Sarah Palin’s book isn’t out yet, but its impending release is provoking a new outbreak of Saraphobia. The usual suspects are recycling old cheap shots about her intelligence, campaign behavior, etc.
The weirdest of the Sarahphobes is, of course, Andrew Sullivan. Normally reasonable (or at least sane) on most issues, Sullivan nurses an obsession with Palin and her family that is nothing less than pathological.
The latest symptom of Sullivan’s pathology is his solipsistic credulity concerning a rumor that Palin was “obsessed” (yes, that is actually the word he uses) with his blog and wanted to sue him for libel.
I’ve heard it before from a source very close to her - a source who also told me that Palin was obsessed with this blog for much of the campaign. But today a Wall Street Journal reporter also came across that story, asked me for comment and is publishing it tomorrow.
Presumably, the source is one of the McCain minions who sabotaged Palin during last year’s presidential campaign. Or maybe it’s the ridiculous Levi Johnston. At any rate, Sullivan raves on as follows:
Since the only point of my asking factually verifiable questions about her deeply strange accounts of her fifth pregnancy was to get at the truth of the matter and resolve it for good and alla libel suit would only have enabled me to really answer the salient questions.
In the throes of his morbid obsession, Sullivan is utterly blind to the obvious reality that only his questions were “deeply strange,” not the accounts of Palin’s pregnancy. So, on he rants:
Palin believes that asking questions of a public figure that she doesn’t like is a form of lese-majeste, or insufficient deference. Now imagine what that kind of paranoid attitude would mean if she had ever parachuted into the Oval Office.
That’s right. He calls HER paranoid. This is a guy who writes post after post about what he apparently believes is a dark conspiracy to hide some personal secret about which no healthy person gives a damn.
Or maybe it’s all a sham. Maybe Sullivan is just using all these wacky posts about Palin and her family to goose the traffic to his blog. That would qualify him as cynical, but not crazy.
UPDATE I:
Speaking of McCain’s minions, Dan Riehl points out how ironic it is that incompetent buffoons like Steve Schmidt are talking to the media (including the WSJ) about Palin’s alleged shortcomings as a candidate:
Meet the losers behind the loser McCain … These idiots can look forward to running races for drunken Ward bosses and county sheriffs if there’s any justice in the world.
Meanwhile, Mark Steyn provides a perfect assessment of the “journalists” who have “fact-checked” Palin’s book:
The Associated Press assigned 11 writers to “fact-check” Sarah Palin’s new book, and in return the 11 fact-checkers triumphantly unearthed six errors. That’s 1.8333333 writers for each error.
And what errors did they reveal in their turgid prose?
She says she didn’t “often” go for “high-end” hotels; they say she “usually opted for less-pricey hotels”. That’s gonna make one must-see edition of “Point/Counterpoint”.
This kind of crap, as Steyn points out, is why the old media are dying. And, as for their Palin-bashing, anyone these jerks dislike can’t be all bad.
UPDATE II:
I guess we’ll put this one to bed with one last quote from Sullivan, posted today, confirming how untrustworthy his BS detector is when he has it trained on Palin’s critics:
Sources with access to Palin have indeed told to me that the Wasilla whack-job was an obsessive reader of this blog … I have no way of knowing this myself, and regard it as odd that a vice-presidential candidate would be hell-bent on suing a blogger …
By his own admission, he still has “no way of knowing” if this tale is true, yet he goes on point out how “odd” it is that a VP candidate would be “hell-bent” on suing him.
Anyone familiar with Palin, and Sullivan has obviosly paid A LOT OF ATTENTION TO HER, should know that if she were hell-bent on doing anything—-she would have done it.
This ”obsessed with the Dish” tale is obviously a planted fiction, meant to exacerbate Sullivan’s already raging Sarahphobia and keep him relaying the proper talking points to his credulous readers.
Comments 31
If the questions are so outrageous, why not provide proof and answer them? is that so hard? Or just go ahead and take him to court and get the facts out.
Is someone scared of the truth?
Posted 13 Nov 2009 at 11:00 pm ¶Ironically, John, you’re using the same “provide proof” argument the Birthers use about Obama’s citizenship.
Are you a Birther as well?
Posted 13 Nov 2009 at 11:30 pm ¶You are not making your point very well by quoting pretty reasonable language from Andrew Sullivan while describing it as “raving” or “rants”. Andrew Sullivan’s questions have been legitimate ones that would be asked of any politician, and Palin’s responses, or lack of them, have been inexcusable for someone who was so potentially close to our highest office.
Posted 13 Nov 2009 at 11:55 pm ¶Sullivan may have gone overboard, but his behavior doesn’t change the fact that Palin’s story WAS strange.
Traveling to Texas at 7 months with an atypical pregnancy was questionable to start with, but speaking after her water broke and then flying some 3000 miles back to Alaska before giving birth raised reasonable questions about her judgment. Equally important was that her actions seemingly contradicted the image of a down-home, family-oriented, working mother she was promoting. The problem is, regular, down-home mothers don’t take the kinds of risks she did without a darned good reason.
