(Crossposted from My Left Wing)
Generally speaking, Sarah Palin takes a good picture. A really good picture. She’s got the gift…good bones, not too much flesh…and she’s got the chops. She knows makeup, knows how to dress and how to fix her hair. Yeah, I know, the hairdo is “outdated”. So’s her constituency. Nevertheless, she looks good.
In still pictures.
Mostly.
But up close and personal? Under pressure? Live? Her insecurites become as plain as day. Visually as plain as day.
You can see it in an occasional candid shot as well. Like this one.
And this one as well.
She’s got a mean streak. Look at the mouth. A barracuda/vampire-level mean streak. Especially when she’s in over her head. And she is in WAY over her head today.
This tendency could be really plainly seen in her ABC interview with Charlie Gibson from which the above stills were taken.
(If the above YouTube vid doesn’t work, just do a search. This interview is ALL over the web. Thankfully. And the YouTube version is being so heavily accessed that it tends to run pretty slowly. Hallelujah and pass the mustard.)
Read on for more.
I have often suggested that pols should be watched with the sound off to get a good take on where they are really coming from. Most big time politicians are so polished as speakers that their voices are almost hypnotic in their effect.
“Blah blah blah blah blahdidy blah blah” and there you are, in the voter trance. But turn the sound OFF and they magically appear in their true vampiric form.
Or…they are such a numbnuts frontman clown that the truth of their stupidity and incompetence shines through.
Palin is a little different. She’s got image. It’s only about as deep as a good application of makeup, but it flat out works in still pictures and it works in motion from far away, too. Like on a podium giving a well-coached and rehearsed speech.
But up close?
Improvising?
Nope.
Not even competitive.
Turn on the interview and close your eyes.
UH oh!!!
She sounds like someone is about to garrote her.
The tension!!!
Now…this is perfectly understandable. If she were appearing on a quiz show or had just won the biggest lottery ever and was making her first public appearance on the Jay Leno Show…well, of course she’d be nervous. What suburban soccer mom would not be nervous in such a situation?
Queen For A Day?
Please!!!
Unfortunately…she is not making that sort of appearance. She is instead auditioning for a position that includes having nuclear custody of each and every one of our mortal asses.
DOUBLE UH OH!!!
And she totally failed her audition.
Believe it.
She failed the oral…failed the aural, too…she failed the visual (Now turn the sound off and watch. Glub glub glub. She’s wildly trying to stay afloat. Glub glub glub. And failing. Glub glub. Down for the third time.), and she TOTALLY failed the content section.
She actually said the following!!!. Not some spinner or spokesman. Ms. Palin.
Palin said she had insights into U.S. relations with Russia because “they’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska … from an island in Alaska.”
Grade?
D-
I kin see my house from here!!!
Bet on it.
Proof?
All political appearances on this level mean nothing in and of themselves. Most Americans, in the words of Richard Rhames, are in the following position:
The depoliticized, disinformed, and disengaged American electorate twitch in their culture-coffins. Soon they will be urged to arise and plod across the dim landscape. Robotically they will stand in line to perform their ritual; attempting to hungrily suck meaning from the wizened and bloodless corpse of a rumored democracy. Then, still famished, they will return to their vaults. But the moon will rise again, and so will they — on and on.
So…how DO they make up what we laughingly refer to as their minds?
They suck at the teat of the media.
And what do the media have to say about Ms. Palin’s appearance with the surprisingly non-softball throwing Mr. Gibson?
Go to Google News and see for yourself.
So far…about 7 to 2 against.
Here are some samples.
At times visibly nervous, at others appearing to hew so closely to prepared answers that she used the exact same phrases repeatedly, Ms. Palin most visibly stumbled when she was asked by Mr. Gibson if she agreed with the Bush doctrine. Ms. Palin did not seem to know what he was talking about. Mr. Gibson, sounding like an impatient teacher, informed her that it meant the right of “anticipatory self-defense.”
Sarah Palin, who has struck many as a refreshing break from politicians-as-usual, seemed to do Thursday what politicians usually do as their horizons expand — moderate a previous position on a controversial subject.
By the same token, a close reading of what she said shows a lot of hedging on her hedge.
