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You have got to watch this. So she is going on..."values...convictions...policies...blah blah blah," Starbucks in hand, while that dude in the background is killing the turkey. I kid you not.
I can't decide if the video looks more like a) performance art b) fetish film or c) an Onion video.
Her last words; "I'll be in charge of the turkey."
Yeah, I bet you will.
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Do you mean, Maureen, that women in politics may have to be nine times nuttier and more narcissistic than even your average hey-look-at-me male of the species, just to get elected? Not sure I'm with you on that, having known some really menschy women officeholders. (And I know you're not saying there aren't any.) But maybe I would be with you if I'd had the job you had and seen all you have, right? What your post did make me think: We have no idea whether these stories about Sarah Palin throwing fits and clueless about whole continents are true; we weren't there. I've had two batshit bananas bosses in my life, one a he and one a she, and I almost never talk about either one of them—not because I am so nice, but because it's such crazyola stuff I don't think anyone would believe it. (Plus, even I don't want to hear it.) So maybe that's what Palin's aide Nicolle Wallace, or whoever the source was for this stuff, is learning, too: Sometimes, even the truth can splash back quite nastily. But if that were the case, it would certainly be an ironic coda to a deeply dishonest campaign.
Update: Sarah speaks, denies divadom. "I never asked for anything more than maybe a Diet Dr Pepper once in a while," she told reporters. She also disputed tales that she didn't know Africa was a continent and couldn't name the signatories of NAFTA: "That's cruel. It's mean-spirited. It's immature. It's unprofessional and those guys are jerks if they came away with it, taking things out of context [from debate prep], and then tried to spread something on national news. It's not fair and it's not right."
"This is Barack Obama's time right now, and this is an historic moment in our nation and this can be a shining moment for America and our history, and look what we're talking about. Again, we're talking about my shoes and belts and skirts. It's ridiculous." I've said it before: This woman has some moves, and might not be so easily written off. The fact that Hillary came as far as she did with so much baggage -- and that Sarah came as far as she did with almost none -- means that we are not just ready for a woman in the White House, but ready to overlook a lot to put a woman there.
As McCain's running mate says, this is Barack Obama's time right now. But women in general were not "rejected'' because he won. And catchy book titles aside, I'll bet Anne Kornblut doesn't think they were, either.
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Anne and Emily: I was as riveted as you by Carl Cameron’s breathless dishing—as well as by O’Reilly's almost palpable desire to smash him in the face on live television—but I couldn’t help but balk a little at the substance of the McCain campaign's criticisms: Palin is described as colossally stupid. And a diva (prone to tantrums and throwing things). And someone who opens her hotel room door in just a bathrobe (inappropriately sexual) and also a shopaholic who already had far too many clothes to begin with. Just wondering if the sexism threaded through all that doesn’t make it a little less juicy and a lot more worrisome?
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I agree, Anne, that the gleeful details being spread by McCain’s staff about Sarah Palin’s Ali G-like geographical bewilderment, her temper tantrums, and refusal to accept interview preparation are particularly juicy. Let's accept all this is true—aren't McCain’s own people making the argument for why McCain deserved to lose? Their guy, who is 72 and has had melanoma almost as many times as Larry King has been married, picked Palin after a couple of brief conversations. The staff's “now it can be told” eviscerating of her actually makes the campaign look as if it was trying to perpetrate a fraud on the public.
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I think we're talking about some quality of Palin's we haven't pinned down yet. I've talked to some women who thought her performance on the prank call, and then on SNL last night, made her seem small, and defeated. And that they felt sorry for her. I felt just the opposite. I thought she sounded almost regally bored on the phone call, and poised on the SNL clip in a way that suggested she has already figured out every part of the game - the irony, the self mockery, the great American path to fame. Under the normal rules, Palin's future is punching bag for the Republican Party, the McCain campaign has already started some of that finger-pointing. But you sense that she'll resist it and make her own rules. They wanted her to be a token and she stole the show. In that way, she is post-feminist, shoving hidebound politics past the PC, tokenist '90s and straight into 2008. Even if they do lose, she still feels larger than the prank call, larger than the wardrobe controversy, larger than the campaign. Yes, her wink-wink, ain't I pretty thing has been central, but I bet as an icon of the right, she'll transcend that without quite shedding it, in the way Nina describes.
