Sarah who?

I know we are still celebrating Barack Obama's historic election, but I have to pause for a moment and acknowledge just how close we came to putting Sarah Palin—that "hillbilly" from Wasilla, according to an angry McCain aide—into the White House. /shudder

Folks, I've been waiting two months plus change to repost this gem. With one caveat: I originally said she was chosen to pander to women and that turned out to be only partly true. She was also chosen to energize the Republican base, but now it seems that she—along with Rove and Bush—has done serious damage to the GOP. In the end, many Republicans could not and did not endorse their own party's candidate because of her shocking lack of preparedness and experience for the job. In the end, she was just too stupid.

Yes, the Palin pick was a slap in the face to progressive women everywhere (oh, and to smart people), but it was an even bigger slap in the face to the old school GOP leadership. Let's hope that the crackpot evangelical right-wingers split off and form their own party.

There was a brief moment when I thought I would be proven wrong and I'd have to eat my post, but on September 15, when John McCain said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong," I knew he was done.

So once again, I'd like to thank the Democrats—especially David Plouffe and David Axelrod who ran the most brilliant campaign in modern presidential history—for forcing McCain to pick a "hail Mary,"  unvetted (much to our delight) Vice-Presidential candidate who would ultimately ensure his loss. A candidate who once greeted McCain staffers wearing nothing but a towel. A candidate who didn't know Africa was a continent, not a country.

I shudder to think...

Okay! Back to celebrating!

—Stefania Pomponi Butler

Comments

[HeatherK]

She's looking all Mr. Mom in that pic. Nifty headband, Sarah!

David Ploufee is amazing. I'm wondering if he isn't going on a nice long vacation until, say January? The organization of the campaign is poised to roll over into a service initiative of a scope that we couldn't imagine.

[Amy@UWM]

I JUST saw that report on Fox. It was hilarious and yet terrifying at the same time. Guess she's not smarter than a third grader. Mine knows that Africa is a continent.

[micaelea]

I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer', except without the massive voter turnout.

[Sarah]

She apparently also wasn't too clear on things like the differing responsibilities between city, state, and federal governments. And we knew she didn't understand much about the 1st Amendment.

Bill O'Reilly blew all this off as being nothing more than a correctable "knowledge problem." No, this is ignorance. A level of ignorance that should never, ever, ever get that close to the highest levels of government. Sheesh!

[AJ]

"Let's hope that the crackpot evangelical right-wingers split off and form their own party"

Oh we will, honey. It's called heaven....and thankfully mean-spirited people like you won't be there.

[Brenda]

All this election has proven is that corruption and money trump integrity every time. Mr. “Game-Changer” showed that he has no more character than the creeps on Capitol Hill. For a guy who so loudly opposed the "trickle-down" theory of economics, he certainly didn't mind abandoning his promise to stay away from corporate funding in this election. After boldly breaking his promise he received a whole bunch of corporate trickle which enabled him to outspend McCain (who stuck to his word) by hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising, flooding the airwaives in key battleground states with up to four times as many ads as the GOP. I guess the evils of TDE only apply to the other guy, huh Barry?

Obama's no different than anyone else, as you will soon see. But, hey, what can I say? Love is blind, isn’t it?

[jen]

micalea made me laugh out loud.

[Backpacking Dad]

@AJ: In medieval paintings whenever the artist was portraying Judgment he would often depict Jesus waving the saved into heaven with his right hand, and the damned into hell with his left hand.

Which is to say, as you look at the painting, Heaven is on the Left, and damnation is on the Right.

Just an ironic observation. Not a relevant, interesting, or even smart comment. But then neither was yours.

[Lawyer Mama]

Backpacking Dad can always be counted on to say just the right thing. (-;

For AJ & Brenda, I just have to ask - Bitter much?

[Sarah Auerswald]

By the way, Brenda seems to be fond of cutting-and-pasting because she left the exact same comment on my blog tonight. Maybe she's making her way through your blogroll!!

[jen]

I know plenty of pretty mean spirited and judgmental people that claim to be born again. I assume heaven will indeed have a few mean spirited people there - I don't recall that being a disqualifier by Christ, after all, that robber he pardoned on the cross (the one dude we actually KNOW is in heaven according to the Bible) was probably rather mean spirited and criminal in his behavior at some point - hard to imagine a robber who's being crucified for his crimes to have been consistently, well "good spirited" after all.

I prefer to think that folks who do not follow the teachings of christ, you know, the ones where he says over and over and over to be kind to your neighbor and care for the least among us are the ones who might be disqualified.

Failing to do those things seems much, much worse after all.

