I was interviewed on SarahRadio few days ago. Martha and her co-host Debbie were very tolerant and even managed to follow my English accent….lol….
Maybe Fox has room for an elderly English eccentric?
If you are stuck in the house watching the paint dry and wanting to kill time you can find it here….
Even Allahpundit, always so reticent about drawing attention to articles criticising or demeaning Sarah Palin, feels the need to share his pain with us
I’m not quite as supportive of her as Erickson seems to be, but I do like her personally — and yet of course I get all the “Palin-hater” stuff thrown at me too when I dare to post, say, a poll that shows her numbers sinking.
Poor Allah, sitting there in his Manhattan apartment, stroking his cat, is always so inoffensive in his posts. He sees the best in everyone, is rarely sarcastic or brutal in his comments and has never been known to seek extra traffic by being provocative. So he bleeds for other bloggers who, in merely trying to be helpful to Palin by questioning her motives, her judgement and her political common sense over the CPAC and the Tea Party Convention affair, have been shocked and wounded by respondents who have questioned the bloggers’ own motives and judgement
It is classic Allah, a cri de coeur, glistening with heartfelt sincerity, pleading the unfairness of bombing the bomb throwers. Even I, world weary old English cynic that I am, felt tears welling up in my timeworn eyes….
Then, in the comments, I read this remark from the cheap seats
These two posts say it all:
Look, Sarah has the qualities needed to be a great POTUS to move the country from the edge.
Therefore, when people attack her, we see it as attacking our country.
She represents the best of American womanhood and conservatism. Therefore, it is understandable we close ranks to protect her for although she is not perfect, she is good person, and we like the good ones to win.
Sapwolf on January 14, 2010 at 9:00 PMallah,
It’s really simple. Palin is family. Period end of story. It would be like a stranger defaming your mother. Or sister. You will defend her. Family honor requires it. add in the amount of dirt slung at Palin from both the left and the right and it is wonder she is not MORE defended when people attack her.
And yes Eric may try to weasel his way out of it but he attacked Palin’s decision making skills and intelligence in his post.
unseen on January 14, 2010 at 9:18 PMTruely nothing else needs to be said. No one worships Palin, but we all LOVE her. Most would stop a bullet for her. (more to this than most will ever know)
We really don’t give a damn who attacks her, left, right, middle. You attack Palin, you attack US, you attack America.
We understand that Sarah isn’t perfect, that she makes mistakes. Well goddamn, she’s human. BUT, even so, she is by far the best leader this nation has seen in decades.
We have absolutely no problem understanding where she stands on any issue, and we, for the most part agree with her.
Frankly, I have disagreed more on her strategery post governor, and yet, she’s proven she knows exactly what she is doing, so I’m just STFU’ing!
As for you nimrods that don’t get the saturation on Fox….It’s obvious you’d starve to death in sales!
Sarah is the hottest thing on the planet, she’s ratings GOLD. Fox has her and they want to promote the hell out of her. They are in the ratings business. They are in business to sell advertising. Their product is news, their customers are the advertisers. Sarah will get them a lot more customers, customers they can charge a premium.
BTW, they did the same thing with Glenn Beck and Stossel, just to a lessor extent. But frankly, neither Beck nor Stossel come close to the star power Sarah has. Absolutely no one in the country does.
How much you want to bet that Loren Michaels doesn’t have a whole team trying to figure out how to get Palin/Beck on SNL ASAP?
Who else in America could suggest what she and Beck did (because of her) and be taken seriously?
BTW II: Sarah is going to be on Teh Oprah tomorrow.
In short for ANYONE who wants to dis Sarah, the very best advice I can give is: DON’T START NONE, THERE WON’T BE NONE!
That goes for everyone.
gary4205 on January 14, 2010 at 11:19 PM
Then I recalled Edmund Burke’s comment upon how the Queen of France was treated during the latter days of the French Revolution
Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leapt from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded
;
One might say that in 21st century America (as in Britain) “sophisters and calculators” indeed rule – but it’s clear from the rasp of swords leaving scabbards over the last few days that there are quite a few people who still set great store by that unfashionable eighteenth century concept of honour….
