You may remember John Ziegler as the maker of a "documentary" about how the media rigged the election for Barack Obama by targeting Sarah Palin. Or from his meltdown while being interviewed by Nate Silver. Or from his self-serving protest? act of journamalism? at an award ceremony at USC. Or from his classy remarks right after a hostage situation at Hillary Clinton's campaign headquarters. Or from hearing about what a fun date he is.
There's no real need to watch the following. It's just me noting another of the exemplars of the Right Wing Noise Machine, Sarah Palin Fanboy Division. Because collecting stool samples just doesn't do it for me anymore.
But if you did watch, some smile, huh?
Creep.
Steve M. is right about Letterman giving the wingnuts an excuse to make Sarah Palin a martyr (again), but as a matter of political calculation, I don't think there's much to worry about with this sort of person speaking on her behalf.
(h/t: James Wolcott)
10 comments:
It's amazing he gets invited anywhere, but also somewhat gratifying.
I watched the footage from Letterman's apology monologue, I guess I would have explained what a pun was - knocked out/knocked up - and then that rape was not used as a concept in the original joke. That is, perhaps the Palins don't grasp what the actual words mean.
@RB: My feelings exactly.
@AS: Yeah -- the odds of Sarah Palin not understanding the meaning of words seem pretty good, although I also wouldn't put it past her to pretend to misinterpret, to boost the fauxtrage.
Not to excuse Letterman's mildly poor taste, but Palin and her supporters are trying to make this into a lot more than it was.
First time I've seen a clip of Ziegler. What a piece of work that guy is.
At any rate, isn't Sarah Palin so five months ago? The GOP vacuum in leadership is really showing when their rabble rousers include Gingrich, Cheney, and Palin.
That's an interesting question about Palin being past her sell-by date, Kinohi. As you may have seen in another post, I was surprised by her lack of showing in a recent Gallup poll that asked people who they thought spoke for the Republican Party.
Those data contradicted my gut instinct, which was that she is still highly relevant at least to the base of the GOP. By all anecdotal accounts, she remains a mobilizing and admired figure to them, able to turn out and turn on a crowd like no one else in the GOP can do right now. (I'm leaving aside Rush Limbaugh here.) Still, though, that she couldn't even get 10 people out a 1000 randomly selected to name her as the party leader says a lot.
I've read some whispers that much of the rest of the GOP leadership doesn't know what to do about her -- they like that she can rally the base, but they don't much care to deal with her apart from that.
I also have the impression from hearing about her lately that she failed to take the most important lesson away from last fall, which is that she really needs to spend some serious time cracking briefing books and getting up to speed on policy. I have the sense that she's convinced herself that's not necessary, that she will be fine if only she can overcome the liberal media and other elites who are all biased against her and conspiring to keep her down. Kathleen Parker's recent column, "Half-Baked Alaska," has reinforced this sense. (Consider the source and all, but still, pretty devastating.)
So, my considered opinion is, I dunno. I guess Palin is a niche market right now, for lack of a better term. I honestly can't see her ever appealing to voters outside her base the way she's going now.
I remember one of her sons last fall saying she took notes while watching television news. Probably not the best way to develop understanding of what's going on, although certainly a time-saver for a busy gal.
Oh, it was one of her son's friends.
Nice breakdown, Brendan, thanks. I also remember sometime in the spring when the GOP was floating Eric Cantor and Mitt Romney as possible party leaders. Remember the ill-fated pizza party in a Virginia strip mall? And who could forget Bobby Jindal? Boy, that rebuttal sure didn't do him any favors.
I think you're right: things will be up in the air -- no clear party icon -- at least in the foreseeable future. Nothing's really clicked with the American public just yet, and I'm just fine with that.
Heh, Eric Cantor. He'd be a complete clown if he weren't also such a nasal drone.
Whenever I hear that name, I still think of John Cole's plea.
The only thing you can say in his favor is that he's just a teeny bit less bad than Romney.
And oh, yes, the pizza party and the rebuttal. Good times, at the circus.
And these are the smart ones. Hard to believe "permanent Republican majority" was a phrase said seriously by so many just four years ago.
I think you're right that it's a matter of sitting back and waiting for something to click, because nothing these guys try in a proactive sense does anything but make them look worse. Absent some catastrophe happening, if I had to bet, I'd bet that the next plausible leader of the GOP will come from among those currently banished for insufficient purity. So, again, a matter of sitting and waiting, in this case, for the Real Conservative™ zealotry to burn itself out.
ArtSparker: that note-taking story is just amazing, if it really had anything to do with policy.
I can only hope for her sake that she was doing a little oppo research; e.g., thinking of comeback lines to whatever sound bites she was hearing at the moment. Or even better, if it was policy-related, something like "Ask staff about this."
But still.
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