Pufferfish

Always The Victim

Of course her base, high on resentment toward big city folk, wouldn't have it any other way. The latest nontroversy is about as lame as it gets. It's time to start looking out for an instance where Palin shoulders the responsibility:

I would have thought it was sexist to tell a grown woman -- middle-aged at that -- that she needs to be protected from the consequences of decisions she freely made. Apparently not. Apparently it's sexist not to want to save Sarah Palin from herself.

So much for free will.

Palin's Payback

There's actually a method to her pathology:

In fact, the most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the press, but at the McCain campaign. The very campaign that plucked her out of Alaska, anointed her the Republican vice-presidential nominee and made her one of the most talked about women on the planet — someone who could command a reported $5 million for writing this book. In what reads like payback for McCain aides’ disparaging comments about her in the wake of the ticket’s loss to Barack Obama, Ms. Palin depicts the McCain campaign as overscripted, defeatist, disorganized and dunder-headed — slow to shift focus from the Iraq war to the cratering economy, insufficiently tough on Mr. Obama and contradictory in its media strategy.

Palin is trying to distance herself from a losing campaign and a candidate the base never cared for. But that doesn't explain why she feels the need to rub McCain's nose in it by sending him a personalized Fuck You.

All The Right Moves

After a year of replaying the exchange over and over, Palin decided on what she should have said during the Couric interview:

Palin, who received an advance of at least $1.25 million, saves her strongest words for run-ins with McCain staffers and her widely panned interview with CBS anchor Katie Couric.

She describes Couric as condescending, biased and “badgering.” She contends the anchor chose “gotcha” moments while leaving the candidate’s more substantive remarks on the cutting room floor. [...]

Palin takes another dig at Couric while asserting her expertise on energy matters. She writes that she was shocked Couric had asked her which newspapers and magazines she read; given what she called Couric’s lack of knowledge about energy issues, Palin wondered whether she should have asked the news anchor what she read.

Something tells me Couric would have had a better answer than "Um, all of them."

Go Rogue

Sarah Palin fanboy Mathew Continneti sees a path to the White House:

It means addressing voter concern that big government and big business are in cahoots, heaping expensive burdens on small businesses and individual entrepreneurs.

With both parties busily humping the leg of Wall St. I'd enjoy nothing more than to see Palin wage a campaign built on hillbilly populism. Tab Lou Dobbs for VP and Glenn Beck as communications director and look out. For too long social conservatives and economic elites have co-existed within party ranks because a natural order was maintained. Palin, if she continues with her Mayberry Machiavelli shtick, threatens that order. The GOP as we know it would fracture.

Congenital Liar

Say what you will about Hillary Clinton's casualness with the truth, but it's not even close to the level of dishonesty one can expect from Sarah Palin. Here she is speaking at an anti-choice rally in Wisconsin the other night while channeling Glenn Beck:

Noting that there had been a lot of “change” of late, Palin recalled a recent conversation with a friend about how the phrase “In God We Trust” had been moved to the edge of the new coins.

“Who calls a shot like that?” she demanded. “Who makes a decision like that?”

She added: “It’s a disturbing trend.”

Unsaid but implied was that the new Democratic White House was behind such a move to secularize the nation’s currency.

But the new coins – concerns over which apparently stemmed from an email chain letter widely circulated among conservatives – were commissioned by the Republican-led Congress in 2005 and approved by President Bush.

Between A Rock And A Wingnut

One question that remains: what will Sarah do?

Though Palin led this merry band in the battle of NY-23, she now might have to worry about these activists, especially if she's pondering a presidential bid. With the Hoffman quasi-victory—or was it a Pyrrhic victory?—the grassroots conservatives have had their expectations raised. As they rush after other Republicans not deemed ideologically correct, many will look to Palin to continue leading the charge. But going after a no-name assemblywoman is a different matter than targeting sitting governors, senators, and House members. Is Palin truly willing to lead pitchfork-waving conservatives against well-established Republicans, such as Crist? Florida, after all, could be an important state in the GOP presidential primary.

Because Palin viewers herself as the anti-establishment candidate I assume she'll continue to campaign for the anti-establishment candidates. At least that's been the method to her madness so far. Not that it's smart politics. It's just her politics.