Exit question (a la Allahpundit)….Is saying “no” a demonstration of authority and complaining about being told “no” sign of weakness?
The House
Unlike many parts of the USA heavy winter snow is a comparatively rare event in our part of England so the last few days have made quite an impact. Fortunately we are both retired and are still relatively well stocked with food – and gin – so there is no need to risk the cars on the untreated side roads or our bottoms on the icy pavements.
However, to avoid a complete outbreak of stir craziness, we ventured out for a brief airing a couple of times – hence the pics (taken by The Lovely Mrs P, much more creative than yours truly…)
The road from our house
Obviously this was not the time for gardening…
Our garden
….and summer memories of sun drenched days in France sitting outside our caravan with a glass of cool muscadet seemed quite distant…..
Best forget the caravan and barbecue for today
The snow was still there the next day so we decided to walk up the hill to St. Nicholas’ Church – normally just five minutes away
The top of the hill
The church is at the end of a short lane, just beyond a field.
The gate
We took a closer look at the field – magical…..
The field of winter dreams
Then onto the path leading to the church
The church path
The churchyard was still, silent and peaceful…
They have seen it all before
The Saxon church of St Nicholas is one of the oldest in England – for over 1000 years the locals have walked along that path for prayer and worship. Even though the M23 motorway is only a few hundred yards away and Gatwick airport is just down the road
the atmosphere is surprisingly calm….
St Nicholas' Church
Timeless
Then back through the avenue of trees (“the Ten Apostles”), out of the lychgate and back home for something warm and cosy..
The path back home
If you would like to see the pics in greater detail go here.
Exposed at last – the truth about those Facebook postings!!
A photo of Sarah Palin composing a Facebook statement can be found here.
A video of her sending it can be seen here……
Meet Michael Jefferies – he recently wrote an article about Sarah Palin in The Guardian. Here is a little more detail about Mr Jefferies and his contribution to the groves of academe….
Michael Jeffries is an Assistant Professor of American Studies at Wellesley College. At Wellesley, Michael teaches courses on race and politics, hip-hop studies, the sociology of sport, and the cultural significance of Barack Obama. His published work includes research on hip-hop feminism (in Home Girls, Make Some Noise! (2007)), and racism and interracial dating (in The Du Bois Review (2006)).
As befits a man a man who has become the world’s greatest expert on hip hop feminism he is puzzled how an uneducated hayseed has managed to gain a following in the USA with no experience of public affairs.
As far as politics are concerned, before we anoint her the next Ronald Reagan, we might acknowledge that Palin holds no public office (although, when he was elected to the presidency, neither did Reagan). Palin shirked her responsibility to serve the people of Alaska who elected her governor, opting to resign and promote her autobiography instead.
…..
If this were the extent of the criticism, Palin might be treated like other politicians who entered the public sphere unprepared and demonstrated no command of the issues, which is to say, she would be irrelevant. But Palin’s critics can’t help themselves. Her biography, speaking gaffes, and family life continue to command people’s attention, and serve as fodder for tabloids and comedic parody.
Still this isn’t about Michael Jefferies, cultural guru and academic genius – it’s about his readers and their reactions in the posted comments. The overall tone is as much as can be expected – Palin is ignorant, vicious, evil, creationist, mad etc etc…standard WaPo/NYT stuff in their UK equivalent. Young Michael certainly knew how to light the blue touchpaper and retire…
However there is, now and then, the odd voice defending her. Each one of these few then provokes a tsunami of insults against the authors, quite astonishing in their viciousness and bile. Considering Guardianistas claim to be rational, caring, educated citizens, peace loving and driven by conscience the sheer degree of vehemence is quite unnerving.
