Palin’s book
No, I wasn’t one of those waiting outside the bookstore this morning for the official release of the blockbuster Sarah Palin memoir “Going Rogue: An American Life.” In fact despite my recent words of praise for Palin’s redistributionist approach as governor of Alaska (praise that went unappreciated by her ardent admirers here), I probably won’t even read the thing. (If you want all Palin, all the time, see Andrew Sullivan.)
But I did read The New York Times review of “Going Rogue” (cue disparaging comments about the “liberal media elite”) and I found two things particularly interesting.
One is that “[t]he most sustained and vehement barbs in this book are directed not at Democrats or liberals or the news media, but at the McCain campaign.” Assuming this is correct, it confirms my opinion of Palin as someone who is highly focused on personal slights– in this instance from officials of the McCain campaign– while making a big show of how little they bother her.
The other is this quote from the book about Palin and her husband Todd:
We know what it’s like to be on a tight budget and wonder how we’re going to pay for our own health care, let alone college tuition. We know what it’s like to work union jobs, to be blue-collar, white-collar, to have our kids in public schools. We felt our very normalcy, our status as ordinary Americans, could be a much-needed fresh breeze blowing into Washington, D.C.
Even though I don’t think mere ordinariness qualifies one to be a heartbeat away from the presidency– and as I made plain during the campaign, the prospect of Palin becoming president of the United States frightened me– I appreciate the sentiment behind this. But I find something almost poignant about Palin’s reference to holding union jobs as one of the distinguishing characteristics of ordinary Americans. If only.
It’s the sort of comment that would have rang true in the 1950s, when about one-third of American workers were union members. These days– due in large part to Republican hostility toward organized labor– it’s closer to 12 percent. Maybe Palin’s sadly outdated belief in the ordinariness of union membership is colored by the fact that after New York and Hawaii, Alaska has the highest percentage of union members among any state– 23.5 percent.
Perhaps there’s even a connection between the fact that Todd was, in Palin’s words, “a proud member of the United Steel Workers’ Union” and the fact that until his wife was nominated for vice president, he never registered as a Republican. I’d like to think so.
I don’t know how proud she was, but it appears Palin herself was briefly a union member when she was a TV sports reporter.
At any rate, unlike so many other Republicans these days, Palin seems to have a basically positive attitude toward union membership. So I hope that carries over into her activities in the months and years ahead. Although it won’t make me any less frightened of the prospect of a President Palin.
Update: “Going Rogue” was published without an index, so Seyward Darby of The New Republic has helpfully prepared one.
Can anyone with a copy tell us what she said about Kid Rock on page 300?
Comments
| 17 November 2009, 6:43 pm |
“Perhaps there’s even a connection between the fact that Todd was, in Palin’s words, “a proud member of the United Steel Workers’ Union” and the fact that until his wife was nominated for vice president, he never registered as a Republican. I’d like to think so.”
Wasn’t he a member of the arguably even more right-wing Alaskan Independence Party?
| 17 November 2009, 7:03 pm |
Gene overlooks the fact that many on the right (including myself) regard unions as an essential part of society.
The problem occurs of course when they get too big for their boots (as they do, dominated by the left) and start trying to dictate policy
| 17 November 2009, 7:14 pm |
No problem with President Biden, then?
| 17 November 2009, 7:16 pm |
Off topic – David Irving emails at wikileaks
http://88.80.16.63/leak/david-irving-emails-2009.txt
“October 16, 2009 @ 12:27 AM: David, if and when you come to NJ, be VERY careful and vigilant. The local REDS and Z-gangsters are dangerous. They have infiltrated many peaceful, “American nationalist” discussion groups. ADL is VERY active in New Jewzy.
JVT
and some addresses from David Irving’s email account:
Z-Gangsters? Sounds very 1940s – people running around wearing Zoot Suits.
| 17 November 2009, 7:20 pm |
Todd S Purdum’s devastating profile of Pallin:-
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908
| 17 November 2009, 7:24 pm |
Wasn’t he a member of the arguably even more right-wing Alaskan Independence Party?
