Horrormirth: The Sarah Palin Chronicles

[Cain]

The book starts off slow and easy, like a Dan Brown novel for the simple of mind:

With the gray Talkeetna Mountains in the distance and the first light covering of snow about to descend on Pioneer Park, I breathed in the autumn bouquet that combined everything small-town America with rugged splashes of the Last Frontier.

This sentence always strikes me as jarringly wrong.  It's the second sentence in the book, so it kind of stands out.  To my mind, small town America emphasizes certain qualities (conformity, comfort, suburban living, tradition etc) which are not accurately reflected on a frontier of any sort (where life is dangerous, uncertain and hard).  Of course, I know she is referring to Alaska as the Last Frontier, because it was the last to be made a state and so on and so forth, but that she, or rather the ghostwriter under her direction chose to use that contrast is rather revealing.  I think it tries to sum up not only how Sarah Palin wants to be seen, but how her supporters wish to be seen too.  With small-town America we have the not very subtle invocation of the "real America", as opposed to those fake bits of America which are on the coastline, and with the mention of the rugged frontier, we have adventurism and rugged individualism, two important myths frequently invoked by American conservatives for a variety of ill-concieved policies.

She also might have chose them knowing the contrast would be jarring, and thus drawn the reader in, but Occam's Razor says we should consider the simplest explanation, which is Palin is an idiot.

Ahead, on my right, I saw the Alaska Right to Life (RTL) booth, where a poster caught my eye, taking my breath away.  It featured the sweetest baby girl, swathed in pink, pretend angel wings fastened to her soft shoulders.
"That's you, baby," I whispered to Piper, as I have every year since she smiled for the picture as an infant.  She popped another cloud of cotton candy into her mouth and looked nonchalant: Still the pro-life poster child at the State Fair.  Ho-hum.

This small passage is disturbingly wrong from the get-go.  "Hey honey, I made you into a political prop.  Ain't you just the cutest little political prop I ever did see."  Bleh.  Also, thank you for pointing out that Piper was wearing pretend Angel wings.  As opposed to real Angel wings, one presumes?

A staunch advocate of every child's right to be born, I was pro-life enough for the grassroots RTL folks to adopt Piper as their poster child, but I wasn't politically connected enough for the state GOP machine to allow the organization to endorse me in early campaigns.

This will be the first of many attempts by Palin to paint herself as an outsider and maverick, even as she currently travels in the company of one of the deepest insiders of the Nixon administration (the anti-semitic Fred Malek).  However, she is not just an outsider, she is an outsider who is backed by the people.  Again, note the contrast between the organically named "grassroots" organization, compared with the political state "machinery".  Palin doesn't do nuance.

Since construction began in 1975 on what would become Alaska's economic lifeline, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, it had grown increasingly obvious to everyday Alaskans that many of their public servants were not necessarily serving the public.  Instead they had climbed into bed with Big Oil.  Meanwhile, in a young state whose people clung to America's original pioneering and independent spirit, government was growing as fast as fireweed in July.

The second attempt at proving her mavericky, independent nature (which is surely some kind of Informed Ability) follows shortly.  Presumably this growth of government weed (in the mostly frozen Alaska) somehow strangled the independent spirit of its citizens, since they all recieve money (ie; welfare) from the oil pipeline.  Note also Sarah Palin is not aligned with Big Oil.  Not at all.  No sir.

From what I could see from my position in the center of the state, the capital of Juneau seemed stocked mainly with "good ol' boys" who lunched with oil company executives and cut fat-cat deals behind closed doors. Like most Alaskans, I could see that the votes of many lawmakers lined up conveniently with what was best for Big Oil, sometimes to the detriment of their own constituents

Note: according to my own research, Palin was in deep with many of the "good ol' boys" of the Alaskan Republican Party, who were of course imtimately connected with the oil business.  For instance, she was considered for the position of Senator by Governor Murkowski, only losing out to his own daughter, and was eventually appointed by him to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, one of the most powerful positions in a state that, as Palin herself pointed out, relies on oil as its economic lifeline.