But then one of the Palinistas steps beyond the mark by mentioning she has a black friend who is a big Palin supporter. Several Guardianistas call her a liar and fantasist so she replies thus
Go ahead and assume I am lying about my black friend I would give you the link to her Pro-Palin blog site, but she gets enough liberals sending her threats and insults…mostly accusing her of being a “traitor to her race.” Indeed, she worked all day, alongside Palin, at one of her booksigning stops…and…at the end of the day…was pelted with eggs by one of those “tolerant” and “open-minded” white Obama supporters.
Which provokes this rational, peace loving and carefully considered response from LukaKuzmich
Good. She deserved it. I hope it happens to her again. And again. And every time she sticks her stupid head up in support of a neonazi thug.
Are you getting the message yet , that the rest of the world despises your Hicksville Heroine, her message of hatred and war, and everything she stands for?
You want “freedom fries”?? Great, we’ll send you the boiling oil.
What is even more interesting is this well reasoned contribution gets approved by six other Guardian readers…..
Exit question #1…..do you think LukaKuzmich is a hip hop feminist?
Exit question #2……hey, Sarah…..Hicksville Heroine….shouldn’t you get that emblazoned on your jacket instead of Arctic Cat?
Sometimes in a world of apparently random and disconnected events you need a telescope to comprehend the big picture and gain some understanding of how all the smaller parts fit together to make up the whole. But at other times it is necessary to drill down really deep into the smaller parts themselves to discover the hidden forces that drive them along their chosen pathways – and then the power of a microscope is more useful in helping to unravel the mysteries of human conduct.
Which is why the self justifying manifesto of the Rochester egg man who went to a Borders Palin book signing event hoping to throw an egg at Sarah Palin is a document of considerable significance because, as we push beyond the usual adolescent pseudo-revolutionary posturing we can observe an uglier truth about the mindset of this weird gremlin, who Lenin would have filed as a “useful idiot”, and his more sinister dancing masters, the Chris Matthews, Geoffrey Dunns and Andrew Sullivans whose steady drumbeat of lies and crude, misogynistic vitriol has the sole purpose of dehumanizing Sarah Palin and, by association, her supporters.
Once you have managed to characterise your opponent as some kind of malevolent, alien force you can then step outside the constraints of civil discourse and either excuse or even justify acts of cruelty or violence because the object of your hatred threatens your own humanity. It happened in Salem, in Nazi Germany and during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, in Bosnia and Rwanda – depersonalise the “enemy” and then no holds are barred.
We know, of course, that the Rochester egg man arrived too late to become the Huffington hero and martyr himself – his prime target had already left. So he chose the even more familiar ritual of the radical left, a piece of street theatre, of performance art. He attacked the symbol of Sarah Palin, her book display.
In one motion, the egg is out and I’m pitching it full force at a pyramid of Palin books. In slow motion I see the oblong, white missile fly true towards its mark. The egg loudly smashes into Palin’s grinning, idiot face, and chicken menses splatters the entire pyramid.
How high he must have been at that moment – he was 1776, 1789, 1917. He would become a god at Kos, he would be embraced by Arianna Huffington, lauded at mudflats, feted at Tina Brown’s next party….maybe even share a centerfold with Ricky Hollywood….
He was held by the police but he didn’t care – like the students in Tehran he was ready to face beatings and imprisonment on behalf of all those people who “are suffering while Palin spreads insidious lies about health care.”
Then he came face to face with Adrienne Ross….
Next, a small herd of people gather around me. A black woman, whom I thought to be a reporter when I saw her in Borders, is front and center. Maybe she’ll take my story and turn this sad and ridiculous fiasco into something worthwhile.
Reading that immediately sparks a red shift and we are able to enter the alternative universe inhabited by egg man and his kind. It is a universe of certainties governed not by the rules of evidence and reason but the laws of Arianna where you begin with your deduction and then sculpt the proofs to endorse it. The egg man sees a black woman at a Palin book tour and he knows she can’t be a supporter of the ‘Cuda because Chris Matthews has told him that when you see a Palin crowd there is no ethnic diversity and when she speaks of Real America – well that’s just code for Bull Connor style white supremacy.
