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Speaking at the Southern Republican Leadership conference:

“We should create a competitive climate for investment and for renewables and alternatives that are economical and doable and none of this snake oil science stuff that is based on this global warming, Gore-gate stuff that came down where there was revelation that the scientists, some of these scientists were playing political games.”

video link

So scientific studies of the causes of global warming that are reviewed by peers and agreed upon by something like 97% of scientists working in the field is “snake oil stuff” that should be shoved aside in favor of “doable” things. 

Anybody know what “Gore-gate” is?  This is the first I’ve heard of it.

The bar was set very low for Sarah Palin, and somehow she manages to keep moving it lower. 

One has to wonder how the right would react to President Obama, Harry Reid, or Nancy Pelosi letting a callow statement like that leak out of their mouths.

Speaking of Sarah Palin… remember that guy at the top of the ticket?  The maverick?  Yes, him… Senator John McCain, Numero Uno on the “Original Mavericks” team.

The 73-year-old maverick recently told David Margolis of Newsweek:  “I never considered myself a maverick.”

He’s gone senile.

For more on this story I recommend this Newsweek video montage and this segment from Tuesday’s The Daily Show.

John McWhorter dissects Palin’s style of speech in this article for The New Republic.

Part of why Palin speaks the way she does is that she has grown up squarely within a period of American history when the old-fashioned sense of a speech as a carefully planned recitation, and public pronouncements as performative oratory, has been quite obsolete.

Thus after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Congressman Charles Eaton of New Jersey said:

Mr. Speaker, yesterday against the roar of Japanese cannon in Hawaii our American people heard a trumpet call; a call to unity; a call to courage; a call to determination once and for all to wipe off of the earth this accursed monster of tyranny and slavery which is casting its black shadow over the hearts and homes of every land.

He meant this straight. He had it composed the night before and when he stood up to talk, he read, and it was prose that almost sounds like he wanted to set it to music. Sixty-one years later, Senator Sam Brownback gave his thoughts on the wisdom of invading Iraq, and my, how times had changed:

And if we don’t go at Iraq, that our effort in the war on terrorism dwindles down into an intelligence operation. We go at Iraq and it says to countries that support terrorists, there remain six in the world that are as our definition state sponsors of terrorists, you say to those countries: We are serious about terrorism, we’re serious about you not supporting terrorism on your own soil.

…

Brownback was perfectly comprehensible, and intonation does a lot of what indirect quotation and parataxis do on the page. Yet it wasn’t a polished performance — but if he had given one, he’d look in our times as peculiar as, well, Robert Byrd does. Byrd is old enough to have minted in the days when making a speech meant clearing your throat and reading a prepared statement bedecked with ten-dollar words, and it qualifies today as an eccentricity. The practice will die with him.

…

What truly distinguishes Palin’s speech is its utter subjectivity: that is, she speaks very much from the inside of her head, as someone watching the issues from a considerable distance. The there fetish, for instance — Palin frequently displaces statements with an appended “there,” as in “We realize that more and more Americans are starting to see the light there…” But where? Why the distancing gesture? At another time, she referred to Condoleezza Rice trying to “forge that peace.” That peace? You mean that peace way over there — as opposed to the peace that you as Vice-President would have been responsible for forging? She’s far, far away from that peace.

All of us use there and that in this way in casual speech — it’s a way of placing topics as separate from us on a kind of abstract “desktop” that the conversation encompasses. “The people in accounting down there think they can just ….” But Palin, doing this even when speaking to the whole nation, is no further outside of her head than we are when talking about what’s going on at work over a beer. The issues, American people, you name it, are “there” — in other words, not in her head 24/7. She hasn’t given them much thought before; they are not her. They’re that, over there.

This reminds me of toddlers who speak from inside their own experience in a related way: they will come up to you and comment about something said by a neighbor you’ve never met, or recount to you the plot of an episode of a TV show they have no way of knowing you’ve ever heard of. Palin strings her words together as if she were doing it for herself — meanings float by, and she translates them into syntax in whatever way works, regardless of how other people making public statements do it.

You see this in one of my favorites, her take on Hillary Clinton’s complaint about sexism in media coverage:

When I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism, or maybe a sharper microscope put on her, I think, ‘Man, that doesn’t do us any good, women in politics, or women in general, trying to progress this country.

