Last month, after nearly two months of post-election wrangling, Tea Party candidate Joe Miller's final attempt to have the courts overturn the will of Alaska's voters was rebuffed and the last death rattle of his Senate campaign finally fell silent. Sarah Palin had backed Joe Miller, and his defeat was a blow to her reputation as a kingmaker, particularly since this happened in her own backyard and at the hands of the voters who had once elected her. Also, while this defeat on its own may be a bitter pill for Palin to swallow, the broader narrative may be devastating to her.
Combining this loss with those of Sharron Angle in Nevada and Christine O'Donnell in Delaware we can perhaps connect the dots and draw certain inferences. In Delaware, Republican Mike Castle looked like a shoo-in to pick up a seat but the party didn't nominate him, and in Nevada, as I pointed out in a post this summer, Republicans could have easily ousted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid with any credible candidate, but instead they chose Sharron Angle. The common thread in all of these cases is the limitation of anger and resentment. While the most radical faction of the Tea Party may cast enough votes to foist an embarrassing candidate on the Republican Party, the general electorate is still unwilling to select a candidate who is clearly unqualified for the position he or she seeks. Unless the public reverses this trend and develops an appetite for manifestly unqualified candidates, Sarah Palin will never win another election.
If Abraham Lincoln were alive today he could use Sarah Palin as "Exhibit A" in support of his words, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." These days she seems unable to open her mouth without her stock plummeting. She has a rabid base of hardcore supporters who tend to show up at Tea Party rallies ranting, raving and wielding cardboard signs of misspelled hate speech, but there aren't enough of these fanatics to help her win a general election. The ranks of those who hold a favorable view of Palin keep dwindling while the ranks of those who view her unfavorably continue to swell.
More importantly, to the extent Palin continues to be such a force in the Republican Party as 2012 approaches, President Obama benefits mightily. Look at the two speeches given on the same day in the aftermath of the Tucson tragedy. When the nation needed a leader, President Obama showed us what a leader looks like. Sarah Palin by contrast revealed her true character as a petty, self-absorbed opportunist who lacks enough presidential timber to build a matchstick. The unavoidable comparison of these two speeches sent public opinion of these two people in opposite directions. It became hard to picture Sarah Palin as a great president of the Miley Cyrus Fan Club let alone the United States of America. Palin's apologists say that she had to come out and defend herself as she did because she was the target of unfair accusations, and President Obama had the luxury of being above the fray. This is so absurd that it's hard not to laugh out loud. Yes, Palin had some stones unfairly cast her way, but for every such pebble directed at her, President Obama has had an entire quarry of rocks thrown at him by, among others, Sarah Palin herself.
Palin could be an unwitting blessing to Barack Obama's reelection in a number of ways. The dream scenario would be her running as a third party, perhaps Tea Party, candidate, which would give neither her nor the Republican nominee a prayer of winning. Failing that, if she goes deep into primary season beating up on fellow Republicans, the damage could provide the margin of victory for a second Obama administration. Also, if she seeks the nomination and is roundly rejected by the voters who know she can't win a general election, this could strip the all-important enthusiasm factor from the far right fringe of the party, which is her base and an increasingly important voting bloc for the Republicans. Finally, if she just continues sucking all the oxygen from the room, diverting attention away from serious men and women who seek the Republican nomination, she does her party a disservice and gives President Obama a great gift.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Either Stand by Your Words or Shut the (BLEEP!) Up!
The right wing hate machine just can't seem to help itself. The usual suspects, Beck, Limbaugh, Palin, etc., are simply being themselves, which is to say acting shamefully. Yesterday Sarah Palin released a video in which she lashed out at those who decried the incendiary tone of the hate machine's rhetoric, especially those who suggested it might have influenced Jared Loughner. Since Palin and others were at least partly blamed for this tragedy despite the fact that their vitriol appears to have no causal link, she had the perfect opportunity to take the high road and come out smelling like a rose, but unsurprisingly she chose not to. In her video she said that acts of criminality "begin and end with the criminals." No one else bears any share of the blame. In the very next paragraph, without a trace of irony, she says that because words are not responsible for inciting hatred and violence, people who claim otherwise are reprehensible because their words are responsible for inciting hatred and violence.
Huh?!
Of course in that same sentence she made the great faux pas of referring to the assertions of journalists and pundits as "blood libel", which was very offensive to many in the Jewish community. The stupidity is compounded when you consider that Palin was trying to express either real or feigned concern for Gabby Giffords as she lies in a hospital bed clinging to life, and that Giffords is the first Jewish woman Arizona ever elected to Congress. Palin obviously didn't write the speech herself and since her ignorance is well known, we can excuse her offensiveness since she was in all likelihood completely oblivious. Palin was merely reading aloud. Although she lacks the intellect and eloquence to have written that speech, I have to give her full marks for finding a writer who could capture the Palin essence of petty vindictiveness.