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My beloved Liz Lemon—er, I mean Tina Fey—isn't the only one suggesting that Sarah Palin's focus has shifted from 2008 to 2012. Today, trying get a jump on the post-election story before the polls even open, much less close, a host of politicos are placing their bets over who will emerge from the broken GOP as the next to be (unofficially) crowned party leader.
When John McCain chose his running mate, he was rightfully lambasted as cynical for passing over experienced insider men for an accessible outsider woman. In the end, he was right on one count: that a swath of the American public—though one which perhaps may not be wide enough to elect him tomorrow—felt so disenfranchised by the people who hold power in this country that they would line up behind someone who reflected and could articulate their own proud feelings of ordinariness. (This profound cultural conflict—rooted deep in issues of education and economics—will require far more systemic thinking than the fuzzy feeling of "unity" Obama hopes to usher in tomorrow and beyond.) Where McCain may have been wrong—and this is big—was in his perception of this election as a game of identity politics.
People have talked plenty about whether Obama is a post-race candidate for a post-race America. I've generally taken issue with that notion—and should he be elected, my heart positively swells with the notion of the descendant of slaves raising her children inside the White House. But by the same flawed token, did Sarah Palin become a post-gender candidate for a post-gender America? Of course, Palin has certainly worked her gender in this race: from that flirty wink and sky-high Manolos to her uber-mom positioning. But like Obama's race hasn't been the totalizing meta-narrative of his candidacy, neither has Palin's gender, and just as this hasn't been an election year for single issue voters, it hasn't been one for single-identity ones either, despite what pundits may have predicted from the outset. We entered this race all aflutter about our first female presidential candidate. We're ending it considering the next one with hardly a shrug about her gender.
While I am hardly a Palin fan, and for myriad reasons shudder to imagine how she might develop with the next four years to study up, the fact that neither her supporters nor her detractors seemed to make a big deal about a female commander in chief (remember those days?) suggests that in unexpected ways, we've come a long way during this long march to Election Day.
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I'm sure you all have seen this clip by now, of Barbara West, anchor at WFTV, Orlando, Fla., interviewing Joe Biden late last week. The whole interview is contentious but at 2:36 min she presents Biden with Karl Marx:
WEST: You may recognize this famous quote: "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs." That's from Karl Marx. How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?
BIDEN: Are you joking? Is this a joke?
West goes on to ask Biden if Obama wants to turn America into a Socialist country "like Sweden."
Is it just me? Beyond the fact that we could learn a few things from Sweden (including but not limited to their unbelievably enviable relationship to family and child policies), have we lost all sense of history? This trope, pushed by Palin (if she mentions socialism one more time ...) among others, seems to be treading dangerously close to calling for a House Un-American Activities Committee. I've even had interactions with Republicans lately along the same lines. How will this country heal after the elections from these efforts to inject a 1950s-style distrust among Americans?
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Wow, forget medicine and law; I'm gonna push my girl toward beauty school, where the big bucks are. Here's where Sarah Palin's traveling makeup artist made more money than anyone else in the whole McCain-Palin campaign during the first two weeks of this month. According to the New York Times, Amy Strozzi, "who was nominated for an Emmy award for her makeup work on the television show 'So You Think You Can Dance,' was paid $22,800 for the first two weeks of October alone.'' Now that she's moved on to Project Runway, "the campaign categorized Ms. Strozzi's payment as "PERSONNEL SVC/EQUIPMENT." Does that mean the lipstick is included?
Either way, Sarah Palin's makeup artist makes more in a month than a lot of people make in a year. We are really veering toward Marie Antoinette land here, aren't we? With perfumed sheep down on the old faux farm? And if she wants to talk small towns, I'll see her and raise her, because where I come from, this lame non-explanation of the $150,000 the RNC spent on her new wardrobe would be considered worse than no explanation at all: "That is not who we are,'' she told the Chicago Tribune. "It's kind of painful to be criticized for something when all the facts are not out there and are not reported.'' Only, she didn't elaborate, didn't add or subtract any facts from our Escada-gate knowledge base at all, so her "denial'' is .. .denying what, exactly? "That whole thing is just, bad!'' she said of the uproar over her clothes. "Oh, if people only knew how frugal we are." OK, I'll bite: How frugal?
