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Sarah Palin’s Thanksgiving of Spite

In another sad, desperate attempt to get media attention on a holiday, Ms Palin spent her Thanksgiving licking her North Korean ally wounds on Facebook and creepily stalking the President. I’ll not be linking to the FB post as you can easily find her outrageously petulant post for yourself if you so desire. Just consider that the first paragraph is devoted to all of the Presidential gaffe’s her hack research team could find, leading us to the conclusion that Palin thinks she is on par with the President.

This hopeful false equivocation is nothing but the dreams of the deluded and anyone so ignorant as to not understand that when Palin makes a mistake it’s because she doesn’t grasp the issue at hand, not because she made a gaffe, probably isn’t winning any critical thinking tests. This has become clear over her entire career, not just the last two years. To assume she had a slip of the tongue when every other time she did not know what she was talking about would be illogical and catering to the accusations of bias she takes refuge in.

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This is the same woman who preened to her gubernatorial competition that while he had a grasp of the issues and she didn’t the issues, it “didn’t matter”. Two termer Republican member of the Alaska State House of Representatives Andrew Halcro, who ran against Palin in the 2006 Alaskan gubernatorial race as an Independent, wrote:

“On April 18, 2006, Palin and I sat together in a hotel coffee shop comparing campaign trail notes. As we talked about the debates, Palin made a comment that highlights the phenomenon that Biden is up against. “Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers, and yet when asked questions, you spout off facts, figures, and policies, and I’m amazed. But then I look out into the audience and I ask myself, ‘Does any of this really matter?'”

Tell me again that I’m supposed to give her the benefit of the doubt. Tell me how it’s “fair” (is this nursery school?) to cater to intellectual laziness by approaching this gaffe as if it were the first time and not a tell, in a pattern of reckless abandon for important issues of national security. Maybe some are willing to put this country at risk in order to avoid hurting Ms Palin’s feelings, but as of this moment, I’m not so inclined.

Gosh, just how much further do we need to lower the bar in order to accommodate the GOP’s front-runner for highest office in the land? Are there any standards we are allowed to apply to Ms Palin? Apparently, it’s more important to be “fair” to our Lady of Eternal Victimhood than it is to have a person of merit in office or have a debate seasoned by a grasp of the issues.

In the interest of “fairness”, allow me to point out that Ms Palin did not know there was a North and South Korea just two years ago, while running for VP of this country.

She also thought Saddam Hussein attacked the U.S. on 9/11.

While running for V.P. Shudder. But hush, now, we don’t want to hurt her feelings or insult her base by pointing out that there might be qualifications for President. We should all lower our expectations lest we be accused of being lamestream media elites.

John Heilemann, co-author of the book, Game Change, told Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes that McCain Campaign manager Steve Schmidt claimed, “She knew nothing. She had to be taken through World War I, World War II, the Cold War, and Palin was not aware there was a difference between North and South Korea. She continued to insist that Iraq was behind 9/11; and when her son was being sent off to Iraq, she couldn’t describe who we were fighting.”

Courtesy of Think Progress, “She Knows Nothing”:

And we’re supposed to chalk this up to a gaffe? Really? Where’s the proof that she has been studying up after quitting as governor, between her reality TV shows, appearances on Fox News, book writing and tabloid media management of her family? Oh, we’re supposed to assume this, contrary to all apparent evidence, in order to be “fair”?

Schmidt did claim that in spite of knowing nothing, she was a quick study. Sadly, this side of Palin was never made evident to us and any chance she might have had of convincing thinking Americans that she was interested in serious things evaporated when she quit her job as Governor of Alaska to pursue money and fame. Maybe if she allowed someone to interview her other than Fox personalities, she could show us just how much studying she’s been doing. We need to know that she understands the complexities and not that she has just managed to barely memorize the talking points.

Palin has never been interested in history or policy. She claims she wants to discuss her record, is given an hour to do just that on Fox News with nothing but subservient host (Greta) who let’s Palin natter on about anything she chooses with no pushback or correction, and not once does Palin choose to discuss her record.