Turning to Glenn Beck, in more theater of the absurd, Beck was outraged that anyone in the media would offer this sort of innuendo, painting someone as contributing to something bad without specific proof. (Hello, Kettle? Yeah, hi, it's the pot. I'm just calling to say you're black.) Every single day Glenn Beck goes on the air and pushes his wild-eyed conspiracy theories, gesticulating wildly as he tries to terrify his audience into believing that anyone to the left of the far, far right is seeking to enslave us all in a country that will be indistinguishable from Nazi Germany. His ranting sounds as though it should be coming from a chronic drooler who has to wear a hockey helmet at all times.
Beck and Limbaugh make their living by spreading fear and hatred every day for the entirety of their broadcasts. They want us to believe that the consequences are apocalyptic if we stray from their brand of arch conservatism, yet they become enraged at the suggestion that they might drive someone over the edge just because they constantly bombard their disciples with their message that left of center America is the Great Satan that must be confronted with the fury of a holy war or we face imminent destruction. Now Beck is out there saying he hates violence and doesn't want anyone harmed. Well, which is it? Were you lying then or are you lying now? If all men are mortal and John is a man then John must be mortal; it's called a syllogism. If anything comparable to Hitler's reign of terror must be stopped by any means at our disposal and the current administration fits that description, then it must be stopped by any means at our disposal. Beck supported preemptive war in Iraq and has foamed at the mouth about appeasement of monstrous regimes, so a claim that he means wait for the voters to replace President Obama is a dog that just won't hunt. So again I ask, Glenn, were you lying then or are you lying now? Either this evil must be stopped by any means if we are to avoid national Armageddon, or the hate speech you use to poison the minds and souls of people with a pervading unease and a great amount of undirected anger is a patent fraud perpetrated by a loathsome fraction of a man who is too cowardly to own up to being the charlatan that he is. If you aren't prepared to defend what you say on your broadcasts then SHUT THE (BLEEP!) UP!
Huh?!
Of course in that same sentence she made the great faux pas of referring to the assertions of journalists and pundits as "blood libel", which was very offensive to many in the Jewish community. The stupidity is compounded when you consider that Palin was trying to express either real or feigned concern for Gabby Giffords as she lies in a hospital bed clinging to life, and that Giffords is the first Jewish woman Arizona ever elected to Congress. Palin obviously didn't write the speech herself and since her ignorance is well known, we can excuse her offensiveness since she was in all likelihood completely oblivious. Palin was merely reading aloud. Although she lacks the intellect and eloquence to have written that speech, I have to give her full marks for finding a writer who could capture the Palin essence of petty vindictiveness.
Turning to Glenn Beck, in more theater of the absurd, Beck was outraged that anyone in the media would offer this sort of innuendo, painting someone as contributing to something bad without specific proof. (Hello, Kettle? Yeah, hi, it's the pot. I'm just calling to say you're black.) Every single day Glenn Beck goes on the air and pushes his wild-eyed conspiracy theories, gesticulating wildly as he tries to terrify his audience into believing that anyone to the left of the far, far right is seeking to enslave us all in a country that will be indistinguishable from Nazi Germany. His ranting sounds as though it should be coming from a chronic drooler who has to wear a hockey helmet at all times.
Beck and Limbaugh make their living by spreading fear and hatred every day for the entirety of their broadcasts. They want us to believe that the consequences are apocalyptic if we stray from their brand of arch conservatism, yet they become enraged at the suggestion that they might drive someone over the edge just because they constantly bombard their disciples with their message that left of center America is the Great Satan that must be confronted with the fury of a holy war or we face imminent destruction. Now Beck is out there saying he hates violence and doesn't want anyone harmed. Well, which is it? Were you lying then or are you lying now? If all men are mortal and John is a man then John must be mortal; it's called a syllogism. If anything comparable to Hitler's reign of terror must be stopped by any means at our disposal and the current administration fits that description, then it must be stopped by any means at our disposal. Beck supported preemptive war in Iraq and has foamed at the mouth about appeasement of monstrous regimes, so a claim that he means wait for the voters to replace President Obama is a dog that just won't hunt. So again I ask, Glenn, were you lying then or are you lying now? Either this evil must be stopped by any means if we are to avoid national Armageddon, or the hate speech you use to poison the minds and souls of people with a pervading unease and a great amount of undirected anger is a patent fraud perpetrated by a loathsome fraction of a man who is too cowardly to own up to being the charlatan that he is. If you aren't prepared to defend what you say on your broadcasts then SHUT THE (BLEEP!) UP!
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