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Samizdata quote of the day “During the ’08 campaign, the same media that reported breathlessly about an old used tanning bed I purchased to get some sun during the dark Alaskan winter, couldn’t be bothered to investigate Barack Obama’s associations, statements or even his voting record as a state senator.”
– Sarah Palin. It continues to amaze me how, whatever one thinks of her views, she is portrayed by a large chunk of our MSM as stupid or crazy. Really?
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“Whatever one thinks of her views” – most people (especially in Britain) know nothing of Sarah Palin’s real opinions – they know only the lies of the msm.
Just as most people (again especially in Britain) know nothing of Sarah Palin.
I remember the very first BBC report on Sarah Palin – it announced that John McCain had picked someone “close to the oil industry”.
In real life the truth was the exact opposite – Sarah Palin had made her name ATTACKING corrupt replationships between politicians in Alaska (including Republican politicians) and oil companies.
The media narrative about Barack Obama was a lie. He did not have a humble background – he went to expensive private schools (due to his grandmother the bank director), and went to several elite universities, due to wire pulling (not good grades) by powerful friends of the family. The fact that these powerful friends were also hard core leftists was also ignored by the msm.
Sarah Palin really did come from a humble background – but far from celebrating this, the msm just sneered.
Barack Obama also did NOT (contary to msm reports) campaign for ordinary people against corrupt big business.
To Barack (as a Marxist) all private business is outdated and vile. So he does not care if a business is corrupt – in fact he welcomes such corruption (as it makes a business less difficult to use).
Both in Chicago and Washington (see such works as “The Case Against Barack Obama”, “The Culture of Corruption” and “Gangster Government”) Barack (and his wife Michelle – following in the tradition of her Ward Captain father) got involved in every form of corruption they could – including seeking after huge sums of corporate funding.
Especially bank funding – for elections (see the book “Bought and Paid For”)
msm interest?
Basically zero.
Just as the media has no interest in Sarah Palin’s life long record of fighing AGAINST corruption.
And (as J.P. and Sarah Palin point out in the post) the msm also had no interest in Barack Obama’s life long Marxist background and associations (see such works as “The Manchurian President” and “Red Army”).
Since at least 1960 the msm have favoured Democrats against Republicans – taken a basically social democrat position.
However, what happened in 2008 (and is STILL HAPPENING) shows a dramatic change in the msm.
The people who were only students (or school children) in the 1960s, and now in power.
In the universities, in teacher training, in the mainstream media, in Hollywood, and in many established corporations (they did not all go into government jobs).
And these people are evil to the very core of their being.
Of course they appear nice at dinner parties (and so on) – such people are often very charming.
But there is no crime they would not commit to further the cause of collectivism.
The situation really is a bad as that.
And those of you who are now saying “poor paranoid Paul” will see that I am correct.
And you will see this soon.
I don’t think Sarah Palin was well informed, but that is a completely different issue.
Stupidity is pretty much incurable, being uninformed isn’t – as she now so often demonstrates.
I think it’s quite wrong for her to say that the media “couldn’t be bothered” to investigate and report upon Obama’s political history, statements and associations. They rightly concluded that it wasn’t in his electoral interests for them to do so. Quite a different thing.
What Mrs Palin calls the mainstream media has very little to do with news anymore. It’s pretty much all political spin now.
I saw a “news” report in a US liberal leaning paper the other day purporting to cover the story of Bill Maher using rude words about Republican women. (The story having surfaced as a counter to the Limbaugh “slut” controversy.) The US newspaper reported that Maher had called Palin a “tit.” This is true, he did. But the paper failed to mention that he’d also called her a cunt and a twat.
It’s time to stop moaning about biased news organisations (except the ones you are forced to pay for via a licence fee) and just accept that they aren’t news organisations at all. Just the media arms of the political party they support. Everyone understands this in relation to Fox. They seem to miss the fact that it applies just as well to CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, the NYT, the Washington Post etc etc.
Sarah Palin could easily have risen to successful Presidential candidacy with minimal help.
To call Sarah Palin stupid is to proclaim your own gullibility.
What Sarah Palin really needed was for the GOP to watch her back… Instead of helping her, they realised her integrity would highlight how crooked they themselves had become, and so joined in to attack her.
She has the natural drive and integrity that should be a model for all politicians. (Though one minor thing she needed was a voice coach.)
That none in the political world forced a halt to the lies of the rabid media and false legal attacks on her as Governor speaks to how bad the rot is.
The whole western world needs an army of Palins and Breitbarts and it needs them urgently.
The voice is certainly a drawback for Sarah Palin.
Whatever you think about Obama he is a terrific speech-reader. He is a lot less impressive when extemporising.
It’s sad that voice timbre and tone should matter so much because it gives no clue at all about the candidate’s true quality.
Isn’t it strange that a handsome and charming male candidate secures many votes simply on these superficial attributes, whereas an attractive woman tends to be rejected by her own sex due to jealosy, and rejected by males because beautiful women are assumed to be bimbos.
John: it’s not strange at all. “Queen Bee syndrome” is nothing new.
The rest of this is really dog-bites-man. Most media creatures work on the assumption that “mainstream view” is a reliable judge for “correct opinion,” and tend to ignore anything that’s outside their blinkers.
But that’s not at all why she’s being rejected, John, it’s because of her opinions. If Romney truly held similar ones, and posed as much ideological threat to the Republican establishment, he would be rejected too.
I’m inclined to deprecate the idea that Obama’s a Marxist, not because it may not be true but because it’s irrelevant. After a certain point, all corrupt systems are the same: If all the apparatchiks and all the aldermen have their hands out, their respective ‘systems’ disappear in a welter of ‘for sale’ signs.
