I was totally unaware that Sarah Palin was Jewish. I also had no idea that she and her family made matzos out of the blood of young Christian children. This information is making me reassess everything I thought I knew.
More seriously, I have to agree with Rep. Clyburn.
“You know, Sarah Palin just can’t seem to get it, on any front. I think she’s an attractive person, she is articulate,” Clyburn said on the Bill Press radio show. “But I think intellectually, she seems not to be able to understand what’s going on here.”
Payback is a bitch, and I love that he called her articulate. I love it not because it’s true but because it’s the kind of thing people like Sarah Palin say about black people who don’t fit their prejudices. Also, too, Clyburn is right that Palin is too dumb to understand why she’s been criticized for putting crosshairs on a congresswomen who later got shot in the face.
Heh, nailed it. I had to call out my grandmother one time when she said this black doctor was “so refined.” She’s not a racist person, and she’s solid “spread the wealth around,” but some of those things still seep through.
It’s a little harsh to come down on your grannie, raised as she was in the 1930s (guessing here). Attitudes change, but we are what we were made to be. We cannot hold the persons of Lincoln’s time to today’s standards. By our standards today, Lincoln would be a vicious racist.
Yeah I wasn’t harsh, I just pointed it out and she was like, “Oh I didn’t know.” She appreciates it when I do; she was born in the 40’s I think.
You know, it’s really interesting that whenever a white person comments that a black person is well educated, refined, articulate, etc., some people automatically insert “for a black person” between the lines. Context is everything. If she said, or meant “that black man is so refined”, or “he’s so refined for a black man” that’s one thing, but it is possible to comment on how refined someone is independently of what race they are.
I referred to Barack Obama as “so articulate”, and “so well-spoken” numerous times. It wasn’t about his race at all. I was comparing him to George Bush. It would have been completely inappropriate to call me out for that.
As snark, the “articulate” jab may have been to subtle for Palin and her
worshiperscult folowers to get.I watched her snide, self-serving video this morning. Clyburn’s right; Sarah will never get it. As long as she views the world through her “me-colored” prism, nothing will change her attitude. Sad to say, she is willfully ignorant and couldn’t understand the meaning of empathy or sympathy if they were written on the palms of her hands. And as for acknowleging that she has any responsibility for contributing to an environment of hate: sputter, gasp, horrors! Not her. She’s just embracing her American values and right to Free Speech.
Yes, I have also read that “blood libel” is the New Phrase of the Right. Too bad most of them don’t know what it means.
she…couldn’t understand the meaning of empathy or sympathy if they were written on the palms of her hands.“
The woman is a pretty classic example of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, not to mention that she is a sociopath (the two generally go hand in hand).
This is kind of dumb. I’ll accept that a substantial number of national politicians are a bit screwy. Something is very wrong with John McCain. But calling her a sociopath? Personally I think she’s actually an extremely ordinary person: a narrow-minded, largely illiterate partisan who happens to think she’s special, and who’s lucked into a lifestyle that confirms all of her most comfortable assumptions. She really is a mirror for many people in America.
I agree tbunny. she may or may not have Narcissistic Personality Disorder, but i don’t think she is a sociopath. she is an illiterate barbarian.
It’s not really dumb. The woman shows numerous signs of narcissism in numerous contexts. Inability to feel empathy is one of the key characteristics of NPD, and she exhibits that in spades.
Narcissism is so intertwined with sociopathy that it’s pretty hard for someone to be a narcissist without being at least somewhat sociopathic.
Narcissists are also often very charming and fun to be around, which I imagine she can be in a social situation.
It’s possible, but by the standards of remote diagnosis you suggest almost any television personality has apparently strong features of narcissism.
I just don’t think it’s a very useful thing to say without having actually observed the person one on one. Lack of empathy is a pretty sadly universal human characteristic. Plus she doesn’t strike me as likely to be fun to be around. She’s an entitled moron from my perspective. The fault is not so much with her as with the people who can’t see through her.
Agree 100% with your last two sentences.
As for the rest, I understand where you are coming from, and it isn’t a big enough deal to me to argue about it.
Just one thing, though. Narcissists are not characterized by a lack of empathy, but by an inability to empathize. In a lot of cases they can’t even grasp the concept. Others can understand the concept intellectually, but they cannot experience empathy.