Yes, although I don’t know what the AIP’s position is on workers’ rights.
| 17 November 2009, 7:30 pm |
Gene
Gene
you are full of shit. You called Palin’s “redistributionist” politics “socialism”.
I am a big bad red, a socialist, a commie….Palin does not stand for the abolition of the Capital-Wage Labour relationship, a society without money and free access. She sure as shit aint gonna be on the side of workers
C’mon Gene, or give it up, eh?
| 17 November 2009, 7:35 pm |
Like Thatcher’s before it and Blair’s after it, a remarkable thing: a book written by someone who has never read a book.
| 17 November 2009, 7:53 pm |
Although it won’t make me any less frightened of the prospect of a President Palin.
Hmmm, I wonder if your knee-jerk misogyny towards both Thatcher and Palin would evaporate had they been blessed with more skin melanin…
| 17 November 2009, 8:36 pm |
Union membership is not in itself a virtue. They often takes sides with the fat cat employers. A little bribery will go along way.
When I was working for the publishers of Beckett’s prose wroks in London, Calder and Boyars, earning below the minum wages, The unions were infatigable in urging us for years to strike. When a situatuion arose which forced us to strike, the unions abandoned us, because we had not waited for their green light and went over entirely to the other side.Diuring a discussion on the subject of small increases, I was running to and fro from the swithboard, I heard Calder say, “Well, even if we increased your pay, you wouldn’t be able to live on it.” I was on a salary of £14, as switchboard operator but also of editor of books on music, for which I was not paid.
Meanwhile Calder was going on holidays to Monte Carlo and other luxurious resorts. I was taken to task for saying to callers I could never know whether he was there or not. They tried to avoid paying desperate authors, and I was told not to put through their calls. I did so anyway. This lot of employers prided themselves in being left wing Marxists. Of Beckett’s prose they understood nothing except the clink of money they heard in it.
After the trade unions in Verona, after again pressing teachers to strike at the Cambridge school, rapidly went over to the other side. After all the proprietress had said, ” How could she buy her fur coats and other luxuries, if she paid her teachers more.” I don’t know whether the union leaders were bribed, but I can’t exclude that possibility.
Worst of all were the Communist organistaions I worked for (including the pseudo communist Calder and Boyars above). They beat any capitalist for establishing a ruthless hierarchy There is one ex- but still very pseudo communist organisation I worked for. From them you would expect some kind of collective endeavour. Nothing of the kind. The are OUTRAGED if their teacher’s ask for a penny’s increase in salary. YOu are paid only for the lessons you actually do If you are sick, bad luck. No holiday pay over the summer.
They get an enormous amount of money from low charges for lessons, as they are supported by the ex-communist party, buy themselves flats, badly run bookshops. They have parties, whixh serve wine labelled with the images of Stalin, Lenin and Trotsky. I walked out saying that there was no way of fondly joking with those names.
Thes are partly relevant the thread bit they are testimonials. So I don’t know how much I can trust Palin’s socialism.
| 17 November 2009, 8:39 pm |
The case against Poujadist Palin is pretty simple
1. She says rural America is where real Americans live
2.She belives the world is only 10,000 yrs old.
3.She tried to ban books from the Wasila library as Mayor
4.She preaches against “socialism” yet as Governor she supported higher taxes on oil companies and gives all citizens a citizens dividend from the oil taxes at the end of the year.
5.The deer in the headlights response she gave when ask very simple questions like what was her view of the Bush Doctrine
6.Going around at every campaign stop calling Bill Ayers a domestic terrorist and then turning around and saying that people who bomb abortion clinics are not terrorists.
7.Palin claimed to have tried to divest government funds from Sudan when her administration opposed a bill that would have done just that.
8.She goes around denouncing Obama’s tax and spend policies yet she freely excepted the stimulus money for the state of Alaska when she could have done a Profiles In Courage and said “no” to the money
9.She denied that the Alaska Independence Party supports secession and denied that her husband had been a member when in fact the AIP is a secessionist party and Todd was an active member in the Party for years.
| 17 November 2009, 9:39 pm |
For some bizarre reason I assumed the subject of this post was going to be Michael and not Sarah…..Silly me!
| 17 November 2009, 10:05 pm |
Andrew Murphy: “Poujadist Palin” and your subsequent points are the best summary I have read of Sarah Palin’s beliefs.
