I’m still a little disconcerted that Little Green Footballs, which I used to consider the biggest cesspool on the intertubz, is now an oasis of sanity compared to Fox News. There is a moment in the movie Game Change when John McCain nobly rejects the advice of his advisers that he utilize the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, but then signs off on the lesser evil of going after Obama’s association with Bill Ayers. Pailin is given responsibility for utilizing this attack and comes up with the “palling around with terrorists” line. Very quickly the McCain handlers discover that they’ve unleashed a really hateful and destructive beast upon the land as the Palin rallies become overwhelmed with racists. Things get so bad that McCain eventually declares that he never wanted to run “this kind of campaign.”
The movie is loosely based on real history but it’s still basically fictional. What’s real is the legacy.
There’s another point in the movie that takes place right after McCain concedes the election to Obama. He talks to Palin and he tells her that she will now be a leader of the party and she shouldn’t cede that leadership to the Rush Limbaughs of the world because they will destroy the party. I don’t know if McCain ever said anything like that to Palin, but she didn’t take his advice if he did. The result is that four years later Fox News’ readership is more racist and crazy than Little Green Footballs ever was. And that’s saying something.
It’s kind of amazing to think how far off she is from being any kind of leader in the party. so wish I could see the scene where they have to restrain her from making a concession speech, especially since I missed it in real life.
I feel like they reported on that in real time. It could be my memory playing tricks but I remember sitting in Duncan’s kitchen and listening to the commentators say that Palin wanted to give a concession speech but wasn’t allowed to do it.
You were in Duncan’s kitchen? must have been a great conversation, or were you all too tired to talk? John M’s concession is on youtube but it stops right after his speech, only one shot of Sarah P right in the beginning. A very very gracious speech indeed, and watching it I realize I’d never seen/ heard it. no teevee where I was working and we were all still at hq. OTOH got to see the Dixville Notch count with my own eyes which was overwhelming. All the international journalists were screaming their heads off as were we of course.
yes. We watched the 2008 returns at Duncan’s place. Hope to do the same in 2012, provide he’s back by then.
Sarah Palin is one of their most influential thought leaders. And it does pain me to refer to Sarah Palin and thought in the same sentence.
The hard right populists have been threatening to take over the GOP for a few years now. It doesn’t look like they’ll manage it though, Romney will probably squeak through. The Plutocrat faction still prevails although the “base” is tired of being used as useful idiots.
Is Charles Johnson even still a conservative? I know he hasn’t been a Republican for a while. I also remember when that place was terrible.
Well, if the place was terrible because of the commenters, I suspect that Johnson’s public break with the right a couple years ago drove all those people off to places like Fox News.
Charles Johnson at LGF started to pull-back from the abyss two years ago, as per this NY Times magazine article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/magazine/24Footballs-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all