I believe, based partly on my observations and partly on research, that empathy is hardwired into human beings (as well as some other species). Some people appear conditioned to suppress it most of the time, and people generally do not act on it every time they feel it, but feeling empathy appears to be part of being human. With Narcissists it is as if they are missing the “empathy gene”.
“she…couldn’t understand the meaning of empathy or sympathy if they were written on the palms of her hands. And as for acknowleging that she has any responsibility…“
These are all classic signs of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and sociopathy. So is a lot of her other behavior.
There is a remote possibility that her ghost writer did this shit on purpose. Would anyone be spotlighting her predictable denial of responsibility if she hadn’t dropped an outrageous misuse of language in the middle of it? Well, yeah, a rant on dKos would have gone off on her sniveling but, would every lefty blog be devoting as much space to her this morning?
Just as an experiment, could we simply ignore her for a month?
Ignore her? Us? Here? How would that cause her to go away? The entire left blogosphere could ignore her and it would have two effects: the media would start talking about how the left blogosphere is ignoring Sarah Palin’s arguments, and she would get increasingly incendiary in her language. Her whole shtick is to not be ignored — just like Michelle Bachmann, Virginia Foxx, Steve King, and Pete King. The more incendiary the better. It’s not about punching liberals as much as it is about posturing as “strong and principled” to their base.
Palin would invent a fabricated liberal attack in order to appeal to her base.
That said. A moratorium on consideration of any GOP crazies for a month on BooMan Tribune would be an interesting experiment in self-discipline.
They know what they are doing. They know that the media will go bananas about that one infelicitous phrase. Result? Discussion ends up being about how left “irrationally” hates Palin, rather than about why Palin is such a megalomaniac that she thinks we need to hear from her at all.
Well done by Rep. Clyburn. I think though that the constant and nearly monopolistic attention on Palin regarding the cross hairs on the map is a bit too much when her Tea Party opponent did this:
Giffords Opponent Had M16 Shooting Event, ‘Help Remove Gabrielle Giffords From Office’
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/01/flashback-giffords-opponent-had-m16-shooting-event-help-r
emove-gabrielle-giffords-from-office.php
Nonetheless, here we are talking about her. She stays in the public eye. I’d say mission accomplished.
Good point. Her mass communications degree taught her one thing. People cannot avoid staring at a train wreck.
Gabby is Jewish.
This is the fact that I have focused since her ‘blood libel’ comment appeared.
I do not think whomever wrote the statement was either unaware of its meaning or of the fact that Rep Giffords is the first female Jewish Representative in the History of the United States.
I also do not think Sarah Palin was the least bit unaware of what the term means.
She, and her pal Judson Phillips know exactly what they are doing and why they are saying the things they say. It’s time they be truly held accountable and not only by bloggers.
Rep Giffords is the first female Jewish Representative in the History of the United States.
The first female Jewish Representative from Arizona. There have been others in other states–Bella Abzug is the first to come to mind.
Correct – meant Arizona.
Now, Bella and Gabby might both be Jewish women but the similarity stops there.
Jim Clyburn is the brightest spot in South Carolina politics of the moment.
This is the most concise, on target response to Palin’s egomania that I have seen today. Great job, BooMan.
I’ll ask the question. WHY DOES SHE MATTER? If the media would just stop hanging on her every word, she’d go away. This moron is on every blog today, every newspaper and most TV stations. Why??? She holds no office, isn’t running for one yet, has no real job except for popping up on FAUX once in a while. her TV show isn’t going to be renewed.
I must be a moron myself because I just don’t get this nationwide fascination with an idiot.
She’s pretty, both men and women like her, she’s pretty, and she can raise tons of money as America’s Sweetheart/tough cookie.
Did I mention that she’s pretty? If she looked like Bella Abzug, would we even still be talking about Palin?
LOL. AND know what? she’s pretty.
No, she is NOT pretty. You look at her and you see the corruption.
Turds in the moonlight shine in a spectral way. But they are still turds.
She’s not that pretty. No one is.
Oh, that sounds so harsh.
As Barack might say: “She’s pretty enough.”
