Palin Family Circus News - November 15, 2010

Flippin' Geez!

The Washington Post's Alexandra Petri may have written the best review of Sarah Palin's Alaska. It begins:

If real life were like this, to paraphrase a member of the Palin clan, I would be outside 24/7 eating popcorn on a chair. But instead, I'm inside watching "Sarah Palin's Alaska" on TLC. In escalating order, here are the top moments of last night's episode. I would say "I watch so you don't have to," but, actually, I urge you to watch. It's better than Dancing With the Stars!

Ms Petri definitiely has some insights to offer. My favorite was her description of Sarah the hairless bear. At the end of her list of the show's high points, she closes with:

Before watching this, I would have likened Palin, the outdoorsy, folksy, big-stick-totin' country gal, to Teddy Roosevelt. But after watching her climb, I'd say she's more like Franklin.

"How do we get down?" she asks at the end. I hope the entire second episode is just her attempting to get down! If so, it will be riveting television!

Regardless, I can't wait. As Sarah says, " I don't think that I have been that scared or that challenged in a long time."

You can watch "The Five Most Ridiculous Moments from the Sarah Palin's Alaska Premiere" here.

After watching that, how can Palin's fans continue to call her "Madame President?" Karl Rove appears to have been prescient when he said, last month, “With all due candour, appearing on your own reality show on the Discovery Channel, I am not certain how that fits in the American calculus of 'that helps me see you in the Oval Office’.”

And, from ABC's The Note, quoting a New Yorker article about the show: “Why she [Palin] thought that [a reality show] was a good idea, considering that she complained regularly about the media’s intrusion into her family life when she was John McCain’s running mate in 2008 (while, at the same time, frequently putting her children on display), is a mystery,” Nancy Franklin wrote in the New Yorker. “Moreover, you might ask, how seriously will people take her as a political candidate – a Presidential candidate – once she has participated in a reality show?”

I might add that most voters expect candidates to have a much larger vocabulary than "flippin'" and "geez."


The post's photo came from a Mail Online article about the show. Sarah doesn't really mush dogs, but it isn't a bad photo.


Update: Apparently Sarah's Fox News colleagues got a few chuckles out of the show:

Via IM

Update: The Washington Post's TV Column has ratings. It may have been a big night for TLC, but some other shows did much better ... Family Guy and more ...

The Very Useful Idiocy of Christine O’Donnell

By FRANK RICH
Published: October 2, 2010

... While O’Donnell’s résumé has proved largely fictional, one crucial biographical plotline is true: She has had trouble finding a job, holding on to a home and paying her taxes. In this, at least, she is like many Americans in the Great Recession, including the angry claque that found its voice in the Tea Party. For a G.O.P. that is even more in thrall to big money than the Democrats, she couldn’t be a more perfect decoy.

By latching on to O’Donnell’s growing presence, the Rove-Boehner-McConnell establishment can claim it represents struggling middle-class Tea Partiers rather than Wall Street potentates and corporate titans. O’Donnell’s value is the same as that other useful idiot, Michael Steele, who remains at the Republican National Committee only because he can wave the banner of “diversity” over a virtually all-white party that alternately demonizes African-Americans, Latinos, gays and Muslims. ...

... Election Day is now only a month away. The demoralized Democrats are held hostage by the unemployment numbers. And along comes this marvelous gift out of nowhere, Christine O’Donnell, Tea Party everywoman, who just may be the final ingredient needed to camouflage a billionaires’ coup as a populist surge. By the time her fans discover that any post-election cuts in government spending will be billed to them, and not the Tea Party’s shadowy backers, she’ll surely be settling her own debts with fat paychecks from “Fox & Friends.”

Click on the post's title to read Frank Rich's entire op-ed at The NY Times.

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The op-ed is worth reading for its background information about the Tea Party, and its surprise that Karl Rove, who clearly doubted O'Donnell's senatoriality and challenged Sarah Palin to demonstrate her chops by campaigning in Delaware for someone he considered unqualified, has changed his mind.

For a "local" perspective on the state of the race, see a Delaware newspaper's article, "Delaware politics: O'Donnell abruptly flees spotlight."

Mama Grizzly Is A Wuss

Just two days ago, Sarah Palin said, '[Karen] Handel would "fight like a mama grizzly" and help usher out the state's "good ol' boy network."'

'"Are you ready to elect a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, commonsense constitutional conservative, who will fight like a mama grizzly for you and the values that you hold dear?" Palin asked a cheering crowd in a hotel ballroom.'

Last night Handel trailed Nathan Deal, her opponent in Georgia's Republican gubernatorial runoff, by less than 1% of the vote, which would have qualified her for an automatic recount under Georgia law.

This morning, Handel skipped a Fulton County Republican unity breakfast and conceded defeat, before military and overseas ballots had been counted. "She's got a lot of things going on," said Shawn Hanley, chairman of the county party. "I'm not too concerned. A lot of her supporters might want to take a day off."

"Taking a day off was exactly what Republicans could not afford to do, said House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, when he addressed the 200-plus crowd of party stalwarts in the ballroom at 103 West on West Paces Ferry Road."

What happened? Why didn't Sarah Palin encourage Handel to count every vote? Paul Bennecke of the Republican Governors Association said that Deal's ideas are what Georgia needs. "[Palin's] choices in governors’ races have hewed closely to preferred candidates of the Republican Governors Association," according to a recent NY Times article.

Sarah Palin bowed down and kowtowed to the Republican Governors Association; Mama Grizzly sat down and shut up.

This post was informed by several articles, here, here, here, and here.