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Go Home Sisterhood Is All-powerful

THE PLANK OCTOBER 6, 2008

Sisterhood Is All-powerful

BY AUTHOR INFO NEEDED

At a California event on Saturday, Sarah Palin had this to say:

 

Palin is, of course, misquoting Albright. Her actual line was not "There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't support other women," it was "There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't help other women."

Given that the quote is exact except for one word that is crucial to Palin's purpose, I think it's pretty safe to assume the mischaracterization is deliberate. But beyond that, it's remarkable that the GOP, forever scourge of identity politics, has come to this. As Conor Friedersdorf (himself a conservative) notes over at Culture11, "I wonder how commentators on the right would’ve reacted had Hillary Clinton said that."

Finally, you have to love Palin's concluding line:  

I didn't know how that was going to go over. And now, California, let's see what a comment like I just made, how that is turned into whatever it'll be turned into tomorrow in the newspapers.

Is the McCain camp's strategy at this point to have Palin utter foolish, obnoxious, factually inaccurate comments every day just so they can attack the media when it reports on them?

--Christopher Orr

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14 comments

"Is the McCain camp's strategy at this point to have Palin utter foolish, obnoxious, factually inaccurate comments every day just so they can attack the media when it reports on them?"

It's pretty much the only weapon in her bag, right?  This is why pitchers bunt - they can't hit, so why let them swing away?  Like the wise man might've said, you go to the campaign with the running mate you have, not the running mate you wish to have or hope to have.

- adaglas

October 6, 2008 at 12:09pm

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I know your question is probably rhetorical, Chris, but yes... yes, it appears that that IS their strategy.

- drdannyu

October 6, 2008 at 12:14pm

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So Jonah is another convincing argument (with William Kristol) against hereditary punditry, and in favor of meritocracy. Seems like Jonah ended up a few neurons short of his mom.

- JEFF FREY

October 6, 2008 at 12:15pm

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Sorry for the cross-post. I typed in the wrong window.

- JEFF FREY

October 6, 2008 at 12:16pm

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"Is the McCain camp's strategy at this point to have Palin utter foolish, obnoxious, factually inaccurate comments every day just so they can attack the media when it reports on them?"

I think at this point it's pretty clear that the McCain camp just doesn't do strategy.  If it gets five good minutes on the evening news, it's good enough for them.

And it's not like Palin isn't going to make foolish, obnoxious and factually inaccurate comments anyway.  It's kind of her thing.

- FWright

October 6, 2008 at 12:17pm

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"There's a place in Hell reserved for women who don't help other women."

You mean, like women who have other women charged for rape kits at the police station?

- hueylong

October 6, 2008 at 12:53pm

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Note the narcissistic disconnect and double standard. Is Palin indicating Albright is a woman whose opinion matters and to whom we should listen? No, of course not, she supports Obama and named Biden the winner on Thursday. The only purpose here is to attack and embarrass, just as when she used Biden's quotes against Obama. This is nothing more than a game of Gotcha, twisting anything a Dem may have said into support for the ego. There are no limits to the distortion and meanness of her attacks, but she quickly switches to victim mode at even the most reasonable questions about herself that don't play directly to the image she's selling.  I mean, the woman said with a straight face that Couric should have been asking her not about her foreign policy credentials but rather about how Obama will raise taxes!

- Wasatcher

October 6, 2008 at 1:03pm

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Maybe its just a tactic?

- lisap1999

October 6, 2008 at 1:11pm

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It's a pretty standard belief on the right (but not only there) that when someone says X, and the media report on it and quote X, it has been "turned" into something else.  There seems to be a fear or unease about being confronted with one's own words, as if they might suddenly mean something more than what you planned them to mean.

Of course people can be, and are, misrepresented.  But Palin is something else -- she assumes that the very act of replicating her words or discussing them on another occasion constitues "misrepresentation."  It's quite something, and brings conservative paranoia to a new height.

- ironyroad

October 6, 2008 at 1:45pm

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Lisap1999, you clearly don't understand the difference between a tactic and a strategy. We need talkbackers who have the experience to understand the difference between tactic and strategy. I have that experience.

(Sorry if this results in a double-post. I'm not sure if the first one went through.)

- rozenson

October 6, 2008 at 2:00pm

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I gotta give her some credit, this empty headed ninny can drive a lot of people to distraction. I just don't buy into it though, she is at heart a truck stop waitress in Oklahoma, completely over her head and completely unaware of it. There is no there there so I really can't get worked up. McCain, on the other hand, has shown himself to be a narcisstic asshole.

- blackton

October 6, 2008 at 2:37pm

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blackton, I've known truck stop waitresses in Oklahoma.  I've been served coffee by truck stop waitresses in Oklahoma.  Sarah Palin is no truck stop waitress in Oklahoma.  That would be a grave insult to truck stop waitresses in Oklahoma.  

At best she's one of Lindsay Lohan's nemesises (nemeses?) in _Mean Girls_.   Mind you, I'd rather criticize her on substance, but there isn't any.  There's no "there" there, to cop an old line.  Just a snarky person who utters an infinite deal of nothing.  (Hmm, how many more well-known quotes can I pull in here and misquote?  Trying to think and talk like Palin is tough, you know...)

- cspencef

October 6, 2008 at 3:38pm

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Next up?  She'll be quoting Hallmark greeting cards and fortune cookies.

- Lyn39

October 6, 2008 at 4:11pm

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Hmmm...if only the headline we could expect tomorrow was "Palin condemns all female Democrats to hell." That would probably sell some papers, wouldn't it? Ah, if only that terribly biased liberal media would materialize...

- janus

October 6, 2008 at 4:58pm

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