Nah, just expressing my opinion. I don’t think anyone is pretty enough to overcome such serious flaws in character and intellect. And that VOICE! My god, it’s like fingernails on a chalk board (does anyone else remember chalk boards?). A friend of mine met her while he was on a speaking tour in Alaska and said it’s every bit as irritating in person as it is on TV.
Hurria,
These are some of my girlfriends.
They are “pretty”, but their hearts are just beautiful.
That`s where the difference lies.
Now THAT’s pretty!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011107063.html
In the 1970s, the US District Court ordered both Charlotte-Mecklenberg and Wake County to desegregate through busing. The leadership of both cities, led by the local Chambers of Commerce, developed plans that met the court’s objectives, satisfied most parents, and soon got these cities recognized as success stories in desegregation.
In 1985 or 1986, Ronald Reagan spoke in Charlotte and made a specific point of criticizing busing, something that Charlotte had gotten positive response for and was key to lots of business relocations to the area. That speech was the signal for Republicans to use that issue and some religious-oriented issues to get Sue Myrick elected mayor and then later to Congress. Interestingly, the greatest support for this effort came from the Yuppie areas of relocated out-of-state (and because of IBM lots of New York state folks) people with college degrees. The Charlotte-Mecklenberg school system has been going downhill since then. And just this week announced layoffs of 1500 people because of budget shortfalls.
Wake County remained the most successful effort in the state until last year’s election. Although the reassignment plans had come under fire every year for the past twenty years. Again, this was driven mostly from the Yuppie suburban communities. In an ironic twist of fate, the new Superintendent of Schools hired by the Art Pope faction of the school board is appropriately named. He is a retired general named Tata.
Integration is a positive thing. However, there are many other issues with large school systems.
I feel that neighborhood schools are better from these perspectives.
Neighborhood schools work when they are ethnically and economically desegregated.
The distance issue is a plain out excuse. Rural parents think nothing of taking the time and traveling the distance from work back to their home counties to attend a PT conference.
Typically, it is the discriminated against group that takes the long bus rides. But the disciminators who offer that as a reason for re-segregation.
All county-wide school systems have large gas bills for busing. The ones that don’t have effective and inexpensive public transit. The mileage of the routes doesn’t change that much by re-instituting neighborhood schools. Unless you institute neighborhood schools all within walking distance of every student–and parents feel that letting their kids walk to school doesn’t present a danger. Many parents shuttle kids in their cars to “neighborhood” schools. This would require a reduction in the size of the school, even the elementary schools, in a lot of districts. And the building costs and extra administrative cost would more than offset the saving in gasoline.
Parents from less affluent neighborhoods are quite willing for their kids to spend a lot of time on a bus as long as they get a good education. And most find time to go to PT conferences. And kids have less trouble than one would think in changing commitments to a school – up until high school; then sports rivalries dominate school decisions for many kids.
If folks are serious about neighborhood schools, they would demand desegregation of neighborhoods by ethnicity and economic standing. Instead they search for the most “exclusive” neighborhoods. And no one bothers to ask, “Who exactly do they mean to exclude?” But in most cases, the motivation of parents is to not want their “precious” to have to attend school with folks who are different.
And who might beat them up. The latter happens even in well-segregated schools. I grew up in an era of segregation in the schools in a school district that consisted only of the county seat; the rural areas were separate school districts. One of the rites of passage going to junior high was for the folks from the “better neighborhoods” to be integrated with the folks from the “mill villages”.
And then when students entered high school, they were re-segregated, but this time into a girls-only high school and a boys-only high school. The high school band was the only co-ed institution in the system, and the major courier of messages.
Now, all of this complexity was in a small town of 30,000. There was a public bus system that provided transport (15 cents each way) to most of the students in the junior high and high schools. And those with means had cars in high school. There weren’t formal PT conferences; teachers would routinely call parents in on the spur of the moment, say for a conference the next day. And generally for a disciplinary problem.
A lot of the romanticism about neighborhood schools comes from folks who never went to one.
Do you yourself have children, BTW?
I have three. They all went to desegregated schools – in South Carolina and North Carolina. They are all grown. We had issues with the youngest because she was ADD, but we finally found that the art magnet school, which drew from the poorest neighborhoods in town, was her best choice. The middle child was dyslexic by graduated from a highly-rated midwestern liberal arts school.