A black reporter – maybe for CNN or CBS or the NYT – the anticipation put egg man on cruise control. The Fox guy had brushed him off but now he could help the media shine a light on Palin’s plan to crush the sick. Cool and calm he awaited the first question – and then his universe shattered into a million glistening shards as he discovered the truth about Adrienne Ross – she wasn’t his saviour, she was his nemesis.
Each of the crowd is holding Palin books, including my imagined African American savior. They are pissed Palin pals and apparently I had gotten them with egg. The woman complains that she was up since 3 am for Sarah, and now she has to change her clothes.
Egg man redshifts again, he’s back in his universe and it’s all gone Huffington. Adrienne is no longer the black Katie Couric raring for the dirt on Palin – she’s a Palinista and, by definition, a non person, ready to be worked to death in KZ or Gulag then buried in an unmarked grave. Even worse, as a black Palinista she becomes a “race traitor”, a non person amongst the non people.
To them, any facts are mere fabrications of a media conspiracy. We are no longer able to reason together, as they’ve discarded rational thought as a trapping of liberalism.
The egg man’s Orwellian Newspeak is a wonder to behold. He who only seconds before was delighting in an act of ritualised violence on behalf of the masses now complains that his victim has discarded rational thought – the red shift is complete.
The egg man’s pathetic manifesto reveals the hollowness of his world view, the infantilism of his self centred posturing. He would claim to be another Zapata but reading his pathetic testament with it’s theatrical sentimentality the image of an embryonic Streicher comes to mind.
In the end, though, it might have been fortunate for the egg man that security was so quick to react. Adrienne Ross is a feisty young lady – she teaches in a New York public school, she rides a Harley and is on fire for the Lord, like one of Cromwell’s troopers. If she had decided to construct her own piece of street theatre on the egg man I wouldn’t have wanted to be in his shoes…..
You know I’m really missing out on a great business sideline in political journalism – the one that seems to always pop up about half way through a political piece where the writer, needing a little padding to reach the word count ordered by the editor, goes to some rent a quote hack for those vital 200 words to act as filler.
What sparked me off was reading a relatively bland article on Governor Palin’s book tour by Andrea Billups in the Washington Times. It wasn’t particularly unfriendly except when Andrea suddenly started quoting Andrew Koneschusky, “a vice president in the public affairs practice of D.C.-based Levick Strategic Communications”
Now that is a title – great to throw out at dinner parties over the soup to the attractive brunette on your right hand who you hope is still single…beats being a bus driver any day….
It was Andrew’s quotes about the Governor that set me thinking.
He had to say, more in sorrow than in anger that she had a “perceived” lack of substance.
Instead of taking that off the table by delving into more substantive realms, she’s lashing out at critics and she’s attacking left and right and pretty much confirming and solidifying the image that a lot of people already have of her
But be not downhearted….Andrew’s there to help. All she needs to do is to get rid of that burning anger and toxic bitterness . She has to offer a positive message and show “some substantial chops” (I do hope he is not being sexist here – you Americans often use words in a sometimes embarrassingly different way….I remember the awkward silence that fell when I asked a visitor from New York if he fancied a faggot for lunch…)
I have to confess some puzzlement at Andrew’s characterisation of the Governor. She has always struck me as a cheerful, feisty, warm hearted lady but who am I to judge? I am an elderly Englishman, living in the ancient forest of the Sussex Weald – what would I know about “public affairs practice” – all I ever did was teach teenagers for forty years.
Nevertheless I thought I would just check Andrew out to see if maybe I had missed a little nuance and discovered something very interesting. Before ascending to the giddy heights of veeping at D.C.-based Levick Strategic Communications Andrew had worked with Senator Chuck Schumer (Crazy Chucky) – pro choice, pro Fannie & Freddie, pro gun control, pro pork (“And let me say this to all the chattering classes that so much focus on those little, tiny, yes porky amendments. The American people really don’t care”)
He has also worked with Representative John Murtha (I wonder if he was one of the thirty passengers a day at Murtha’s airport for no one that has soaked up $150 million from all you generous taxpayers) so it would seem that Andrew must be well versed in the art of pork.