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Sara, I was intrigued by your post (Palin May Be Pretty, But Her Poll numbers Aren't) noting that Palin's "supposed sex appeal hasn't translated into more votes." I'm no Palin fan (though I can't get too worked up about the $150,000 wardrobe expenditure)—but I can't help wondering if Palin's sex appeal isn't actually hurting her, at this point.
I've blogged here before about the benefits—social and financial—our society hands out to those fortunate enough to be attractive. Reasearchers call it the "beauty premium." But ... it turns out that there's also a "beauty penalty." One 2006 study found that:
People are more likely to trust a pretty face, but when that trust is betrayed, the backlash can be ugly. ... Numerous studies have shown that attractive people generally make more money, get higher reviews from their supervisors and are viewed as being more intelligent and trustworthy. What surprised researchers in this study was that subjects deemed attractive also were penalized more harshly for failing to live up to expectations.
I wonder if that's what's happening to Sarah Palin now. Quoth the Sage:
For if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.
Ahem.
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That's what she seems to be saying in this interview with People magazine. When asked whether her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy has changed how she talks about sex with her other kids, she says: "I've always been a proponent of making sure kids understand—even in schools—they'd better take preventative measures so that they don't find themselves in these less than ideal circumstances. Perhaps Bristol could be a good example to other young women that life happens and preventative measures are, first and foremost, the option that should be considered.'' Which does not sound like abstinence only—and does sound completely sensible. I was also kind of surprised by the New Age Sarah who comes through in the interview when she describes Bristol as "kind of an old soul.'' So many layers, and only 12 days. ...
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This is the very last thing I'm gonna say about Palin's down-parka-to-Escada makeover when I'm supposed to be doing real work, but can I get a show of hands from everybody who thinks looking good is a problem? Me neither; this jacket in particular I could really go for. Only weeks ago, fresh off the news that my 401(k) was histoire, I made quite a frivolous clothing purchase in euros, for heaven's sake; even the Parisian salesdude couldn't believe it. And as someone who in my first year out of grad school spent a cool third of her annual income on an Yves Saint Laurent cocktail dress I wore twice, I have no rocks to throw on this one and am with June in SP's corner.
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OK, I have to say this, though I'm guessing it will not make me XXer of the day or anything. (Ergh, that sounds like something John McCain would say, bragging for the 9 millionth time about not being named Miss Congeniality.) Anyway, though I happen to think the whole ‘Bama pals with terrorists' line is toxic as well as so misshapen as to qualify as an outright lie, I would not characterize what Michelle Bachmann said on "Hardball' as a rant; in all fairness, Chris Matthews saw his opening and maneuvered her into it. He took what she did say - "Most Americans, Chris, are wild about America'' - I think she means you, Dana - "and they're very concerned to have a president who doesn't share those values.'' And then, he successfully pushed her to take that to its logical conclusion, that being critical of anything America does ever is the same as having anti-American views. That is an argument I disagree with, and one side of a conversation that's been going on at least since Vietnam. But it is still a mischaracterization to react as though she went on screaming that the FBI should forget Bin Laden and look into Nancy Pelosi. (What bothered me more was her assertion that, "It was Michelle Obama who said she's only recently proud of her country.'' No, she didn't.)
If negative campaigning really had finally found its floor, in any case, that would be the best thing since Caller ID. And whatever her motivations, I'm glad Sarah Palin has apologized for her comments dividing us into the "real America'' of small towns like the ones she and I grew up in and...not so real America, like New York and Washington, where lots of us small town natives wind up. As Jon Stewart said the other night, Bin Laden must feel like a real *&F@# after having realized he bombed the wrong America. Not to mention those from-the-wrong America firefighters who ran into the Twin Towers; gosh are they embarrassed.
