Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Decent Thing For Palin To Do Would Be To Retire From Politics

By Manifesto Joe

No, she didn't shoot anything, at least nothing with any more civil rights than a moose has.

But last year she had a map of 20 congressional districts with "crosshairs" over them, and one of them was the district of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., now recovering from being gravely wounded by a gunman.

It was already quite evident that Sarah Palin is just too f***ing stupid to be a presidential contender. She was too stupid to have been governor of Alaska, or even the mayor of a town. I considered Il Doofus perhaps the dumbest SOB who ever held the highest office in the land, but even he looks substantially brighter than Klondike Cutie.

I've held off for a few days on posting anything on the Saturday shooting in Tuscon, for a variety of reasons. It's hard to know what to say about a hideous event like this, so I thought it would be good to just let the facts unfold for a few days before commenting.

I have enough of a political bias to admit that I'd anticipated that the suspect would be some sort of Tea Party poster boy. He's pathologically anti-government, but his political profile is like, all over the place. Like some other nut cases I've run across in my time, the suspect apparently could be a Marxist one minute and a Nazi the next.

One thing that's clear, though, is that he was attracted to extremes, and to violence. Although the far right certainly has no patent on extremism, they've cornered the market on it in contemporary America. Just listen to AM radio on any given afternoon.

And politicians like Sarah Palin have been shameless demagogues, ruthlessly exploiting ignorant bigots for their own gain. There have been many offenders, but Palin has been the most high-profile of them, raking in big bucks while cynically promoting herself to Tea Partiers with overactive prostate glands.

With the blood of a federal judge, and nearly that of a once-promising young member of Congress, at hand -- no, not directly on HER hands, but -- I'd still say that in view of Palin's violent rhetoric, it would be proper penance if she would simply go home to Wasilla and stay there.

We've seen a bit too much of this kind of behavior in recent years in America, and much of it was during the midterm election campaign. Giffords was on Palin's "hit list," and she was the target of death threats, vandalism and harassment. Elsewhere, in Kentucky, we saw a Rand Paul supporter stomp on the head of an opposition activist, giving her a concussion. And then, the stupid SOB wanted HER to apologize to him.

Enough with the brown-shirt act. For one thing, the right doesn't have a monopoly on that -- they just have been producing the most obvious examples of it. Other people are quite able to fight back, but they may have a lingering fantasy that there is still a process of civil debate alive in the U.S.

Sarah Palin is the one politician I can think of who has consistently gone beyond the boundaries of any civility. If there's going to be a Judas goat in this thing, she looks like the obvious one.

Go home, Sarah, and stay there.

For one thing, you're far too ignorant to have come this far in life. I have seen one person before who used the word "ravished" instead of "ravaged," like you did in an e-mail or tweet or some such thing to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindall during the oil-spill crisis.

But that person wasn't potentially running for president. The guy I think of who actually did that (at a newspaper I worked for in 1979) was a penis-headed ad salesman who drove a 1960s Volkswagen "bug." It almost got in the paper as a banner Page One headline. ("Storm ravishes county") I had been out all day, and then in the newsroom, writing about storm damage. Then, just before they sent the page, I saw that. It didn't surprise me to have to correct him -- but he clearly couldn't even run his own desk, let alone a small state.

Go home, Sarah. And stay there. You are just too goddamned dumb to be in this arena.

Manifesto Joe Is An Underground Writer Living In Texas.

9 comments:

Infidel753 said...

Well, she's never had much more in the way of decency than brains. Look at her response so far -- purging her website of all the inciteful stuff which she, at the same time, claims had nothing to do with the Tucson murders at all. Denouncing critics, standing in total denial, as if keeping herself pristine of any hint of responsibility were the main thing at stake here.

It's not just that her response is indecent -- it's that she doesn't seem to realize how bad it makes her look.

Anonymous said...

Now Palin is claiming that the gun crosshairs weren't crosshairs at all, but instead were "surveyer's symbols." Which raises the question: what were they "surveying" for? Gold? Diamonds? Bullshit?
The Far Right in this country has a lot to answer for. How many people remember Jim Adkisson, who in 2008 shot up a liberal Unitarian church in Tennessee because he "he hated the liberal movement". He killed 2 people. In Adkisson's house, the police found copies of books by Michael Savage, Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly.

Cletis said...

Most of Palin's popularity is tied directly to her looks. Her supporters, largely older white guys, would not have spent three minutes thinking about her after the election in 08' if they did not fantasize about an evening by the fireplace with the Divine Miss P.; an empty bottle of chianti, two empty bottles of Viagra, and a well-worn copy of Adam Smith's, "Wealth of Nations" strewn about the room.

We have elevated Sarah Palin to a place of prominence in our national discourse (or lack thereof) and we need to stop. Soon, thebookofcletis will post to that effect and we will not mention her again until her actions warrant legitimate recognition. Hopefully, others will agree and follow suit.

Manifesto Joe said...

But Cletis, she's so damn much fun to pick on!

One thing I forgot to mention was that new word she made up back in July. On Hannity's Fox "News" rant show, she talked about some point that someone needed to "refudiate." Then she showed that it was no fluke by actually writing it and spelling it that way on a tweet.

Cletis said...

Joe, I'd laugh but I SPENT HALF THE DAY YESTERDAY LOOKING UP THE WORD "FORMENT" which I was awfully sure was a synonym for foment. This and my love for Vighena sausages, to be confused with Vienna sausages has humbled me. Note: I have three advanced degrees.

Marc McDonald said...

For all the news coverage and commentary about this story in the past few days, I think Gabrielle Giffords' own words have the most significance. Here is what Giffords said in a March 2010 interview with MSNBC on the subject of Palin's "crosshairs" map:

"The way that she has it depicted has the cross hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have got to realize there are consequences to that action."

Jack Jodell said...

Manifesto Joe,
"And politicians like Sarah Palin have been shameless demagogues, ruthlessly exploiting ignorant bigots for their own gain." That says it all, my friend. I have NEVER seen any politician as self-centered and rash and irresponsible as Iceberg Sarah. And I hope I never see another!

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget Michele Bachmann's March 2009 comment that she wanted "people in Minnesota armed and dangerous."
Also, recall Sharron Angle's discussion last year of "Second Amendment remedies" for Democratic officials.
Or how about Mike Huckabee's tasteless joke during a speech in 2008 when there was a noise off-stage:
"That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak," Huckabee said. “Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor."
One could fill a whole book with the violent rhetoric used by the GOP.

Anonymous said...

She wouldn't be the first functional f-tard to be CIC. How soon we forgot "W". If right-wing interests, lobbies, and power-brokers could elect his dumb ass, Jebus help us against Caribou Barbie... Let's hope the Mormon Muppet of Massachusetts c-blocks her hopes and dreams while preventing disaster for another 4-8 years...

-WageslaveZ-