Sarah Palin’s first television interview since becoming John McCain’s Republican running mate attracted mixed reviews.
Mrs Palin has given only scripted speeches since her explosive arrival into the White House race three weeks ago.
Mrs Palin appeared to have been “well-rehearsed” in briefings from the McCain campaign, commentators said, but was occasionally “blind-sided” by unanticipated questions.
More from the NY Times:
“I got lost in a blizzard of words there,” Charles Gibson of ABC News said to Gov. Sarah Palin, with a trace of irritation in his voice. “Is that a yes?”
Ms. Palin didn’t look rattled or lose her cool in her first interview with Mr. Gibson, the network anchor, on Thursday night, but she skittered through with general answers, sticking to talking points that flowed out quickly and spiritedly, a little too much by rote to satisfy her interviewer that she was giving his questions serious consideration. When Ms. Palin seemed not to know exactly what the Bush doctrine is, Mr. Gibson made a point of explaining it — pre-emptive self-defense — and demanded that she tell him whether she agreed with it.
ABC News delivered the first glimpse of Ms. Palin without a script or a cheering audience, and it was a strained and illuminating conversation. Ms. Palin, who kept inserting Mr. Gibson’s nickname, Charlie, into her answers, as if to convey an old hand’s conviviality, tried to project self-confidence, poise and even expertise: She let Mr. Gibson know that she had personally reassured the Georgian president and correctly pronounced his last name, Saakashvili. At times, her eyes looked uncertain and her voice hesitated, and she looked like a student trying to bend prepared answers to fit unexpected questions.
Mr. Gibson, who sat back in his chair, impatiently wriggling his foot, had the skeptical, annoyed tone of a university president who agrees to interview the daughter of a trustee but doesn’t believe she merits admission.
When he asked her, slowly and solemnly to “look the country in the eye” and say whether she truly felt qualified to be vice president and possibly commander in chief, Mr. Gibson seemed to expect Ms. Palin to express at least a moment of humility and self-doubt. Ms. Palin said she had no doubts when asked to be Senator John McCain’s running mate. (“I answered him yes because I have the confidence in that readiness and knowing that you can’t blink. You have to be wired in a way of being so committed to the mission, the mission that we’re on, reform of this country and victory in the war, you can’t blink.”) Mr. Gibson suggested that her brash, unwavering confidence sounded like “hubris.”
Oh SHIT!!!
She done fucked up.
The RatPub countermeasures will of course soon appear. But like the metallic chaff that an airplane ejects when trying to confuse a heat-seeking missile that is on its ass…that doesn’t work all of the time. I cannot remember a harsher or less respectful general reaction to a national candidate’s interview from major media, and I do not think that this reaction can be effectively laid at the door of sexism, either.
Proof?
Sure.
Imagine that Condi Rice or Hillary Clinton were a VP choice. I am no Rice fan, but either one of them would have fared better in that interview. So MUCH better that Ms. Palin would not even be in competition with them. They reside on different levels of the public universe than does she, and I do not believe that any combination of professional spin and private learning curve will do much to help her.
She is out of her league.
She is simply not up to the task that has been laid in her lap.
And that is a GOOD thing.
Now for the other shoe.
What will the Rats do next?
Stay tuned.
A wag the dog emergency of some kind is looking more and more likely.
Watch.
They always have a backup plan, the Rats do.
Watch.
Later…
AG
P.S. Let me add a little something here. If the Dems do not have the political wisdom and courage to take this opening and absolutely destroy Ms. Palin’s position in the political universe…a possibility that on the evidence of their many hesitations over the past 8 years given similar opportunities seems frighteningly likely:
If those past Dem tendencies are accurate predictors for this campaign…and I see many of the same professional assholes in place now that I saw in the previous two campaigns… then all bets are off and emigration to another land is looking better and better.
We shall see.
Soon.
Bet on it.
Viralize this idea.
Please.
AG
I cut this pic out of someone’s flickr and used it in a diary earlier:
That photo is unedited other than cutting the edges of it. Take away air brushing and she is just your typical 40 something woman. I am not saying that is good or bad since I am a 40 something guy and, as repulsive as I find her personality and politics, I still think she is physically good looking.
