new Sarah Palin book to enthuse over

Her cultural critique is not limited to "Idol." Palin praises the uplifting "It's a Wonderful Life," starring Jimmy Stewart, which teaches, she says, that "working hard and doing the right thing pays off in the end." But look, she writes, at Kevin Spacey's character in "American Beauty," who comes home and tells his wife he quit his job, blackmailed his boss and asks her to please pass the asparagus. "Message: Hard work is for suckers and brainwashed, brain-dead drones," Palin writes.

Palin praises "Juno," the movie where a pregnant teen chooses to carry her baby. "Most Americans, I think, are a lot like Juno," she writes — they may not be actively religious, "but they still want to do the right thing." She also likes "Knocked Up," in which a baby results from a one-night stand, and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

would love to read her take on "All About Eve"

Remind me to tell you about the time I looked into the heart of an artichoke.

Sarah is also a fan of "A Face In The Crowd"

Palin praises "Juno," the movie where a pregnant teen chooses to carry her baby. "Most Americans, I think, are a lot like Juno," she writes — they may not be actively religious, "but they still want to do the right thing." She also likes "Knocked Up," in which a baby results from a one-night stand, and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

rounding out palin's top five movies: ben hur, yankee doodle dandy, pootie tang.

oops. top six.

brainwashed, brain-dead drones

The big question for me about Rubio (to fill in my ignorance of the guy) is how does he play the fundie card? Is he adept at doing the nudge-nudge wink-wink that shows them he's a biblical literalist, rapture-lovin' fellow traveler, without the suburban soccor moms catching on? If so, then, is there evidence that enough fundies would throw Palin over the side in the primaries and move on to Rubio?

If Rubio can't co-opt the grassroots crazies in the primaries, then he's going to have just as much rough sledding as Romney had.

he already did! and now -- as expected -- he's backing away from them, gracefully (a miami herald article just after rubio was elected focused on him aligning with the GOP, not the tea partiers who fueled his campaign).

Rubio has never, to my knowledge, discussed religion other than drop "God" in a few speeches.

rubio and religion

In other words, bupkis.

AFAIK, the deep-dyed fundies would only trust an RC to side with pro-life on the abortion issue. Most would see a Catholic as basically alien and probably forsaken by god.

It's interesting that the link specifically cites that he attends a non-denominational church, which should play fairly well with the Rev. Schuler/Crystal Cathedral drive-in mega-church crowd - which is more a suburban, soft-focus-Christian signifier.

http://imgur.com/N42xc.png

take it back!

loooooooooool

"Message: Hard work is for suckers and brainwashed, brain-dead drones," Palin writes.

hey look, it's her career's thesis statement.

and go for someone as pretty and eloquent as Obama

so, not very eloquent?

Bam is about as eloquent as Mario Cuomo, and just as fucking useless

He's very eloquent for a 21st century American politician. Don't know what scale you're putting him on exactly.

golfclap.gif, to the both of you

I know virtually nothing about Rubio--I saw a bit of his CNN debate with Crist--but before you annoint him, has he ever faced a serious damage-control crisis? Obama managed to withstand Wright because--whatever you think about it in retrospect--his Philadelphia speech was more than enough to reassure his supporters and the media. Rubio will face at least one of those moments; every candidate does. Obama's cool during the campaign (which, as everyone will tell you now, is a key reason he's such an abject failure as a president) navigated him through a mess of trouble more than once. Rubio would need to have comparable skills in that department.

I tend to judge eloquence by results; thus, in November 2010, I give Obama a very mixed grade.

Eloquence is eloquence, and results are results. They're not the same thing at all. Casey Stengel won five World Series in a row...

I didn't say they were, only that I judge Appeals to Our Better Natures retroactively.

Okay...I see what you mean. Be consistent, though; one of Obama's Appeals to Our Better Nature during the campaign was trying to work with the other side. And that's one of the things he gets ripped apart for--weakness, naivete, incompetent strategist--here and elsewhere; I think you've done that too. You and everyone else may well be right. But, as I see it, there's a disconnect there.

Of course I don't fault him for trying to work with the other side. He underestimated the strength of GOP intransigence and the popular rancor from which it fed, and stuck with kumbaya long after he realized the public blamed him. Moreover, it's difficult to believe his version of a city on a hill when Wall Street owns his administration.