Would it really come as a surprise to you, dear reader, to learn that Andrew has also been a big cheese with the Louisiana Democratic Party, not usually described as the cleanest political machine in America?
Essentially, then, Andrew is a lobbyist who has worked for some of the biggest Democratic porksters in politics which, of course, makes him the ideal person to offer up some well intended and carefully balanced advice to one of the country’s biggest porkbusters.
So, in the interests of research, just let’s imagine that Andrea was running a piece on Andrew and decided to ring me here in England for some sound, caring advice…maybe it would go like this..
Andrew needs to break away from working with DC windbags and get some experience with people who actually run things and accept responsibility. Helping implement one of the largest infrastructure projects in American history would be a good start. He could also get involved with the preparation of a multi million dollar budget and see that it was spent wisely rather than on airports to nowhere while, at the same time, doing some legwork on an ethics reform programme. After a few years of that he might gain “substance” and “chops”
But maybe Andrew wouldn’t be too keen on that – can you imagine the consternation amongst Andrew and his fellow lobbyists at Levick at the mere suggestion of someone going to Washington and taking an axe to the pork and the lobbying and spending several days on a line by line crunching of earmarks scoring them for utility and value for money?
That must be Andrew’s worst nightmare – he might have to stop being a lobbyist and do something useful like driving a bus…..no wonder he hasn’t got a very high opinion of the ‘Cuda – she is his nemisis………
The Daily Mail went hard onto the Chairman of BT for being the only person in a Hampshire village to be invited to be part of an experimental rural broadband test – other villagers say they are in a broadband dead zone.
Prince Charles complained of rural areas becoming digital “deserts”
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said: “Too many rural households are currently unable to access the internet at satisfactory speeds.”
Naturally the Telegraph, always the “voice of the countryside” – or, to be more truthful, the voice of the “second homers” – applauded Charles demand for “action” which, of course, is media code for taxpayers money.
I have another idea – maybe these people could use mobile broadband and pay for it themselves…..and while they are about it they could dig into their pockets to subsidise the shops and pubs they are always losing.
Let’s get it straight – these people are always saying they love living in the countryside because they are not hemmed in by the crush of city life. They want the space and the slowness of pace. Fine. But they must also be ready to put up with the inconvenience of rural living – the isolation, the lack of services, the absence of crowds…
You want shops, pubs, facebook, hospitals, schools……then live in the city where they can be provided by the score. You want to be nearer to nature? Then enjoy the silence – but don’t expect me to fork out extra cash to smooth the rough edges of your rural retreat…..
Remember over the last few months when all the pundits, strategists, consultants and RNC hacks were busy giving Governor Palin advice about what moves she should make if she wanted to return to the political stage?
Well I’m pleased to say she totally ignored them and decided to do it her way – the Palin way…and guess what – it has worked to perfection. Interestingly enough SamHenry at ON MY WATCH agrees.
Sarah Palin’s timing and strategy should be in a required reading political text: “Palin on Politics – How to time it; how to move in the political and media morass.”
…
Now, in a time of deep distress and uncertainty in our nation, Sarah Palin is a beacon of survival and of creative self-initiative. She is now the master-in-chief of her image and her message. She is now poised at the brink of, well, her next strategic, well-timed move. The suspense builds; the speculation continues – Sarah, what a success you are and on YOUR terms!
Read the rest here including a perceptive analysis of how she controlled Oprah and how she has managed to align herself alongside the Tea Party movement without sacrificing her own freedom of manoeuvre.
I know she is a runner and a hunter but I am not so sure I would want to play chess with the ‘Cuda…
cross posted at C4P