Nice.
I think that we might need a sub-topic of some kind.
An antidote to the visual Sarah-mania.
Maybe with a title like “Ugly Betty II” or just plain “Ugly Sarah”.
Let’s collect all of the unflattering pictures of this nasty spirited faux “Christian” (I mean…can you imagine Christ’s position on war with Russia? Please.) and viralize them as well.
Why not.
It’s a spun election, and image is an integral part of spin. Let’s do some back-spin.
I’m up for it.
AG
I agree with you…neutralize what my mother is referring to as “the pecker vote”.
BTW, I had the same reaction to her body language and tone you did, but I was afraid it would go unnoticed by the rest of the universe.
Glad it didn’t.
Her body language was one of the first things I noticed – bent forward in the chair suggesting she just wanted to get the hell out of there – that she was uncomfortable and on the defensive.
It was all so forced…down to the over-the-top use of “Charlie” – it’s easy to see right through that as a desperate tactic.
That was my comment to curly as well – why is she sitting bent like that?
curly’s take was that her body language was agressive/hostile.
I also thought it was odd how closely they were seated, with it looking like their legs were almost entwined.
Moose hunt interrupted as Troopergate is fast tracked.
Alaska Lawmakers issue subpoenas for Palin’s husband and her aides
Doesn’t matter Artie.
The liberal media is picking on her.
The media will repeat the interview ALL OVER AMERICA.
We’re STILL ALL TALKING ABOUT SARAH PALIN and not the issues and not Obama and not McSame’s problems.
WE LOSE.
Bet on it.
Not this time.
Eventually even the dumbest among us wise up.
The shit is too smelly now, and people are getting…uncomfortable.
Watch.
Turning point time.
Watch.
AG
The veneer is coming off – now in public view. This campaign is soon imploding. They jumped the shark when continuing the silly lies of bridges, earmarks, etc. – the media(sharks) are smelling blood. The McCain campaign made the wrong bet when taking on the media.
We’ll see.
The GOP is still owning the news cycle. We’ve got to break through.
Right now it is more the media that is talking about her, and as we (WE as in OBAMA) make less of an issue of her that should subside in the media. Right now she should only pop up as a side issue in Blogtopia (skippy) to marginalize the merits of their incompetent GOP preznit nominee Bushcrack McLiebernuts.
Using un-airbrushed and less flattering photos the few times we ever reference her can be somewhat effective. It was not long ago that we were effectively mocking a piss poor republican candidate based on the fact that he had crappy photos. Good and bad pictures do make a difference on people’s perception of a candidate.
I’ll leave you here:Fret, Worry and Whine, but the Obama’s camp is cool
this is a mini round-up of what’s really happening reported by ordinary people. Take a deep breath.
In politics as in life lies have a habit of catching up
.
Flying distance from Anchorage to Moscow is 4,365 miles, Washington DC to Moscow is 4,858 miles. Thus, Palin has closer knowledge of the Kremlin …
Sarah Palin is a fast learner. Her interview with Charlie Gibson was further evidence that she has soaked up the neocon view of the world — if you can’t find an enemy, then create one. Russia’s response to Georgia’s declaration of war — it was Georgia, after all, that started the conflict — has been a blessing for the neocons, as it allows them to fight the cold war all over again.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."As I saw posted elsewhere: I can see the moon from my house. Does that make me an astronaut?
I gotta remember to steal that line. 🙂
Sarah – the five-minute media darling – will continue to self destruct. Well scripted, well prepped answers and in a cotton ball setting she blew it. Hey and let’s not forget journalism and sports casting is her major. Good at reading teleprompters. She blew it.
Soon the cocky whacko – that’s only a 72 yr old heart beat away from the OVP’c chair meme will take hold. OMG, 1964 – at the ready to extend war to Russia.
Has she read Putin’s thesis?
It’ll will become more apparent. Look to the next three weeks as McCain’s health issues resurfaces.
But that said, McCain is their man. These people are very good at what they do. Oil price is the harbinger. They’re being kept down. We’re on the brink of national bankruptcy. So, in this high dollar, high stakes campaign be on the alert for false flag events – an October surprise – as these rehashed old stories under September headlines are republished:
will continue to self destruct.