Post Of The Day

"If you’re wondering what Sarah is talking about when we she mentions Brazilians (and it’s not one of her handy Facebook grooming tips for her “lower 48″), back in August Sarah heard that the U.S. Export Import Bank was about to loan Brazil $2 billion for offshore drilling and she was all, “Hey! That $2 billion should go to real Americans and not to Mexico-But-With-Nice-Asses.” Unsurprisingly, Low-Information Palin was wrong." --TBogg.

Run Palin, Run

It's pretty awesome watching the chattering class try to figure out whether Sarah Palin is going to run in 2012. If anything, past serving as prologue should teach us that the normal rules of politics don't apply to Palin. She doesn't concern herself with interviews (or ideas) that don't involve Greta Van Susteren, she doesn't care much for serving out her term in office, she lowers herself to being victimized by baby daddies and late night talk show hosts, and she places a premium on peddling a book with her picture on it that she may or may not have already read:

So she is going to make a shitload of money just to show you who is extra special awesome. She is going to collect her royalty checks and her speaking fees and she is going to let people fly her around the country (first class or private jet), put her up in luxurious hotel suites, and take her to fabulous restaurants. She will have people standing by just waiting to run and fetch her a stack of fashion magazines (which ones? all of them!) and a skinny white mocha latte. And if the PNAC guys want her to run for office, hey, it’s their dime, and it sure beats the shit out of gutting fish, making moose jerky, and changing Trig diapers.

As God is her witness, she’s never going to settle for Wasilla again.

Damn straight. And because reality is how Palin perceives it, her actions shouldn't be interpreted in the same way as when reading the tea leaves dropped by other politicos. That's what happens when you have a 747 jet engine of ambition strapped to a brain that handles like a golf cart. Handicapping Palin's intention to run for the White House should be done with the same detachment with which she goes about reading up on policy; nothing garners more attention than a run for the presidency. So what the hell else would she do with her time? When George W. Bush was elected president he set down a marker that being interested in governing wasn't a prerequisite for the Republican base. Being interested in being president is all that mattered.

Sarah Palin Explains Global Economic Trends

From her Facebook page. And "journalists" are listening:

Stop and think about that for a second. A Facebook post supposedly written by Sarah Palin, a woman who proved unable during the 2008 presidential campaign to put together so much as a single coherent sentence on global economic affairs, much less a complete paragraph, is now considered newsy enough to lead off an article exploring the politics of the dollar. It is very, very rare that I agree with the American Enterprise Institute, but I've got to say amen to AEI's Norm Ornstein, who is also quoted in the FT article.

"The dollar has always been a testosterone issue among America's political classes," said Norm Ornstein, a veteran analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

"This time there may be a legitimate debate to be had over the dollar's reserve status, but Sarah Palin is not qualified to participate in it."

Adding injury to the insult, Palin of course goes for manufactured fear and outrage about a "weak" dollar, which she extrapolates onto symbolizing a "weak" America. This is way over-simplified and not exactly right. At the moment, a modestly weaker dollar is good for American exports (other countries can afford our products). And one reason for the weakening dollar is that global investors are optimistic about the international economy's recovery and again are taking risks with their investments, which means moving money away from the dollar.

But I'm more interested in the politics and naked opportunism from a Facebook pundit who I doubt could pass a basic economics class. Palin is all about projecting strength. Blithering, ignorant strength. And the "weak" dollar as a reflection on a "weak" President Obama is the exact message a conservative populist base will embrace in the 2012 Republican Primary. It's a simple message. One our media would undoubtedly be reluctant to fact-check.

Going Rogue

When you churn out 400 pages in four months it follows that it's not the quality of the prose (or ideas) that matters most:

The book was written by a hardcore Christianist; the speech by a hardcore neocon. She remains the hood ornament for a marketing campaign that now passes for the conservative movement.

The title is what caught my eye. It's a reference to an anonymous complaint from a McCain aide days before the election. Sarah Palin is reveling in her defiance of the McCain campaign. Politically, it's smart. No politician wants to be associated with a loser. The play is to disassociate herself with McCain while reminding the base that Palin is "anti-establishment," which is where the 2012 Republican primary will be fought. Of course, Palin is anything but anti-establishment. She's a cheap repackaging of Bush, a puppet disinterested in good governance.

I've  been assuming Palin would run in 2012. This book title makes me more confidant in that assumption. More than anything, Palin enjoys hand-to-hand political combat and the rush that comes while being in a stadium of adoring followers. Nothing but a presidential run will offer that. It's too bad for Palin that winning would mean having to accept the job being offered.