So yeah.  What we are seeing here is another discarded member of the elite, pretending they were never really accepted in the first place and playing the faux populism card.  Onwards.

I didn't necessarily get into government to become an ethics crusader. But it seemed that every level of government I encountered was paralyzed by the same politics-as-usual system. I wasn't wired to play that game. And because I fought political corruption regardless of party, GOP leaders distanced themselves from me and eventually my administration, which really was fine with me. Though I was a registered Republican, I'd always been without a political home, and now, even as governor, I was still outside the favored GOP circle. I considered that a mutually beneficial relationship: politically, I didn't owe anyone, and nobody owed me. That gave me the freedom and latitude to find the best people to serve Alaskans regardless of party, and I was beholden only to those who hired me-the people of Alaska.

See above.  This is a pretty massive lie, when you consider the above information.

I punched the green phone icon and answered hopefully, "This is Sarah."
It was Senator John McCain, asking if I wanted to help him change history.

The famed time traveller John McCain? OMG

I got to thinking: I had seen eagles and dragonflies and ptarmigan fly, but I had never seen a person fly. That didn't make any sense to me. Hadn't anyone ever tried it before? Why couldn't someone just propel herself up into the air and get it done?"

Unfortunately, this isn't an anecdote from a time when Palin got really, really high, but from when she was a kid.  However, the fact you could still imagine her saying it now really says it all, doesn't it?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Ow my brain

[Cain]

Blame LMNO.  He wanted a review, and now he is going to get one, in mind-numbing detail.

[LMNO]

This will be handy for when I go to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned -- it will numb my face to any sort of pain.

[Thurnez Isa]

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheYoungTurks#p/u/90/ZfLkKgLxGAs

watch the last two or three minutes... youll love it...

[Thurnez Isa]

I got to thinking: I had seen eagles and dragonflies and ptarmigan fly, but I had never seen a person fly. That didn't make any sense to me. Hadn't anyone ever tried it before? Why couldn't someone just propel herself up into the air and get it done?"

WTF is she talking about here?
Is this like life reinsurance for idiots?
Why would the ghost writing even include this inane rambling?
Is this the best she gave him?
I don't understand

[Mangrove]

Ouch.

I believe all the time you spent reading Kennth Grant prepared you for this.

[evil_goat]

I got to thinking: I had seen eagles and dragonflies and ptarmigan fly, but I had never seen a person fly. That didn't make any sense to me. Hadn't anyone ever tried it before? Why couldn't someone just propel herself up into the air and get it done?"

Whoever wrote this must have been wasted.  It doesn't make sense to me?  Why can't I fly when my frikkin' bones aren't hollow and I don't have wings? Why can't I just fly with my arms using mind power?  I think Sarah must have been on acid for a while, just like Bush used to be an alcoholic.

[Freeky]

I got to thinking: I had seen eagles and dragonflies and ptarmigan fly, but I had never seen a person fly. That didn't make any sense to me. Hadn't anyone ever tried it before? Why couldn't someone just propel herself up into the air and get it done?"

Whoever wrote this must have been wasted.  It doesn't make sense to me?  Why can't I fly when my frikkin' bones aren't hollow and I don't have wings? Why can't I just fly with my arms using mind power?  I think Sarah must have been on acid for a while, just like Bush used to be an alcoholic.

She might just be mentally challenged and is hiding it well.

[Thurnez Isa]

like I said
this is the stuff that the ghost writer felt was good enough to include
Can you imagine the shit that was left on the cutting floor?

[Freeky]

like I said
this is the stuff that the ghost writer felt was good enough to include
Can you imagine the shit that was left on the cutting floor?