I agree.
She will follow the Britney Spears route from empty celebrity to laughingstock.
Only she will fall quicker because the spotlight is so thoroughly upon her.
As above, so below.
Bet on it.
AG
there’s a whole lot of dirty snow rolling down from Alaska:
Emptywheel at FDL finds a gem in the USAT’s article on Troopergate
Page 1 NYT via TPM: Once Elected, Palin Hired Friends and Lashed Foes
But it’s all snow flicked of McCain’s shoulders.
If the Palin trial balloon has sunk like a lead zeppelin, and McSame’s health is still (and always) an issue, Plan B is Israel attacking Iran within the next few weeks.
Increasingly a third war is looking like the only way the GOP crew can win…and win they will for Obama will be screaming for nuclear war along with the rest of the Dems.
We’re still telling ourselves there will still be elections.
Yes, they want to try this, but there are facts on the ground.
You would never guess it from the Anglo media, but America’s Georgia war was an important strategic defeat: At US urging, the Georgians attacked South Osetia and were decisively beaten by the Russian army. Several things fall out of this:
Russia now controls Georgian airspace. The Russians are being very circumspect about this, but NO military operations can be conducted out of Georgia without Russian approval. This means that Israel cannot use Georgian airbases, as they had planned to do, without Russian support, which they won’t to get.
Turkey is no longer on board. A key NATO country, Turkey is–in the wake of America’s Georgian war–very reluctant to be used as a base for adventurist military operations. Permission to the Israeli Air Force to overfly Turkey for the purpose of lauching new aggression gets less likely each day.
In short, Israel no longer has secure, friendly flight paths to launch this aggression.
Now, an attack is still possible but it partakes more and more of MILITARY suicide as the US position declines. It should also be noted that the US is desperately trying to keep its economy from collapsing until after the elections, and disrupting world oil markets will really not help with that.
What’s left? As you say, cancel the elections. To do such a blatant, illegal thing would require a very major crisis and distraction. The problem with an attack on Iran though, is it is too real–disrupting oil markets now would send the US economy straight to the bottom. A more dramatic crises with fewer real consequences would work better.
Maybe this is the real point of opening a new theater of war in Pakistan. The Pakistanis have announced that they will respond to the new campaign of US cruise-missile and drone attacks on their civilian population with all available means. It may be that the US is hoping to start a small nuclear war.
This would be dramatic, but need not shut down oil supplies.
It is plain that the powers that be are currently divided. The larger faction is not eager to wager success or failure on a single, last throw of the dice–certainly not this throw, with its absurdly dismal prospects. The Cheney faction holds the levers of power but are being stymied: They no longer have free reign.
From that OH so trustworty CIA mouthpiece, The Voice Of America:
Add this to the pot and stir until boiling.
From the Ottowa Citizen (and about 1000 other sources):
Yup.
UH oh!!!
Gulp!!!
A’sceered yet?
That’s the idea…
AG
first by air, then by sea:
and Costa Rica just severed ties with Taiwan to fall in with Beijing. Do we have any frineds left? Any.
As long as it never goes to a popular vote, the Poles will remain loyal.
I noticed right away that Palin has her right hand clenched in a fist through that whole interview. No wonder the repubs want to keep her away from the media.
She blurted out the neocon line on Israel vs. Iran. “We cannot second guess Israel when it comes to their own defense.” The freaking Israelis already have the green light. If they didn’t know for sure then that interview answered their question. Its the U.S. as Pontius Pilate.
Israel has the thumbs up. Its a bunch of bullshit. Bush and his religious puppet masters are now in the business of self-fulfilling prophecy. Armageddon will not happen but a lot of people here and abroad are going to suffer and die.
Thats the part that should scare you. That is a rehearsed line that we will hear again.
Well, she is not telling the Israelis anything that they don’t already know–of course they have neo-con support!
You are right though, Armageddon is meant to be a self-fulfilling prophesy. It was always so. The Christianists never believed in the competence of their god to carry out his own plans. And it was always an excuse to work for the murders they desired to commit.
The structure here is murder/suicide.