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The funny thing about Sarah Palin's expensive new wardrobe is that most of her recent purchases are faux down-market, simple pieces like the black pencil skirt she had on at the convention, or the white blouses she often wears -- clothes that look as if they could have come from Talbot's, but didn't. Which is just what they're shooting for, so to speak, because that way she looks great, yet not too high falootin'. But wait, her spokeswoman says they always intended to donate her clothes to charity after the campaign; does that imply they expect to lose? Do they want them dry-cleaned and left in a bag at the door before they ship her back where she came from? Or does it mean that, win or lose, they're taking the clothes off her back? That doesn't seem very sporting. But it is very Cinderella - there's another archetype for you, Hanna -- and I guess on Nov. 4th it turns midnight.
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Like W., I squint when I'm puzzlin' -- and so have whole new frown lines from trying to make sense of the McCain-Palin game plan. Last night, though, while watching Saturday Night Live, the light finally dawned: They have either a) totally given up; b) lack the common sense God gave a moose (a creature that will forget you are there if you duck behind a tree for three seconds); or c) have a vice-presidential nominee more interested in her close-up than in closing the deal with voters.
Only that last one would explain how much Palin was enjoying grooving on TV while Amy Poehler did the "Sarah Palin rap,'' to lyrics like "I'm Jeremiah Wright cuz tonight I'm the preacha, I got a bookish look and you all hot for teacha.'' For me, this shined a whole new (softer, but also dimmer) light on all her mugging and smiling while whipping crowds up with hateful distortions about Barack Obama. Because there she was, mugging and smiling while Poehler stopped just short of grabbing her crotch, Eminem style, and rapped that McCain's "smile be creepy.'' So...maybe girlfriend just likes the camera? Like you, Emily, I was squirming through the whole first skit, too -- only I was thinking oh, how demeaning for Alec Baldwin.
Remember when Al and Tipper Gore did that hot tub skit on SNL - and how clear that made it that he really wasn't going to run in ‘04? I had that same feeling watching Palin - that no one who thought they had a serious shot would be so comfy so far over the line.
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Please tell me that this conversation re: the "small-town mentality'' and presumption of intellect based on proximity to the great minds of the Ivy League is some kind of parody; the whole smarter-than-thou thing is part of why people at those McCain-Palin rallies are so angry. (Well, that and the shameless fear-mongering.) It's why the GOP's Lee Greenwood and pork rinds schtick stuck—and why until the disaster of the Bush years, the little guy had been trending Republican for quite some time. What I never understand is why smart people don't see that, so feel free to fill me in.
I don't agree with Palin on most matters, or think her qualified for the presidency, but why would I assume that's because she "never heard of the books that Bush didn't bother to read'' or surrounds herself with those "just dumb as her''? Those who knew young Sarah, the teacher's daughter, in fact remember her as a voracious reader. (And dumb as she we too can be; misunderestimating her is a whopping error, and one we should have learned to steer clear of by now.) Anti-intellectualism and elitism are both unattractive, but only one of them is damaging the Democratic Party.
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Anne, Marjorie, and Hanna:
Thanks to you all for your considered responses to the question I posed earlier—about whether there's any discernible difference between Palin's ability to lead the country and Bush's. Initially, I argued that there isn't, and that's why it's perplexing that so many conservatives are denouncing McCain's veep pick when they didn't say boo about Bush.
You've all mentioned, in one way or another, the fact that Bush belongs to a political family, whereas Palin does not. The logic is that Bush must've picked up something or other at the dinner table, and then at Andover, Yale, and Harvard—that he was assigned important books, even if he never read them, and that makes all the difference. All Palin's done is run a tiny little town and then govern a state that's so oil rich it doesn't need much governing. She's never heard of the books that Bush didn't bother to read.
So here's my follow-up: Bush may have a better, more reassuring pedigree, but he panders to the same contingent as Palin. And, in my opinion, you are who you pander to. Bush, inauthentically, cast himself as a dude from the heartland unspoiled by D.C. like the tree-hugging Al Gore or the French-speaking Kerry. He sold himself to America as an anti-intellectual who governs from the gut. Palin is doing the exact same thing, only authentically.