What she chose to discuss was how the media picks on her and never talks about her record. We got to hear all the tabloid insults that have offended our Queen of the Media. Why is this? Because Sarah Palin cannot discuss her real record because her real record belies the myth she’s selling. Sarah is selling feelings, not reality, not policy, not ideas. And that’s why it’s vital that she keep this fight in the tabloid gutter, where she can win.

Sadly, Ms Palin is still clueless about how she may have some responsibility in creating the anger she so routinely feels victimized by. When she returned to Alaska after playing the role of the pit-bull in 2008, Palin was wounded that the legislators were no longer on her side. Did she meet with the legislators to discuss this or take responsibility for the idea they got from her behavior that she was a demagogic hater more interested in her national opportunities than in their state? No.

Instead, Palin scheduled a meeting with the Alaskan legislators (all of whom were Republican, by the way) regarding her claim that she wouldn’t take nearly a third of the stimulus money (another blatantly false pandering to her future status as Tea Party Queen), blew it off, and then told the press they had canceled on her.

Senate President Gary Stevens said the statement Palin sent to the press about what happened was “absolutely false, absolutely false.” “Someone should be brought to task on that,” the Kodiak Republican said.

Our Victim of the North strikes again.

Later, when she quit, Ms Palin claimed political opponents working for President Obama were behind the “attacks” on her, never acknowledging that the majority of attacks came from Republicans because this didn’t fit well with the narrative of victimization by the usurper she was crafting for her Tea Party base.

Instead of discussing “her record” in her Greta Van Sustern interview (FNC), Palin chose to focus on her claim that her daughters only slurred someone on Facebook because they were sick of their little brother being attacked. According to the Facebook pages cached by numerous outlets, this never happened. But it sure makes for a good story, doesn’t it?

And so we come back to the gaffe. Ms Palin’s Thanksgiving Whinestock of Spite infers that there’s no difference between a Summa Cum Laude Harvard Law graduate and a 5 or 6 college communications major who did not know the difference between Iran and Iraq. We’re supposed to believe that lazy ignorance is the equivalent of hard work and willingness to learn, lest we be called elitists, but at the same time, we’re supposed to embrace the notion of American exceptionalism. Hard to keep it all straight.

We’re supposed to give her the benefit of the doubt, when she is so scared of the press that she has refused (for two years) to be interviewed by anyone other than friendly press that is also her employer and her publisher — and when she messes up answering questions she was given in advance, we are biased if we expect a decent performance. I guess we’ll wait for Sarah Palin to tell us when it’s OK to expect something of her. After all, I wouldn’t want to offend her. Perhaps we need to add an amendment to the constitution: “Thou shall not offend Queen Sarah nor ask her anything nor expect her to know anything for to do so will be considered treasonous, sexist, vile and mean.”

How about this: The President does not spend his Thanksgiving attacking people. Only the most petty, immature and emotionally stunted would spend a day of thanks dishing out the petty.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Ms Palin, but then she goes and does something like this, leading me to believe that were she ever to be President, we would all be in peril if she ever perceived even the slightest criticism from a foreign leader, let alone an American citizen. It’s clear our rights to speak our minds would be limited under Palin. What isn’t clear is exactly how dangerously reactive and emotionally challenged she is. I fear we don’t know the full extend of her limitations due to her clever avoidance of accountability via her Facebook/Fox PAC bunkers of fear.

A Thanksgiving of spite. That’s what you get when you cater to the feelings of a celebrity instead of insisting upon a modicum of personal responsibility and grasp of the issues. Anyone still making excuses for Sarah Palin and clinging to this desperate equivocation simply can’t be reached through reason. This is all about feelings for them. And that’s fine, but you’ll pardon me if I carry on with attempting to hold her responsible given that she refuses to do any media other than tabloid, quasi-reality propaganda where she has complete control of the narrative.

If this were indeed a gaffe, then why didn’t Ms Palin use her Facebook time to address the history of North Korea’s oppression of their people instead of playing petulant and angry that we expect things of her? This is what any person who understood the importance of her “gaffe” would have done, but I suspect – and this is the root of the problem – Ms Palin has no idea just why this was so disturbing.