…

I don’t think Palin’s phraseology is actively attractive to her fans.  Rather, what is remarkable is that this way of speaking doesn’t prevent someone, today, from public influence.  Candidates bite the dust for being untelegenic, dour, philanderers, strident, or looking silly posing in a tank.  But having trouble rubbing a noun and a verb together is not considered a mark against one as a figure of political authority.

Actually, among my circle of friends, when we hear a political figure who has ”trouble rubbing a noun and a verb together” we reach for our big fat El-Marko pens.   Bush’s prepared speeches were pretty bad, and his extemporaneous speaking was atrocious.  Palin’s speaking ability is even worse. 

Why would anyone with even just a cursory understanding of the complexities involved in governing the largest economic entity and most powerful nation in the world want someone lacking any semblance of forethought running our country?

A while back we had a post about how far-right wingnuts want kill President Obama.  Well now they are pissed off at the Democrats in congress, and they want to kill them too.  MSNBC reports:

At a news conference in Washington, Hoyer said people have yelled that Democratic lawmakers should be put on firing lines and posters have appeared with the faces of lawmakers in the cross hairs of a target.

…

Gun imagery was used in a posting on the Facebook page of Sarah Palin urging people to organize against 20 House Democrats who voted for the health care bill and whose districts went for the John McCain-Palin ticket two years ago.  Palin’s post featured a U.S. map with circles and cross hairs over the 20 districts.

…

In audio recordings of voice messages obtained by NBC News and other networks, one caller repeatedly tells Stupak “I hope you die.”

“There are millions of people across the country who wish you ill,” another caller says. “And all of those thoughts projected on you will materialize into something that’s not very good for you.”

A fax with the title “Defecating on Stupak” carried a picture of a gallows with “Bart (SS) Stupak” on it and a noose attached. It was captioned, “All Baby Killers come to unseemly ends Either by the hand of man or by the hand of God.”

And the Washington Post reports that in addition to the fax, Stupak also received a voice mail threatening his life:

…and an anonymous voice mail saying: “You’re dead. We know where you live. We’ll get you.”

And as if that’s not enough,  The New York Times reports:

Representative Louise M. Slaughter, a senior Democrat from New York, received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.

…

Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the highest-ranking black lawmaker in the House, said he received an anonymous fax showing the image of a noose.

The Washington Post also reported: 

Some Democrats, sensing a political opportunity, suggested that Republicans were fanning the anger with their fiery comments in recent days. Several GOP lawmakers stood on the speaker’s balcony at the Capitol overlooking a tea party protest last weekend holding up signs that read “Kill the Bill.” Below them, protesters were yelling “No! No! No!” and “Nancy, you will burn in hell for this!”

And now I must give credit where credit is do.  Some of the Republicans heeded the call and denounced the violence and threats perpetrated by their followers, including House Minority Leader John Boehner:

“…violence and threats are unacceptable.  That’s not the American way.  We need to take that anger and channel it into positive change.”

Maybe he said that because he meant it, or maybe he said it because he is a media whore and he wanted to make the papers and be on TV again.  Ugh.  If he’s on again tomorrow morning, I am going to puke up my yogurt.

Hey guys.  You know it’s bad to be using an Obama teleprompter thingy.  That’s just so phony – dontcha know?  I mean geez!  He must not be able to remember all those Socialist ideas in his head if he has to read them off a screeny thing.

So… like it’s better to just write stuff on your hands.

See how that works?  And it’s not like those clear plastic reading things off camera that Obama uses that everybody know are there.  Ya see, nobody will notice little scribbles on your handsies.

Not Jon Stewart.

Not Stephen Colbert.

Not Keith Olbermann.

Not Andrea Mitchell.

Not nobody.

Seeing notes on my hand reminds me of my cheerleader days back in high school.  Those helpful hints that my boyfriend scribbled on my palms always made me smarter, you know?

From Sarah Palin’s November appearance on The O’Reilly Factor, via The Atlantic Wire, via This Modern World:

O’REILLY: OK, but is it fair for you to criticize Obama’s lack of experience when somebody could make the same criticism about you on the national stage?

PALIN: If you’re talking about executive experience, I would put my experience up against his any day of the week.  I’ve been elected to a local office since 1992 and was the city manager, strong leader form of government, was a chief executive of the state, was an oil and gas regulator.  There was some good experience there that could have been put to use in a vice presidential ticket. We have to remember, too, that I wasn’t running for president.