Hanna, you say the difference in authenticity is what's freaking out the conservative press corp—that Christopher Buckley, et al., could tolerate fake anti-elitism, but not real anti-elitism. You may be right, but that doesn't make complete sense to me. Bush pandered to people who dismiss book-readers as eggheads, and so he governed like a person who dismisses book-readers as eggheads. Shiite, Sunni, what's the difference? Who cares? Let's just get in there! The military can muddle through. Stem-cell research? Fuhget about it. Torture? I'll let my veep figure that one out.
I give credit to the conservatives who are speaking out against the worrisome anti-intellectual trend in the GOP—but I think they should've said something eight years ago.
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You know, Rachael is also saying something important here, something we forget at our own peril: Looking down on Mr. and Mrs. Middle America isn't smart, and it IS what smarty-pants liberals in Washington (and beyond!) sometimes do. (And why is that? Would we rather show off than win?) Case in point: Richard Cohen, in a column in today's Washington Post, sneering that those who praised Sarah Palin's debate performance must have "inferred that her performance would go over well in homes with aboveground swimming pools.'' (For some reason, this makes me want to pass the Boone's Farm and push him into the cement pond; ugh.) 'Nother one: Tim Robbins on the Daily Show last night, praying to God for a smart president this time around. With the economy heading for Argentina, such slights may not matter as much as they otherwise would. But they're still hateful—and until the votes are counted, downright dumb.
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Kathleen Parker says her fellow conservative Sarah Palin has exhausted her cringe reflex, and I hear her on that. Mine has been overtaxed for years. Remember the presidential debate for which some malevolent (or high, maybe?) makeup artist painted Al Gore orange? In the privacy of my living room, I listened to most of that one with my sweatshirt pulled up over my eyes because it was too painful to watch. At the first presidential debate in '04, in Miami, I even had to look away from George W., about whom I am not aware of ever having had an admiring thought, because watching him flounder around babbling that being president, well, "it's hard work ... it's hard work ... it's hard work'' just felt cruel. So am I hoping that both Palin and Joe Biden do well enough tonight that I won't have to avert my eyes? No, because my comfort level isn't the point; their competence is. No, because even the most lopsided debate can help the perceived loser more than the supposed winner; there are no straight lines between cause and effect in politics, which I have to admit is part of the attraction, warped as that may be. No, because women have the same right to be underprepared that men have always had. And no, because voters make me even more nervous than candidates do, so whatever happens tonight is still just the prelims.
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At the risk of violating landlord-tenant confidentiality, Dahlia, I want to tell a story that may make you trust Campbell Brown on this.
I once had a new tenant moving into a small Adams Morgan apartment my husband and I owned as an investment. The painter had been a bit sloppy about spattering, and the new renter asked me to have him come back and clean up the now-hardened paint along the baseboard floor. I knew he would drag his feet on completing this chore, so I told the new tenant I preferred not to bother him. She looked at me straight in the eye and asked, "Is this how it's going to be, Bonnie?" My considered answer was, "No, I’ll come personally this Sunday and wash your floor," which I did. After that, Campbell Brown, then a young campaign reporter at NBC, was an ideal tenant, and she and I never had another problem.
I now picture Campbell looking Sarah Palin in the eye with a similar expression and asking her the same question, Gov. Palin, is this how it's going to be? and understand why the McCain campaign is trying so hard to keep them apart.
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People who've never been in a Wal-Mart think she is parochial because she has never summered in Tuscany.
—David Brooks on Sarah Palin
When I read the part of Maureen Dowd's column yesterday that said she had "sautéed'' herself in "Sarahville" and ventured into a Wal-Mart to see how the other half shops, I figured she had taken the David Brooks Challenge. I also was picturing her at the superstore in Alexandria -- and even that I would have given a pretty to see, as my granny used to say. (Was she wearing sunglasses? Did an assistant approach the tattooed woman for her?) But if she went personally to the pray-away-the-gay church in Wasilla, that's a whole other field trip.