Nick (ex South Africa): I agree, Michael Palin or any of the Pythons would be a better topic for a post.
| 17 November 2009, 11:05 pm |
1. She says rural America is where real Americans live
She was referring to the ‘Spiritual’ America.
2.She belives the world is only 10,000 yrs old.
She does not.
3.She tried to ban books from the Wasila library as Mayor.
She did not. She asked a candidate for the position of librarian, that she had held under the previous Mayor, what she would do if she came under political/public pressure to remove books. The candidate said she would keep them on the shelves. Palin (re)employed her.
4.She preaches against “socialism” yet as Governor she supported higher taxes on oil companies and gives all citizens a citizens dividend from the oil taxes at the end of the year.
That is not socialism.
5.The deer in the headlights response she gave when ask very simple questions like what was her view of the Bush Doctrine.
Just what is the Bush Doctrine, there are a number of definitions floating around, mostly defined by Democrats.
6.Going around at every campaign stop calling Bill Ayers a domestic terrorist and then turning around and saying that people who bomb abortion clinics are not terrorists.
Quote:
“There is no question that Bill Ayers via his own admittance was one who sought to destroy our U.S. Capitol and our Pentagon — that is a domestic terrorist. There’s no question there. Now, others who would want to engage in harming innocent Americans or facilities, that, it would be unacceptable — I don’t know if you could use the word terrorist, but it’s unacceptable and it would not be condoned, of course, on our watch.”
You state “saying that people who bomb abortion clinics are not terrorists.”
She says “I don’t know if you could use the word terrorist, but it’s unacceptable and it would not be condoned, of course, on our watch.”
7.Palin claimed to have tried to divest government funds from Sudan when her administration opposed a bill that would have done just that.
Thursday, April 03, 2008 Juneau Empire
“Gov. Sarah Palin’s administration signaled support Tuesday for the Legislature to order the divestment of Alaska’s public funds from Sudan, where thousands of people have died in the Darfur region.
Department of Revenue Commissioner Patrick Galvin endorsed a bill promoting divestment in Sudan at a hearing before the Senate State Affairs Committee.”
http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/040308/reg_264694274.shtml
8.She goes around denouncing Obama’s tax and spend policies yet she freely excepted the stimulus money for the state of Alaska when she could have done a Profiles In Courage and said “no” to the money
Anchorage Daily News March 19th, 2009
“Palin rejects over 30% of stimulus money”
http://www.adn.com/palin/story/729504.html
9.She denied that the Alaska Independence Party supports secession and denied that her husband had been a member when in fact the AIP is a secessionist party and Todd was an active member in the Party for years.
AIP homepage. Introduction.
http://www.akip.org/introduction.html
“Although it is widely thought to be a secessionist movement, the Party makes great effort to emphasize that its primary goal is merely a vote on secession, something that Party advocates say Alaskans were denied during the founding of the state.”
Todd’s support was partly because the two main parties have made such a hash of Native Rights, especially in fishing, land use, mineral rights and this being Alaska; the use of off-road Snow Machines (Snowmobiles to everyone else) and the Law enforcement community. It might seem strange but the Native Americans can still be shafted in this day and age, with the Democrat’s being the main shafters. The Alaska Inter-Tribal Council
| 18 November 2009, 12:05 am |
I don’t have time for the stupid and incompetent Palin. I’ve been too busy celebrating the eleventy-fourteen jobs created by the Stimulus right here in 765th District of Texas. Thanks, Joe Biden!
| 18 November 2009, 12:07 am |
Mesquito: I am glad to see you are giving credit to the Obama Administration for its accomplishments. (dry comment)
| 18 November 2009, 1:13 am |
Andrew Murphy is full of shit on the subject of Sarah Palin. Gene is too … but what else can be expected from a partisan hack?
