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Go Home What Should The Next Excuse For Palin Be?

THE PLANK SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

What Should The Next Excuse For Palin Be?

BY MICHELLE COTTLE

It has been not quite five weeks since John McCain announced the oh-so-fragile Sarah Palin as his runningmate. During that period, the McCain camp has displayed an impressive degree of flexibility in handling any unwelcome (i.e., non-adulatory) interest in the largely unknown and untested Alaska governor:

At first, the campaign smeared anyone asking questions about--or of--Palin as snotty, contemptuous elitists who disliked poor Sarah because she is a regular person. 

As that angle became exahausted, the campaign decided that, on second thought, anyone who doesn't love Sarah must be a raging sexist with no respect for the entire gender. 

But time moves on, and it seems that this week's approach will be to dismiss Palin's own screw-ups as the shameful product of "gotcha journalism"----even in instances when Palin is responding to a regular voter (i.e. not a reporter) asking a question at a campaign event, and even when she gamely tackles said question with great zest and specificity. No matter: Still gotcha journalism.

Whew. Team McCain is burning through the list of groups to blame at an alarming clip. At this rate, with five weeks left to go, they are at serious risk of running out of ways to paint Palin as the victim of some overarching prejudice. Religious persecution is still available for use, as is the well-documented bias against people who wear glasses. But those two excuses cannot possibly hold all the way through October. Anyone care to venture some more creative cards for them to play?

--Michelle Cottle

 

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24 comments

They should open the aperture a bit, including all people with credentials as the enemy.

People with college degrees, all those fancy people who think they're better than those of us who are simple, good, hard-working Americans with a lot of common sense.

Try that for a week or two, see if it flies.

Rush has ten times the audience of Tina Fey, Nascar has ten times the following of Rush.

Go for the Spam vote.

- fougasseu

September 30, 2008 at 11:58am

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Sarah Palin represents the average person, the average person can't be expected to know the difference between Waziristan and assholistan, what she is bringing is good, solid American values to the White House, and concern for the integrity and decency of the average American during these troubling times. Sarah speaks for you, if not with "Obama" phony elegance and hoititoitiness, then with real words spoken honestly and forthrightly.

- blackton

September 30, 2008 at 12:01pm

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1. She's a victim of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy

2. Palin operates on Alaskan Standard Time

3. Facts are elitist

4. Her parents didn't give her a passport; she's never owned a backpack

5. Too busy getting into the mind of Putin

- BHLnyc

September 30, 2008 at 12:27pm

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I've noticed that all of Palin's detractors speak English.

- Andrew Davis

September 30, 2008 at 12:43pm

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Hooey to the hoi-poloi!  Boo to the Bon-Ton set!

Although being on this week's cover of the "National Enquirer" (10/06/08) wasn't what I had in mind:

"Sarah Palin's Other Man Revealed!"

I was thinking maybe the cover of "Parade".

- fougasseu

September 30, 2008 at 12:43pm

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Taking the Zoroastrian perspective, we can easily understand That Which Is Palin as symptomatic of the eternal, ubiquitous clash between Good and Evil.

It is not for nothing that Palin governs America's portion of the Land of the Midnight Sun. She witnesses the struggle between Darkness and Light, between streams of urine freezing in a yellow arc from the ground all the way up and into one's bladder on the one hand and giant zucchinis growing in mere hours like Body Snatcher pods on the other. Is it any wonder she fails to recall largely irrelevant Supreme Court decisions (e.g. Brown vs Board of Education, Plessy vs. Ferguson)?

Years from now when Sarah Palin is kneeling on her still-curing polar bear rug to open Christmas presents with her grandchildren (Virgule, Pox, Tang, Xiphoid, Ointment, Astragal, Uvula, Smelt, and Tweezers) or perhaps flying her Cessna over the Denali dropping cluster bombs on herds of grazing atheists, this odd election cycle will all seem like a brief if sharply painful leg cramp that awakened her from an otherwise pleasantly banal dream.

- williamyard

September 30, 2008 at 12:48pm

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I think a really pungent line would be that the media seems to have a problem with her intonation, her deep Alaskan "drawl", if you will.  This will reflect the media's eltist, sexist bend, and bring home the entire roster of other complaints Palin's task force voiced about the media and general (snobby) public, also invoking 2004's jihad against Kerry, which worked for Bush.  

- dylanposer

September 30, 2008 at 1:04pm

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Alert: Democrats have been getting catered chicken and fish dinners, courtesy of the Moose Lobby.

- rlgordonma

September 30, 2008 at 1:08pm

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Typical of you MIchelle, as a blonde, not having any respect for the efforts of hard-working brunettes.  

You're almost as bad as Roger Hobaugh:

www.theonion.com/.../point_counterpoint_gov_palin_has

- gea1434

September 30, 2008 at 1:25pm

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Isn't Todd Palin part Inuit? Then there's your answer: hypocritical media elites disapprove of her interracial marriage. All they have to do is claim some third-string op-ed columnist used the racially charged term "tundra fever," and the rest of the talking points just write themselves.

- benjamin81

September 30, 2008 at 1:36pm

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damn yar,d you so bad. my german mother's name is Astragal, why you making fun of it?

- blackton

September 30, 2008 at 1:43pm

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Hey blackie, don't blame me because your mom's named after a type of joinery hardware.

- williamyard

September 30, 2008 at 2:04pm

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Nobody's suggested the "pretty=dumb" potential bias accusation so far.  (She doesn't do much for me, but some folks seem to think she's attractive.)  Are the McCainiacs savvy enough to accuse the media of bias against attractive people?  Dunno.  