The central fact of the Obama administration is that it’s for sale, to the Unions or Wall Street equally: no principles, just a price tag.
Whoops: the above was in reply to Paul Marks comment about Obama being a Marxist.
As far as Palin goes, I believe she may yet take the Tea Party away from the Republicans (where it really isn’t a good fit at all) by encouraging the establishment of a third (some would say second) party. The woman’s not bashful, and not too predictable, either. And definitely not stupid.
Unfortunately, PfP, she’s not a libertarian either.
Americans were persuaded by their msm, and it has profound influence on everyone including those that might call themselves libertarians, to turn their backs on the woman who could have steered them away from disaster.
I know rational and fairly sound English people who get a faintly embarrassed look and laugh, with a “you can’t be serious”, when you mention Sarah Palin as having been potentially great for America.
Msm and its controllers learnt its lesson regarding the damage that can be done to the elitist/collectivist cause by even partial integrity, with Margaret Thatcher.
They are unlikely to let it happen again.
Laird, I can’t speak for anyone else, but, in all honesty, the most truly libertarian people I meet are almost entirely classical conservatives – like Sarah Palin – people who have a live and let live (provided you keep out of their business) attitude. I’ve found that those who are held up as pure libertarians – are only libertarian in theory, but anti libertarian when another’s liberty is given preference to their own.
When the libertarians can put 500,000 people on the Mall in Washington, that may mean something. Let’s remember that politics is the art of the possible.
A fair point, PfP, and for what it’s worth I’m a fan, too. But she is more of a standard-issue Republican than a libertarian. She’s less of a big-government sort than most, but she still has those tendencies. She opposes drug legalization (even marijuana), has said that she supports capping carbon emissions, and is pretty hawkish internationally. However, she is pretty good on most other issues, notably economic and regulatory matters, and has said she favors “limited government and limited taxation.” On the whole, pretty good.
PersonFromPorlock.
I watched that event (Restoring Honor), Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin and (as you say) hundreds of thousands of people (which the msm lied about – their lies being exposed by arial photographs showing the numbers of people were vastly greater than the media claimed).
I desperatly wished I was there – I do not feel the same about Libertarian conferences (good though some of them are).
However, Barack’s Marxism is important.
It means that he will betray his rich backers – at a key moment.
I should laugh – but actually I feel pity for them.
I am a silly old fool (as well as being fat and bald – the opposite of the attractive Comrade Barack).
I am so quick to rage – yet I find tears (and not tears of rage) comming when I think about the future fate of a bunch of corrupt people.
As I say – I am a silly old fool.
Paul:
Don’t waste your sympathy on these people. Show them your war face and stick a bayonet in their guts, and make sure you twist it before withdrawing it.
What Hmm said (both times).
Here’s why I like and support people like Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, or Newt Gingrich. They’re out there fighting!!! I don’t always agree with them on every issue but on the big one — the creeping diminishment of our economic freedom — they are there, for the most part. But, more importantly, they are out publicly and loudly calling bullshit on what the left is trying to accomplish.
Where’s Ron Paul? Playing up to his fan-boys. Where’s John Kasich? Ceding to the other cide the best of intentions. Where are all those who are supposed to be fighting the left? Writing thunderous articles for, umh, well, National Review. None of them willing to get off their dead asses and loudly and angrily decry what is happening.
Goddamit, give me warriors. Not preening politicians. Not a bunch of “in politics it’s all a trade-off” types. Not a bunch of “I wowed them at the last libertarian convention” types. If they aren’t out there loudly, publicly, and angrily fighting, then they’re useless, and I have no use for them.
Concur that Sarah Palin herself isn’t a libertarian, but no less a libertarian light than L. Neil Smith speaks quite well of her. If El Neil is comfortable with the idea of Sarah Palin in the big chair, I’m willing to at least think ‘er over.
I like aspects of L. Neil Smith’s work.
For example his taking of the word “propertarian” from the leftists – and making what was intented as a insult a badge of pride.
I took the word “propertarian” in my own D.Phil thesis (the one the leftists did not pass) from L. Neil Smith.
I also like his practical turn of mind – his focus on details.
The transparent plastic coins with a speck of gold in them (visibl to the eye – but not worn away by human hands) were what first caught my attention.
I would be interested in finding out what he thinks about the comming crises (I doubt he will have missed it).
Understanding a crises is comming is very different from actually defeating the left (in the sea of blood and chaos that is to come), he might well have tactical insights. Perhaps a way of avoiding a sea of blood – of getting rid of the bankrupt “United States” peacefully? If it can not be restored to a Constitutional polity (and I do not see how that can be done).
There is much horror to come (at least I think so) – but also opportunities, the possiblity of independent States and/or allianced of States.
Or perhaps something more radical. I do not know.
John K.
Why would I want to kill greedy bankers like Jamie Dimon? I do not kill people for financial corruption.
Nor will I have the opportunity – as their own “friends” will slaughter them soon.
People like Jamie Dimon have been wicked fools – but they are caught now, and most likely becomming a bit scared (“things are going wrong and there is strange atmosphere, I do not like something in the way my friend Barack is looking at me…. perhaps I should back Mitt…”). And they will get very frightened indeed soon.
I am a malcordinated gate warden – basically a waste of skin.
But if someone is able to help these people (corrupt bankers and their families) they should do so.
I mean that.
They are human beings – and they do not deserve what the left is going to do them.
“they do not deserve what the left is going to do them.”
Really? Why not? They are responsible for what the West has become; they are the Dr Frankensteins of the modern world. If their creation turns on them, is it not both inevitable and poetic justice?
They should not be looking for my help, even if I could provide any.