But, yeah, this is for another thread.

Fair enough. Before going back to Palin, though, can you give me a sense of how you think Rubio would handle a damage-control moment? I know you've followed him for a couple of years.

You're right: he hasn't yet been tested. When a politician as adept and ambitious as Rubio can straddle several camps at once, the test will come soon enough.

One thing I've always thought about Palin (not sure if anyone else has made this point on one of the political threads). On the one hand, she's clearly going to be a radioactive wild-card for anybody who has to face her for the Republican nomination, but on the other, I see her as the ultimate high-risk/high-payoff opportunity for anyone who steps up and says what anybody with half a brain has known since within days of McCain trotting her out two years ago: that she's a joke, and completely unqualified to hold any elective office beyond mayor of Wasilla. To do so, you'd have to be ready--temperamentally, intellectually, in terms of your own campaign's fundraising strength--for all-out assault from about 30-40% of your own party. But if you could hold fast and come out the other side of that, you'd be in fantastic shape for a general election; you'd have reeled in a large percentage of independents (who by and large recoil from Palin, I believe--and assuming such a thing as "independents" even exist, something someone on The New Republic questioned the other day), and I bet you'd even win over some grateful Democrats.

2012 - first president elected on write-in vote.

Note how criticizing democrats for not embracing organized religion is soon followed by criticizing Obama's old pastor. Sarah certainly lives a post-ironic existence.

i still say immigration is the wedge-issue for 2012, one that could cut against candidates in both parties, to be sure, but the newly-energized tea party wing of the GOP will not be kind toward presidential candidates who are "soft" on immigration. and that could hurt two key contenders: rubio and tex. gov. perry.

this will all end in a sex tape im sure

let's hope!

Rubio or Palin, I'm cool with that either way.

rubio and palin, how about?

Note how criticizing democrats for not embracing organized religion is soon followed by criticizing Obama's old pastor. Sarah certainly lives a post-ironic existence.

in Sarah's tiny brain Wright is a political firebrand and race-baiting charlatan, not a true Man of God.

which makes it extra funny that she takes up for Mormon Romney, because any fundamentalist evangelical worth her pillar of salt will tell you that Mormons aren't truly Christians. They might as well be Muslim.

with hon. thomas' wife dancing around them in a toga.

Has she out and out taken up for Romney?

joe biden, serious bro, u amuse me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhBYGX61zxM

xpost to PP -- not sure about that, but upthread it mentions She praises Mitt Romney, a Mormon, for not "doing a JFK" during his campaign for the 2008 GOP nomination, but instead speaking forthrightly of how his faith would inform his presidency.

i just can't see her doing that for any other non-Christian* candidate who lets their faith "inform" their politics. maybe i'm wrong...

(* i should note that i'm not arguing that Mormons aren't truly Christians. frankly I could not care less. both believe in magical fucking faeries and goblins and so fuck them)

Biden has always been so good in reaction to Palin. He even took up for her in '08 when there was criticism about campaigning while having a new baby with Down's.

I wonder if Palin is nominated and debates the president, if she'll ask him during the handshake, "Can I call ya 'Barack'?"

I hear you, will. I just know their camps hate each other.

may i call u NOBAMA

The brass neck of that woman complaining about anyone's pastor, when there's video of her having The Laying On Of Hands from actual Kenyan batshit insane Assemblies of God 'witch doctor'...

^^exactly

Eh, I admire the GOPs "brass necks".

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Cma4BbnihlY/SK4jOlrYBRI/AAAAAAAAABw/yFoJvFzSr_Q/s400/Alec_Baldwin%27s_Brass_Balls.jpg

Any time you post a clip of Palin, you have to take a moment to appreciate her cadences, word for word and emphasis for emphasis:

"I'm looking at the lay of the land now, and trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing..."

Obama ums and uhs a lot, I know--I'd say because he's actually thinking about what he wants to say, but leave that aside. Palin needs to learn how to ums and uh, which might spare her elocutions where she puts the emphasis three different places in about seven seconds. I'm also not sure if the discourse has any strong feelings about the prospect of her candidacy one way or the other. (I'll she concede that she's making a valid point there, insofar as her presence always poisons the discourse.)

Hmmmn...better watch the typos if you're going to be taking Palin to task for incomprehension.