To quote myself again from another context (European Tribune):
“In the US we have the phenomenon of “suicide by police.” This is where some guy–always male–as a result of being fired from his job or perhaps from his own personal mismanagement, drug addictions, etc (it happens either way) having totally messed up his family, his life, and his prospects, takes out one or two from among the many automatic weapons in his gun cabinet, and a few belts and boxes of ammunition, and goes to the mall or some other public place and starts shooting strangers as they wander into sight until the police come with a SWAT team and shoot him down.
More or less, this is how the US will go out.”
Our fate may be sealed, yet mitigation is surely possible–and well worth trying! As Palin represents the party of Suicide Now! her faltering in the media is a good sign.
I don’t understand people saying we should lay off Palin.
Why? She is a gift!
She epitomizes everything the electorate doesn’t like about Republicans: lying, financial mismanagement, special interests, lobbyists, cozying up to oil companies, indifference to environmental concerns, tokenism, divisiveness, the pursuit of power to settle personal differences, lawlessness, and hypocrisy.
And then there’s the extreme religious views, and a smiling willingness to impose them on the rest of us.
Which casts an extremely unflattering light on the candidate who chose her to lead the country in case of his incapacity.
I must’ve missed that part.
It would of course be nice if we could ignore her…sort of a mini-NEWSTRIKE!!!…but her constantly featured position in the media (Both so-called right wing, so called centrist and so-called left wing media) forces us to take her seriously.
She is newsiness.
Let us take her seriously in a comedic way. She is ripe to be mocked right out of contention. She is probably even less qualified to hold high office than was George Butch Jr., and had the Gore and Small K kerry campaigns made a laughingstock of him the world would now be a better place. (Actually all they would have had to do would have been to cooperate in promoting Butch’s own tendencies towards sheer stupidity. But NOOOOOO…they took him seriously.)
She got so bollixed up by Gibson’s (necessarily appearing as) neutral questioning that she stepped on her own feet every minute or so. What would happen if Biden forcefully pushed a few of her dumb buttons in a public debate?
The Dems can win this election on one theme alone. They don’t have to discuss “issues”…of course they will, but it’s all lies anyway, all prevarication and bullshit until the election is over and the rubber of Obama’s real plans meets the many-pot holed road of DC compromise reality…but rather than talk about bullshit issues all they have to do is to paint McCain as a sick, old man who will not be able to take the strain of office and Palin as absolutely, totally unworthy of assuming the power of the Presidency.
In other words, although the natural tendency of politicians and political planners is to lie reflexively whenever confronted with a problem, this time all they have to do is tell the truth.
Duh.
The only complications that they would have face in an unaccustomed truth in advertising campaign of this sort? Besides their own devious, lying natures?
Palin is a woman (SEXISM!!!) and McCain is an old 71 because of his war experiences. (WAR HERO!!!) Both of these problems can be spun away if the Dems have their advertising/spinning chops together.
The questions that remain are:
1-Do they Dems have the native intelligence to see their opportunity?
2-Do they have the courage to seize it?
and
3-Do they have the political abilities to use it to their advantage?
Time will tell.
May you be born into interesting elections.
And may you not die from their results.
Later…
AG
of how it could be done.
From the Washington Post:
Timeline:
1-First she criticizes HRC for whining about sexisim.
2-Then she changes her tack once nominated for the VP spot and praises her grace under fire.
3-Which statement she then takes out of her stump speech because the RatPub yahoos boo her when she says it.
4-And then she drops it back into her responses to Gibson’s interview questions. This is not just flip flopping, it’s swimming with the fishiest of fishes.
And getting caught.
The only problem?
Who caught her.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz?
Please.
I mean…I suppose Rep. Wasserman Schultz has something going on but… she’s a young Representative from Miami. Where is Hillary? Where is Obama? Where is Biden? Get the BIG guns in line and blow this fool out of the water.
Now, before it’s too late.
The Rats WILL make adjustments. It’s what they do. Get her while she’s vulnerable.
Now.
AG
and in The American Conservative mag
It is 70% how you look, 20% how you sound, and only 10% what you say.
and she loves to have animals killed to
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQobIUE1zTU