No, and right this second I am thanking my inflexible imagination. Otherwise my ears might start spewing blood from the extreme aneurism I'd get.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I got to thinking: I had seen eagles and dragonflies and ptarmigan fly, but I had never seen a person fly. That didn't make any sense to me. Hadn't anyone ever tried it before? Why couldn't someone just propel herself up into the air and get it done?"

Whoever wrote this must have been wasted.  It doesn't make sense to me?  Why can't I fly when my frikkin' bones aren't hollow and I don't have wings? Why can't I just fly with my arms using mind power?  I think Sarah must have been on acid for a while, just like Bush used to be an alcoholic.

The excuse is supposed to be that she was like, eight at the time. But I've never met an eight-year-old who couldn't immediately understand why humans can't fly, and would look at you like you were a complete idiot if you posed that question to them.

[Cain]

Progress is slow on the Sarah Palin front, but I have a few more snippets to share:

The southeast Alaska winters are brutal. In Skagway, icy winds tear relentlessly through town. But I don't remember the winters as well. I mostly remember sunny summer days, playing dress up with my sisters under a wild crabapple tree. I remember community basketball games. And I remember arguing with the nun who taught catechism and tried to teach me to write the letter E. It seemed a naked letter to me, so I was determined to reinvent it. I insisted she let me improve it with at least a few more horizontal lines.

Sarah Palin is such a maverick she doesn't even obey the conventions of language.  I swear to God, her ghost writer is Stephen Colbert (remember at the Presidential dinner, the quip about McCain and the salad fork?  This is like that, but serious).

Grandma was a Christian Scientist who didn't believe in doctors or medicine, and believed that physical illness was merely a manifestation of the mind.

Coincidentally this approach is what most people would have as a health care plan under Sarah Palin, thinking happy thoughts.  They do say insanity skips a generation...

My grandmother Helen studied at the University of Idaho, then put her talent and intelligence co work as a homemaker, raising six active kids while working for the Red Cross and sewing costumes for the Richland Players. She worked tirelessly. My aunts tell me she was the hardest-working housewife they ever knew; they'd come home from school to see Grandma's bloody knuckles from her reupholsteting projects, back when they used hammers and nails to stretch the fabric co re-cover old furniture, which she volunteered to do for all their neighbors.

Well that gene sure didn't get passed on.  Palin the Quitter couldn't even hack two years as Governer.

The $7.2 million purchase became known as "Seward's Folly" or "Seward's Icebox." Seward withstood the mocking and disdain because of his vision for Alaska. He knew her potential to help secure the nation with her resources and strategic position on the globe. Over the decades, exploration led to the discovery of gold and oil and rich minerals, along with the world's most abundant fisheries. And so, decades later, he was posthumously vindicated, as purveyors of unpopular common sense often are.

Just as, decades later, Palin's genius mavericky-ness will be accepted and widely admired as common sense.  Who's laughing now, libtards?

My siblings were better athletes, cuter and more sociable than I, and the only thing they had to envy about me was the special passion for reading that I shared with our mother, who we all thought ranked somewhere up there with the female saints.

How anyone could write this after the Couric interview amazes me.  In fact, I am fairly certain this was written to go "HAH I DO TOO READ BOOKS LIBERAL MSM.  TAKE THAT!" because she repeats about her love of reading several times, yet only names a couple of books she has read.

[LMNO]

Bump, because the NY Review of books also took a swing at Palin:

Commonsense Conservatism hinges on the not-so-tacit assumption that the average, hardworking churchgoer, like the ladies at the booth, equipped with the fundamental, God-given ability to distinguish right from wrong, is in a better position to judge, on "principle," the merits of an economic policy or the deployment of American troops abroad than "the 'experts'"—a term here unfailingly placed between derisive quotation marks. Desiccated expertise, of the kind possessed by economists, environmental scientists, and overinformed reporters from the lamestream media, clouds good judgment; Palin's life, by contrast, is presented as one of passion, sincerity, and principle. Going Rogue, in other words, is a four-hundred-page paean to virtuous ignorance.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23532

[Cramulus]