They all turned out great and wonder why this continues to be such an issue for parents.
The big issue is that the interest and the money follows the kids whose parents have the large incomes. Segregation inherently means that the lowest income communities receive the lowest funding and unless a teacher is very committed also the less able teachers. And system efforts to change this encounter the same lobbying from well-to-do parents that seek neighborhood schools.
Big-city school problems (Chicago for example, which I know because of some friends of mine) really aren’t school problems. They are major and long-term problems of the effects of discrimination. Multi-generational effects, now going on five generations. And as a matter of practicality, except for some competitive magnet schools, most large cities have neighborhood schools almost exclusively. And you better know which high school sports teams are associated with which neighborhood.
The neighborhood school, school voucher, and “failing teachers” arguments by and large are a smokescreen for wanting to continue discrimination.
BTW, the Wake County Schools had major campaign contributions this year — for a local election. They came from Art Pope and Americans for Prosperity (which is an organization Pope runs for the Koch brothers). This is not an isolated incident. And most likely it is the model for local school board elections in any district that aims for diversity.
I’ve been LMAO all day everytime I think about Clyburn’s comment. He really is hilarious. …and I mean that in all seriousness. what a fabulous bitchslap at Caribou Barbie.
Like Kurt Vonnegut said “The trouble with dumb bastards is that they are too dumb to believe there is such a thing as being smart”
Gotta love Kurt Vonnegut….
Did you know he also came up with “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”?
Where’s the Wingnut outrage?
Displaying the Flag Indoors
❝ When on display, the flag is accorded the place of honor, always positioned to its own right. Place it to the right of the speaker or staging area or sanctuary. Other flags should be to the left. ❞
http://www.usflag.org/flagetiquette.html
OT, somewhat, but something you may find of interest:
http://www.seattlepi.com/dayart/pdf/20110112habermanncomplaint.pdf
He’ll be in court this afternoon being charged, as he should be.
The two bits that made me LOL:
and
Ladies and gentlemen, your revolutionary Tea Party.
Ya know what, I’m getting really sick and tired of these “people acquainted” with the Arizona killer all over the news, just saying shit, that there is no way of even fuckin’ verifying, and the MSM just reporting it as if what they are saying is the frickin’ gospel truth.
this is why so much mis-information is out there. Bryan Williams, Wolf Blitzer, Katie Couric and whoever else, should not be just letting this people come on tv, and not at least saying that NONE of what they have been saying about the killer can really be substantiated! It’s irresponsible.
Some dude on with Bryan Williams, with his faux-hawk talking about how he didn’t want to go on a camping trip with the killer when they were in HS or something…huh.. WTF! Who cares?
First of all, comb your damn hair dude, this ain’t some MTV “I wanna be a VJ” interview, your on nat’l TV, and you aint’ some teenager. Second, what evidence has he given that even begins to prove that he’s speaking even a remote truth?
None that’s what, and it’s just really aggravating a just so damn irresponsible, IMHO!
Wanted to add, that I have this personal pet peeve against grown men who where faux-hawks and eyeliner.
Sue me…snark
Good thing that’s not my hairstyle (sigh of relief).
It’s a particular (mostly young white male) subculture. Loughner’s YouTube stuff used metal (verging on death metal) soundtracks, that was who he hung with.
I’ve seen at least one winger site that was claiming Loughner was a liberal, citing his liking of a “leftist” punk band. I suppose since I’ve seen the TV show Frasier (the star, Kelsey Grammar, is a conservative) that makes me a conservative. Idiots.
You could just as easily argue that all metalheads or punk rockers are disturbed potential assassins. Somewhere, someone is making that exact argument, I’m sure.
It’s funny. I grew up with and was friends with the guys in Blues Traveler. Absolutely fantastic guys, and just about the best people I’ve ever known. Yesterday I was reading about a collaboration they did with Bruce Willis. I’ve always liked Willis, going back to his Moonlighting days, and I also knew that he loves and plays the blues. But he’s also a Republican. And I’m thinking to myself, “How can my old friends get along with the guy?”
But, you know, sometimes it’s just about the music. Sometimes it’s just about friendship.
Just thinking about when they decided to deep six the “Don’t Retreat, Reload” comment.
“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome tweet?”