O’REILLY: Now, but that’s the key question because John McCain is up there in years.  You had to be qualified to take that office over.

PALIN: Right, but I’m saying I was running for vice president just like Joe Biden in running for vice president.  I’ve never once heard you or anybody else question Joe Biden and his experience. He…

O’REILLY: Well, he’s got a lot of experience. Let me be very bold and fresh again.  Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?

PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values.  And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fact resume that’s based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles.  Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership.  I’m not saying that has to be me.

I get the “common” part, but the “sense” part is not coming through at all.

As in “Grand Old Pity Party.”

During this week’s edition of “The Word”, Steven Colbert could not even pretend to like Sarah Palin.

Sarah Palin’s book, Going Rogue, was released this week.  Why “rogue?”  Well Merriam Webster defines “rogue (adj.)” as:  “resembling or suggesting a rogue elephant especially in being isolated, aberrant, dangerous, or uncontrollable.”   Perfect!

The day before her book was released, she was featured on the cover of Newsweek Magazine, but Sarah didn’t like the photo they used.  It was from a photo shoot she did for Runner’s World magazine.

Sarah blasted Newsweek on her Facebook page.

“The choice of photo for the cover of this week’s Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this ‘news’ magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant.  The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now.”

Funny… I read a review of the book on NPR today.  Here’s what Rod Dreher wrote:

Going Rogue is a book designed to re-introduce Palin as a national political force, and — though she’s coy about this — to lay the groundwork for a 2012 presidential run.

The rap on Palin is that she’s too shallow and inexperienced for the presidency — a conclusion that early Palin supporters like me came to during the 2008 campaign.  Alas, for conservatives in search of a champion, there’s nothing in Going Rogue to challenge that conclusion.  It’s like this: Palin spends seven pages dishing about her appearance on Saturday Night Live, but just over one page discussing her national security views.

When you consider what weight she gave to National Security versus SNL, the Newsweek cover seems very relevant to the degree of her intellect.

But she doesn’t think so:  she told Barbara Walters that she found the photo “a wee bit degrading.”   So it’s degrading now but it wasn’t when she posed for Runner’s World just three months ago?  Well that doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the response that is “oh-so-expected” from her, and she didn’t let us down.

Speaking of the Lunatic Fringe, here’s a recent quote from the Queen Mother of the wingnuts, Former Governor (read “Quitter”) Sarah Palin:

“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care.  Such a system is downright evil.”

Laura Harrison McBride wrote the following about Palin’s crazy talk:

• An end-of-life decision is not the same thing as an “ending life” decision.  The former refers to a decision  made by an individual at the end of that individual’s life, and commonly includes such matters as which grandchild gets the gold-rimmed teacups and where one wants to be buried.
• An “ending life” decision (death panel), on the other hand, would be a decision made about the individual by another party…a relative, a government, a jury of one’s peers and so on.

It isn’t awfully surprising that Palin would mix up the meanings of these two terms.  She joins a long list of other ignorant conservatives who willfully and purposely misuse language to pull the wool over the eyes of others, most notably their own followers since the rest of humanity seems able to see through it.

That’s an excellent response, but I kind of like throwing Palin’s own words right back at her, like this quote from her resignation speech:

“So how about in honor of the American solider you quit making things up?”

Yes, why don’t you Sarah?  Don’t you know you are letting our soldiers down with your batshit crazy talk?

On Sunday, July 26, 2009 Sarah Palin quit her governorship of Alaska and delivered her farewell speech.  It was as incoherent as her resignation speech, but it was a little different this time:  It was poetry!

You can watch Sarah deliver the whole thing herself, or watch the best parts on The Daily Show segment about it, or you can William Shatner recite a stanza on The Tonight Show accompanied by stand-up base and bongo drum in authentic beat-poet fashion.

ff

And getting up here I say it is the best road trip in America soaring through nature’s finest show. Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it’s the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn’t it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs? And then in the summertime such extreme summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, than just some months from now, with fireweed blooming along the frost heaves and merciless rivers that are rushing and carving and reminding us that here, Mother Nature wins. It is as throughout all Alaska that big wild good life teeming along the road that is north to the future.