- cspencef

September 30, 2008 at 2:15pm

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She's being picked on unfairly because she's dangerously unqualified for her job.

Or, the people-who-can-answer-simple-questions crowd is being discriminatory.

- rozenson

September 30, 2008 at 2:33pm

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I think rozenson has a point.

If I'm McCain/Palin and I lose, I'll sue on affirmative action grounds.

Dick Cheney brilliantly laid the legal groundwork for this by removing the VP office from any meaningful oversight--actually, removing it from anything remotely resembling the universe the rest of us inhabit. Thus McCain/Palin can rightly claim that Palin not only doesn't need to be qualified; she doesn't even need to be elected. In fact, she doesn't even need to be alive. McCain would be perfectly within his rights to replace her with a nice wrought-iron park bench. "Careful," he'd caution the guys moving stuff into the Naval Observatory, "that's the Vice President of the United States you just banged into that doorjamb."

- williamyard

September 30, 2008 at 3:32pm

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Palin's excuse about not traveling abroad because her parents didn't give her a passport is completely bogus. Every year there are several thousand Fulbright scholars that spend a year abroad. These students come from all backgrounds. If she had really wanted to experience another culture, she could have at least applied for such a fellowship. There are many other opportunities besides Fulbright. These days if a college student is hard working and savvy about presenting him/herself in an application or before a selection committee, it is almost impossible NOT to find a funded way to spend a year abroad.

- slmoor

October 1, 2008 at 5:43am

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I personally happen to think that glasses are sexy, but then again Palin is every dominatrix school teacher I've ever had in my dreams.

I expect the NRA to get involved soon.  "Women with children should stay it home" is really just code for liberals not wanting a woman who hunts in the White House.

- anonevent

October 1, 2008 at 10:12am

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Ah, Michelle Malkin has taken to the barricades to promote the Gwen-Ifill-is-in-the-tank-for-Obama-and

- Anonymous

October 1, 2008 at 10:28am

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It sounds like they'd developed their own "excuse Rolodex" a la Seinfeld.

- csmiller

October 1, 2008 at 10:34am

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You know I smells a rat....I am reminded of the Phil Hartman SNL skit of Ronald Regan putting on an act... Maybe this "ah shucks I don't know routine" of Palin's is only an act to get us libs all worked up in a tizzy and she is just going to snap out of it at the debate BACK TO WORK

www.jibjab.com/.../170859

- gflibCDL

October 1, 2008 at 11:09am

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"Biden Ogles Palin During Debate:  Rumored to have referred to the Alaska governor as 'drop dead gorgeous'"

"Senator Joe Biden appeared to have cast a furtive glance at the derrier of the Alaska Governor at the start of Thursday night's Vice Presidential debate.  Footage of the video, now the most viewed segment on Youtube, shows the Delaware senator shaking hands with his opponent and then directing his eyes downward and slightly behind Mrs. Palin as she approached her podium , after which he is seen biting his lower lip.

A top spokesman for the McCain campaign was quick to denounce the senator's behavior as "the worst kind of sexism," and the reason "so many women are identifying with this new and powerful voice for American women."

Senator Biden, through a spokesperson, stated that he was "simply trying to collect his thoughts prior to the start of the debate" and that he found Governor Palin to be a "formidable opponent."  He was not available for comment and cancelled a scheduled appearance at a Pennsylvania high school.

The incident overshadowed the debate itself, which was highlighted by suprisingly calm and measured responses by Senator Biden, and Palin's reference to Mikhail Gorbachev as the "former leader of Germany."  Palin also appeared to claim in the debate that her running mate was "brought home from Vietnam through the tough negotiating strength of Ronald Reagan."  When asked whether she was referring to President Reagan's role in the Iranian hostage crisis, she replied, "Yes, that too."

- sportdoc62

October 1, 2008 at 12:09pm

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I noticed that the very 1st reponse, fougasseu's, to Michelle Cottle's column on Sara Palin was one which seemed to parrot the exactly the McCain talking points on this subject. I have heard that the McCain campaign has shamelessly had staffers all over the country writing letter's to editors and posing as "concerned citizens". The contribution by fougasseu smells to me like one of these bogus offerings. Only a paid hack could have written something that is to patently absurd as this.

- frilz1

October 1, 2008 at 4:35pm

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    Palin did not do well in her initial interview with Gibson; she was glib and facile and managed to avoid any horrific mistakes, but her lack of substance was obvious.  Several weeks later- when she should have been better prepared- she revealed herself for the fool she is in her interview with

Couric.  Couric's questions were simple and asked in a non-aggressive fashion.  Palin's answers

consisted largely of rote repetition of her talking points and were unresponsive to the questions.  How embarrassing it was when Palin was unable to say which newspapers she read, or even where she got the news.

     There are people who like Palin, and support her candidacy (those are different concepts), because she is an "average" person who is "one of us."  What rational person would want an "average" person in an important national office?  Or are we approaching the time when a member of H.L. Mencken's "booboisie" is elected?

      Those who think Obama had been treated kindly by the press during the 19-month primary

simply weren't paying attention.  But they should have paid attention when, about five weeks ago, Bill O'Reilly of Fox News conducted an extended, hyper-aggressive interview of Obama.  Of course, that would detract from the republicans' position that the media is always to blame.  They might have a point if GIbson and Couric had treated Palin like O'Reilly treated Obama- but they didn't.

- RRB52

October 1, 2008 at 7:42pm

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I got one.  How about being a victim of the nattering nabobs of negativism?

- Nusholtz

October 1, 2008 at 10:09pm

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