But Andrew, since you have an internet connection at your disposal, please back up your talking points with some facts:
What books did Sarah Palin ban or even try to ban from the library? Title and author will suffice. How long were they banned? Who overturned the ban? Who paid for the banned books to begin with? Did the books have to replacement copies purchased or were the old ones in storage?
You have made an extraordinary claim, to you goes the responsibility of backing up that claim …
Now, for people who are interested in facts and not fiction regarding the former Governor of Alaska …
http://baseballcrank.com/archives2/2008/10/politics_the_in_1.php
… is an interesting read.
| 18 November 2009, 2:01 am |
Palin and the books
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1837918,00.html
| 18 November 2009, 2:19 am |
Palin and the books.
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving “full support” to the mayor.
I don’t think I’ve ever read a more ambiguous, unclear, meandering paragraph in my life. 1) Stein says something 2) Witness can’t be reached to confirm. 3) “New reports” say something, but can’t be bothered to be quoted. Whether they have anything to do with what’s at issue is anyone’s guess. I would say not, given the manifest biases of TIME magazine.
| 18 November 2009, 2:49 am |
Mesquito,
Ok, here is evidence from residents and a local pastor and an interview from a Palin supporter in Waslia that admits that while the story is overblown, Palin did “inquire” about the library policy of removing books.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZII0GjcJMus&feature=player_embedded
| 18 November 2009, 3:57 am |
“(If you want all Palin, all the time, see Andrew Sullivan.)”
Oh yeah, he lost all credibility when he propagated the sick lie that Palin wasn’t the mother of her son Trig.
This is akin to those lunatics who propagated that Obama was an Islamic militant born in Kenya
| 18 November 2009, 4:01 am |
When/where did Palin trash Unions?
Her husband was, until recently, a Union member working at a blue collar job.
Is this the new canard? “Palin the union buster”?
Like some Henry Ford reborn?
Come on….
Love her or hate her, this woman is the most honest politician I have seen since…well, ever seen actually.
This whole belief that somehow she is some demonic bigot and evil witch is slander by the media and her opponents who, according to an old nasty American tradition, wanted to burn her like the witch of Salem.
Now she is back telling her side of the story. Some will care, most will not.
But one thing for sure, she is no dunce as if she were, the media and the Left would not obsess about her like this.
Face it. She is the anti-Obama. And by that I mean, she is just like him in many ways. A movement candidate. If she does succeed in becoming president, she will owe a lot to the methods and tactics of the Obama 08 team.
At any rate, she is now the voice of a large section of the country. Larger than most think. And her scorn for both parties for their elitism is to be admired no matter where one stands on issues.
Before her there was Perot, Nader and Paul. All looked silly and out of place. They lacked the grace and presence of a real candidate.
Sarah doesn’t. This will make a difference. She brings a certain freshness to the debate and will contribute to it whether she wins or loses.
This woman is an ordinary person who rose higher than any would have predicted. And her ability to come back after the battering she took and the demonization she faced should be inspiration to all women who somehow hold back on their ambitions because they worry too much about what others think of them. Instead of being jealous of her for beating this fear, they should (and many will) stand with her in her comeback. This is what scares the Left. And this is why they try to pre-empt any of her efforts by calling her a liar again and parading that Levi Johnson character as if his weight would be equal to hers.
Seeing supposedly serous reporters and journalists juxtaposing the main characters of some story they concocted between a governor and the loser who knocked up her daughter as if that mattered at all shows how low journalism has gotten in America. Sarah P, puts up a mirror to that and they don’t like it. No surprise there of course.
I always liked underdogs. This is why I was happy Obama beat Hilary for the nomination. And this is why I will support Sarah P. to go all the way because as she stands now, she has nothing to lose. And it is hard to stop those who have nothing to lose.
What more can they throw at her? Pretty much the whole kitchen sink and the toilet has been dumped on her in 2008. Even since then they didn’t relent. After the election they still pursued her and wanted to destroy her.
