obama has pushed through a health-care program that was inspired by the Heritage Foundation and largely written by the insurance lobby—and he shows every sign of being willing to vandalize Social Security in the name of deficit reduction even though the program has nothing to do with the federal budget deficit.

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The Fox News Party’s Lineup For The Primaries

By on September 27, 2010 in News 10

FNC logoHow much longer will Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes pretend that their Fox News Channel is anything other than the Republican Party’s TV megaphone? This Politico story demonstrates that the conjugal relationship between GOP and FNC is clear for all to see, and yet they continue to deny sharing the same bed:

With Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee all making moves indicating they may run for president, their common employer is facing a question that hasn’t been asked before: How does a news organization cover White House hopefuls when so many are on the payroll?

The answer is a complicated one for Fox News.

As Fox’s popularity grows among conservatives, the presence of four potentially serious Republican candidates as paid contributors is beginning to frustrate competitors of the network, figures within its own news division and rivals of what some GOP insiders have begun calling “the Fox candidates.”

With the exception of Mitt Romney, Fox now has deals with every major potential Republican presidential candidate not currently in elected office.

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Don’t Underestimate The Power Of Palin

By on September 21, 2010 in News 20

Mark Halperin issues a warning memo, in TIME:

FROM: Mark Halperin
TO: Coastal Elites, the Media and Establishment Politicians of Both Parties
RE: Sarah Heath Palin

Don’t underestimate Sarah Palin. Yes, she is hyper-polarizing: she sends her fans into rapture and drives her detractors stark raving mad. But she can dominate the news cycle with a single tweet and generate three days of coverage with a single speech (as she did this past Friday in Iowa). Her name recognition is universal.

You are right to complain that she is not offering specific policy proposals and that her inaccessibility to media outlets other than the one that pays her — Fox News — puts her beyond the kind of scrutiny and accountability we have come to expect for our leaders.

But the mistake you are making is to assume that Palin needs or wants to play by the standard rules of American politics.

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Glenn Beck & Sarah Palin’s 9/11 Event

By on September 8, 2010 in News 17

I fear the worst. The Week speculates on what they may be planning:

Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin are appearing together at the Dena’ina Center in Anchorage on Sept. 11, and nobody’s sure why. Beck, on his radio show, confirmed the event but would say only, “I’m gonna give a speech up there, and Sarah’s gonna give a speech, too, but that’s it.” Beck’s coyness, along with Palin’s silence and the provocative date, have only amped up the speculation about this “mysterious” event. (Watch a Russia Today discussion about the pair of leaders.) Here’s five theories on what Palin and Beck are up to on 9/11:

1. This is the launch of Palin-Beck 2012
“The symbolic date of 9/11 invests this event with the inescapable possibility that he and Palin plan to announce their Presidential candidacy for 2012,” says Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. Such a ticket is “not exactly unexpected,” but launching it on 9/11 is a cynical way to “benefit from the paranoia” they’ve helped create about a threat from America’s Muslims and “Obama’s fictitious Islamic religion.”

2.

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Sarah Palin: The Sound and the Fury

By on September 4, 2010 in News 5

Palin WinkAs much as I hate to admit it, Sarah Palin is not going away any time soon and I feel forced to try to understand her appeal. Michael Joseph Gross gives her an in depth profile in Vanity Fair that comes as close as anything to describing the human car crash that is the Palin debacle in progress:

Backstage in the arena, a little girl in Mary Janes pushes her brother in a baby carriage, stopping a few yards shy of a heavy, 100-foot-long black curtain. The curtain splits the arena in two, shielding the children from an audience of 4,000 people clapping their hands in time to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” The music accompanies a video “Salute to Military Heroes” that plays above the stage where, in a few moments, the children’s mother will appear.

When the girl, Piper Palin, turns around, she sees her parents thronged by admirers, and the crowd rolling toward her and the baby, her brother Trig, born with Down syndrome in 2008.

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American Politics Gets Weirder Than Ever: Levi Johnston Runs For Mayor

By on August 10, 2010 in News 4

Levi_Johnston_at_Minnesota_Republican_ConventionJust when you thought American politics couldn’t get any more ridiculous! People Magazine (where else?!?) has the story:

Some people will do anything for attention – including running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.

The latest hopeful to toss his hat into the ring? None other than reality-star wannabe Levi Johnston, who hopes his campaign will attract viewers to his proposed TV reality show.

Johnston, 20, has paired with the veteran reality firm Stone and Co., already responsible for TLC’s Extreme Food Sculpting, to pitch a Loving Levi: The Road to the Mayor’s Office pilot, the production company confirms to The Hollywood Reporter.

Those will memory loss may need to be reminded that Johnston’s almost mother-in-law, Sarah Palin, was mayor of the small town (pop. 10,000) from 1992-2002, before becoming governor of the state…

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The Sarah Palin Facebook Translator

By on July 22, 2010 in News 9

Sarah Palindisinformation author Marty Beckerman (Dumbocracy) has landed himself a prime gig as Esquire‘s online features editor. He’s already written a number of posts for Esquire. Here’s the latest:

“Refudiate,” we have taught the ex-governor by now, is not a word. Not even on Twitter, where she took to defending her vocabulary this week. But it’s on Facebook where Sarah Palin takes to pushing her policy, her endorsements, and her general paranoia. Because if you can’t hold office for that whole final year, what better way to talk to two-million constituents at a time than through a thousand whole words on the “Notes” section?! And even if you take her postings seriously, they’re still pretty difficult to understand. Since Palin is sort of running for president but not really, we combed through her oeuvre with fine-toothed erudiation.

Example A (Posted July 20, 2010)

Subject: “An Intolerable Mistake on Hallowed Ground”

What She Said: “To build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks… Many Americans, myself included, feel it would be an intolerable and tragic mistake to allow such a project… This is nothing close to ‘religious intolerance,’ it’s just common decency.”

What We Think She Meant: New York Muslims just want to build a community center (not just a mosque) two blocks away from Ground Zero (not at Ground Zero).

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