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Go Home Palin Wrong; Dog Bites Man; Sun Rises In East

JONATHAN CHAIT MAY 24, 2010

Palin Wrong; Dog Bites Man; Sun Rises In East

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

Good fact-checking from Elizabeth Williamson and Victoria McGrane of the Wall Street Journal:

Former Alaska Republican Gov. Sarah Palin stirred up more controversy over the oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico Sunday when she suggested that the administration’s response was linked to “the oil companies who have so supported President Obama in his campaign.” ...

According to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, Republicans receive far more campaign money from the oil and gas industry than do Democrats.

So far in 2010, the oil and gas industries have contributed $12.8 million to all candidates, with 71% of that money going to Republicans. During the 2008 election cycle, 77% of the industry’s $35.6 million in contributions went to Republicans, and in the 2008 presidential contest, Republican candidate Sen. John McCain received more than twice as much money from the oil and gas industries as Obama: McCain collected $2.4 million; Obama, $898,000.

It's always treacherous to speculate where, how, or even whether Palin gets her information. But I wonder if she's somehow absorbed the notion, advanced by figures on the right like Tim Carney and her own hagiographer Matthew Continetti, that Obama is a handmaiden of industry.

 

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16 comments

Sarah Palin is either (1) Dumb enough or (2) Disingenuous enough to disseminate this canard that is being peddled by cynical Republican operatives and scribes. The banking collapse and subsequent attempts at reform have been eye-opening on the starboard side of the political spectrum, as well. The Republicans have frequently posed as populists on these matters in their rhetoric, but when legislation arose to reform the excesses, the Republicans found themselves right where they always are: as water carriers for Wall Street.

- liberal reformer

May 24, 2010 at 11:50am

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I've seen no evidence that Palin "seeks out information." She's rejects such nuisances (ask McCain's team). She apparently thinks ad homeniem attacks on journalists (anyone really) who think politicians should know stuff counts as some sort of "real America" knowledge. What the evidence does strongly suggest is that she thinks knowledge is for chumps and that anything she makes up is the truth.

- WandreyCer

May 24, 2010 at 11:59am

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We all know that the right makes up its own version of recent (40 years) history, which is bad enough (that history is optional must be corrosive to any society). But the right even has its own version of the Gospels. Whenever I hear someone who is doing well in business say that she owes it all to God, I wonder how that squares with Jesus' teachings about money and wealth, in particular how it's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich woman to reach the kingdom of God, that the rich woman has received her reward in this life. I would think that Sarah Palin making up history about campaign contributions would pale in comparison to making up the Gospels, especially for someone so pious as Palin. Not, of course, that I would question her sincerity about her faith, only about her version of both history and the Gospels.

- rayward

May 24, 2010 at 12:16pm

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I'm with Wandrey: The evidence to date suggests that Palin does not look for sources of information, but simply makes up "facts" to justify her prejudices. Probably even believes the fictions she invents to be true. Bush the Lesser was like that; in any extended interview, Dubya regularly cited numerous false "facts." Most tellingly, Bush the Lesser's fictitious "facts" very often were original, in that Nexis and Google searches for prior statements of his assertions by others would come up empty. Plus, Palin is an automanichean, in that she divides the world between herself and the forces of evil. Therefore if someone on Palin's side, or even Palin herself, accepts a boatload of cash from the oil industry, it's a sign of reciprocal virtue. If someone Palin identifies as an enemy accepts even a dollar from the oil industry, it's a sign of corrupt influence. There's no contradiction, because Palin and Obama are actors of such different kind that no comparison is possible. Palin is always good and right, and Obama is always evil and wrong. Because Palin is good, it's not possible for any amount of money to exert a corrupting influence. And because anyone not-Palin is evil, even the absence of exchanged money would be proof of corrupt influence. (If Obama received no money from the oil industry, it would simply be a sign that the oil industry was doing Obama a favor by hiding its influence over him from the public.)

- rhubarbs

May 24, 2010 at 12:18pm

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Something tells me she's been talking to Rove too - his fingerprints are all over this. Instead of attacking Obama's strength, she's projecting her own vulnerabilities on to him. She's way too dumb to ever concoct that herself.

- WandreyCer

May 24, 2010 at 12:28pm

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Wandereyer and Rhubarbs have it right. This kind of narcissist lives in a zero-sum world where the nouns are more important than the verbs and the only thing that matters is scoring points on the other team. Their deeds are good because of who they are -- i.e good people -- rather than what they do. The deeds of their opponents (and everyone is either an opponent or a supporter) are bad because the others are bad people. That’s why when their errors are pointed out they never respond to the error, they simply claim to be victims of bad people trying to destroy their goodness. Anything that is not cheerleading is an attack, and a personal one. That’s why a man running for the Senate who is asked his stand on the Civil Rights Act or a woman running for vice president who is asked what newspapers she reads is a victim of media thuggery, but end of life counseling doctors are death panels who are out to slay Down Syndrome children. The double standard is so obvious to anyone on the outside, but completely invisible to the narcissist who believes she is looking out the window at the world as is actually staring into the magic mirror.

- Ouroboros

May 24, 2010 at 1:30pm

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maybe she is just a lying, dissembling dipshit, she is now just as likely to now claim that claims of Oil company largesse have been reported in such liberal magazines as TNR, she is building her own information loop. The Bushies did that for years.

- blackton

May 24, 2010 at 1:30pm

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- Remember, she quit her last job for this. Sarah is now making about a million bucks a month, she has more fans than many MLB teams and all the free media she wants. And she's barely putting in any hours. I'm missing an incentive for her to tell the truth, check her facts or make herself available to the legitimate press. She's living a dream she couldn't have imagined so I'm not expecting her to mess with this formula until it stops paying off.

- michaelg

May 24, 2010 at 2:05pm

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Rhubarbs: "automanichean" is an excellent word and useful concept for understanding the Palin worldview (and that of many on the right, for that matter).

- frippo

May 24, 2010 at 3:47pm

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A better word might be automechanicean, because she's dishonest and lacks a moral compass.

- jhildner

May 24, 2010 at 5:35pm

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Automanichaean: what a ghastly portmanteau . It makes the former governor and present nebbish from Alaska sound like a Zoroastrian solipsist. Which, come to think of it, isn't bad as a description of its creator.

- liberal reformer

May 24, 2010 at 6:39pm

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The word "portmanteau" doesn't mean what libref seems to think it means. "Auto" in this sense is just a prefix. When an affix is a derivational morpheme, it's not regarded as a portmanteau. An example of a true portmanteau would be conservapologist: one who is always ready to defend conservative ideologues despite claiming to be a reformer or a liberal.

- rhubarbs

May 25, 2010 at 8:53am

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I know precisely what i means, and I have for decades.

- liberal reformer

May 25, 2010 at 10:10am

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I meant to write "what it means."

- liberal reformer

May 25, 2010 at 10:11am

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Portmanteau? Isn't that one of those fat cow-like creatures in the Caribbean? Or am I thinking of 'portly manatee'?

- Fishpeddler

May 25, 2010 at 11:38am

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Actually, it is one of those fat cow-like creations in the writings of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson.

- liberal reformer

May 25, 2010 at 6:09pm

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