Politics is a dirty game but I was shocked how silent the “feminists” were when Letterman made a joke about raping Palins 14 year old daughter.
Then again they also remained silent about the FGM and stoning of women forced to cover up in niqabs.
Good for Sarah. She will turn heads and will turn many things on their heads.
The same people who claim racism is behind opposition to health care did not shy away from persecuting and slandering a woman and her children with the most outlandish of allegations.
What does that make them?
And do they not realize how some people may have also noticed?
At this stage she will turn all that mud into gold and build strength from what was designed to demolish her.
Adding to that the fact that many compare her to Reagan. Perhaps too immature at this stage but Obama is starting to look like Carter more by the day. As there could have been no Reagan without Carter, Obama will have a lot to do with who he will face in 2012.
| 18 November 2009, 4:59 am |
When/where did Palin trash Unions?
When/where did I say she did?
| 18 November 2009, 6:39 am |
Gene
Remember Reagan, he won largely because of Unionized democrats unhappy with their economic situation. Hence the cliche “Reagan democrats”.
Palin has blue collar appeal. But I am not 100% convinced she will run.
| 18 November 2009, 11:58 am |
Only one question needs to be answered – does she believe the world was created 10,000 years ago or less?
If the answer is “Yes” she’s a nutjob and should be nowhere near the top job.
The earth is about 4.5 billion years old give or take, and anyone who seriously doubts this needs looking at.
| 18 November 2009, 9:59 pm |
Scotty
Her dad was a Bio teacher. She never said she denied evolution and stated in that famous Kouric interview that only Evolution should be thought in bio classes.
Many people mis-understand the religious view regarding creation.
Of course there are also the morons who take things in their literal meaning and end up believing nonsense.
I once asked an orthodox Jew MD how he dealt with the differing views regarding creation/life etc.
He said that G-d created many worlds, parallel and consecutive to ours. Hence the figures of 6000 years or so for biblical creation while not negating the fact that dinosaurs existed in “other worlds”.
Also do not forget that evolution has not yet fully explained human development. There is still no “missing link”.
Does that prove G-d? Of course not. But surely proves nothing is 100% true or full proof.
| 18 November 2009, 11:21 pm |
Armaros, we will never find the missing link you seek – because every time we find an appropriate fossil species, Creationists jump in and demand ANOTHER intermediate. “The God of the gaps”. In short, it is impossible to meet the demands of Creationists, as they are essentially illogical.
| 19 November 2009, 3:14 am |
armos,
Her dad views are different and Palin admits them, so you are throwing a red herring in this.
“I bumped into her once after my band played at a graduation ceremony at the Assembly of God. I said, ‘Sarah, how can you believe in creationism — your father’s a science teacher.’ And she said, ‘We don’t have to agree on everything.’
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/09/15/bess/print.html
| 19 November 2009, 8:56 am |
“Creationists, as they are essentially illogical.”
I agree with that 100%. I am no creationist.
But still the fact that no missing link was found cannot be blamed on them.
They are not omnipresent all powerful super beings after all.
They just jump over holes in science as evidence of their position.
But Intelligent design is not “creationism”. Einstein, Newton and Voltaire believed it, so do the Masons, the Jews and many others.
Still not proven but neither is the other theory.
I can live with questions without battering those who pretend to have found answers.
AM
What do you expect a politician would say at the Assembly of God church?
Obama stated at AIPAC that Jerusalem was the undivided and indivisible capital of Israel. Like that wasn’t “one for the crowd”.
Watch the Kouric interview, all of it not just what made it on TV and there it was. She stated what I quoted above.
Its silly.
Face it. There is a mad fanaticism among some atheists just like among the religious.
Sarah Palin is the Democrat’s secret weapon. She is so frightening to any voter with a touch of moderation that even here in generally conservative Virginia the successful Republican candidate for governor turned down three requests from her to campaign for him. If Palin is too scary for Virginians there are few states where it is a plus to have her campaign. “Rogue” with its attacks against the McCain campaign makes me wonder if Palin is not really a secret Democratic mole inside the Republican Party like in “The Manchurian Candidate”.