[cynematic]

*snort*

Maybe in a backhanded way, AJ & Brenda are trying to argue for the existence of a god. Because perhaps that explains the low-wattage bulb that's Sarah Palin as McCain's "hail Mary" VP pick...which turned out to be the best possible advertisement for the sound judgement, wisdom, and intelligence of President-elect Barack Obama.

Thanks, god! Way to expose the unqualified governor of Alaska! Now Sarah Palin can vamoose from national politics, because she's on minute 16 of her 15 minutes of fame.

[lildb]

when John McCain said, "The fundamentals of our economy are strong,"...

you just highlighted "fundamentals" for the first time for me. how did i miss that?

dang.

also, anything i say can and will be allocated to my having been too drunk to comment. someone oughtta attach a breathalizer to my pc.

AJ, you have NO IDEA how desperately I long for that day. I'll miss my parents, but I'll treasure our post-rapture life so very. very. much. you wanna know why? (prolly not. that is, you'll deny you're interested, but you'll still hang breathlessly on my every word, just like you prolly do those of the characters on desperate housewives, bc srsly, who besides fundies WATCHES THAT DISMAL, sans-plotline-but-fulla-immoral SHOW?)-- because we want our planet back. we want it back from the abusers and the haters and the spitters and the destroyers.

aka, the evangelizing, proselytizing, fall-on-yer-knees-worshippin' christifiers.

so - go. please. oh, good lord, that thy will be done, and those who would destroy thy greatest gift to humanity, that is, Earth, be saved from the loony rapturists.

*stands up, dusts off knees, tosses back some wine, makes out with another chick, winks at the fundies*

[Mbuckingham]

lol she's really wacky!

[Mom101]

I like Brenda's idea that somehow McCain represented "integrity."

Integrity of putting politics above country when he selected an incompetent VP. Integrity of hiring the same people who smeared him in 2000 to do the same to his opponent. Integrity of sanctioning robocalls so false and so vile, dozens of telemarketers were walking off the job and sacrificing pay rather than reading the scripts. Integrity of using the politics of hatred and division to demonize his opponent when he realized he had no platform, no vision and no plan that would make him worthy of consideration.

McCain is going to have to live with all that "integrity" the rest of his life. And you know, it makes me kind of sad for him.

[The Daft Dem]

While I would love to think that Sarah Palin is in the rear view mirror, I am not totally convinced (yet) that this is the case. Wingnuts like Brenda and AJ are abundant. They watch far too much Hannity, they breed their hatred in the manure of Bill O, and somehow think James Dobson is anything more than a hate monger cloaked as a religious man.

Now, when I say Palin is not behind us, I don't necessarily mean Sarah herself, as history shows that losing does some serious damage to political aspirations (just ask Ferarro, Bentsen, Kemp and even Edwards who was not as strong as I believed he should have been in the primaries), but a Palin-like wingnut. As the "base" circles it wagons, it is (so far) blaming the loss on a "too moderate" candidate in McCain. While you would think or hope that they might take some lessons away from this election, it so far appears that they are going to move the other way, and that plays into the uprising of another Palin/Huckabee like theocrat hell bent on crushing people's rights in the name of "conservative values"

Unlike some, I think McCain has more integrity than he showed in this race. He trusted advisors that told him what he needed to do to get the nomination, and he sold his political soul to do so. Unfortunately he lost anybody that trusted the "Maverick" of 2000, and never actually gained the trust of the "hard right" The clueless masses that think they know something because they listen to a druggie like Limbaugh. But like a rabid dog, they are angry and vicious, and they will be back.

[WebmistressEMC]

RE: AJ's comment -- huh! Trust a right wing evangelical to be firm in his/her belief that there will be politics in heaven....

[magpie]

She certainly provided an element of theater to the whole thing. I am damned glad she's not been elected, because two months of theater was more than enough. Oy.

[Tata]

Palin's problem was she accepted the job in the first place...to think she was qualified shows how stupid she really is....frightening for sure!

[GraceD]

As a commenter on Metafilter said -

"Dan Quayle is the happiest guy in the country right now."

[Laura]

The one good thing that came out of Sarah Palin's candidacy for vice president was that a strong woman was not called a B****. No. Apparently women are now allowed to be as nasty as the boys and be respected for it.

[Daisy]

A woman down the hall from my mom in the senior apartment complex posted this on her door: "Sarah Palin does not speak for me!" I was so glad to see an elderly woman still with-it and active in a generally conservative "neighborhood".
And micaela? Please become a speechwriter. I'm still laughing at your comment.

[tiny marie]

Sarah for Senator....we need someone with balls