If she had reasonable justifications, she could and should have offered them. Instead, she clamped down, creating additional questions.
Personally, I don’t care if those questions ever get answered since, at this point, the questions and the entire matter are immaterial. Since being elevated to the national stage she has revealed more than enough to expose herself as a fraud. And that’s all we need to know.
Posted 13 Nov 2009 at 11:56 pm ¶Even Palin’s consideration to sue Sullivan for libel highlights her ineptitude with the rules and, yes, her paranoia.
Sullivan didn’t publish malicious, glaringly inaccurate statements about her. He was making reasonable points that the Palin people responded to unreasonably. Any politician, or any one who has ever opened a law and ethics textbook for that matter, should know that.
I agree with Jay. You certainly undermine your point with the way you frame Sullivan’s excerpts.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 12:04 am ¶The big hole in your argument, Unconvinced, is your assumption that Palin actually wanted to sue.
If you will read Sullivan’s post, you will notice that he provides no credible support for that claim.
It’s almost certainly BS.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 12:05 am ¶From today’s Wall Street Journal: “Discussion of Ms. Palin’s Internet strategy among a core group of advisers began during the spring. One concern, said a consultant who was part of the talks, was her frequent appearance in unfavorable news articles and blog postings.”
“Ms. Palin was particularly angry at bloggers and the media, associates said, for speculation that her baby Trig was really the child of Bristol, her daughter.”
“At one point, according to people familiar with the discussions, Ms. Palin considered pursuing a libel suit against at least one blogger, the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan. Ms. Palin decided against such a move because of the publicity it would bring.”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125813907900447449.html
Shame on the Wall Street Journal for their “solipsistic credulity”!
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 12:50 am ¶Well, Oregonian, I cannot help but notice that the “people familiar with the discussions” are not named. Now why would that be? Palin is hardly in a position to hurt them if their names are published.
It should be obvious that these “associates” are the same people who have been launching pre-emptive attacks from the moment they heard the book was coming out.
That’s why we don’t get the names. These are the same McCain staffers who sabotaged her during the campaign, and the book probably paints them in very unflattering tones.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 12:52 am ¶It seems that most of your commentators are going to be Daily Dish readers.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 12:56 am ¶The “associates” may be Martians for all I know (or care), but I’m curious about your standards.
Just yesterday, November 13th, you accused Andrew Sullivan of “solipsistic credulity concerning a rumor” when he cited anonymous sources in saying that Sarah Palin once considered suing him. But today, November 14th, the Wall Street Journal has published a story that also cites anonymous sources and makes precisely the same claim.
So have your standards changed overnight or is the Wall Street Journal equally guilty of “solipsistic credulity”? Inquiring minds and all that…
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 3:10 am ¶You’re repeating yourself, Oregonian. Go back and read my first response to what is essentially the same question.
BTW, if you are under the impression that the news branch of the WSJ is immune to “source abuse” you are yourself being pretty credulous.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 3:18 am ¶Hilarious that there are still (otherwise reasonable?) ppl willing to defend Palin.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 3:34 am ¶Palin who?
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 8:00 am ¶There is a BIG difference between the birthers and Sullivan. The birthers have an official Hawaii birth certificate that has been vouched for by that state, plus contemporaneous newspaper birth announcements. (Oddly, they have not asked to see Obama’s passport records, which, I bet, would show that in 1971, during the Nixon administration, and at age 10, Obama reentered the US on a passport identifying him as a US citizen.)
Not to mention the fact that Occum’s Razor tends to destroy the ridiculous theory that, back in 1961, Obama’s not-very-rich mother flew to Kenya (at 9 months gestation) had him, then had her parents put a birth announcement in a Hawaii newspaper as if he had been born there. Why would she do that? Makes no sense. The “he was adopted by Soetero” also falls under weight of the compleat absence of a single piece of paper supporting that theory. And it is all compounded by the fact that all the people who could say “That’s not what happened” are all conveniently dead — the doctor who delivered Obama in Hawaii, her parents, Lolo Soetero, Obama pers, and Stanley Ann Dunham, too.
Compare that with Palin. No one is making a factual assertion that could be proven false; Sullivan only asked questions. She could explain “When your water broke, why didn’t you go to the hospital in Texas.” I know the state is like 46th or 48th nationwide in health care*, but they do have hospitals. And it would be better to start contracting there than in an airplane somewhere over Wyoming, dontcha think?
And on the libel thing: notice that Palin has not denied that she wanted to sue him, or talked about suing him. Let’s see if she addresses it. I bet she won’t, because that would only make someone ask the same questions and make her dodge them on camera.
*and yet conservatives extole the virtues of the state . . . weird . . . .
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 8:38 am ¶Wow, you’re really in the tank for Sarah, huh? No one sabotaged Palin, except Palin. She was not qualified and completely out of her depth. Actual conservative Lyda Green said she was “not qualified to be governor, much less vice-president.” You chose to believe Sarah over her because Lyda Green isn’t as pretty.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 8:54 am ¶Unconvinced wrote: “It seems that most of your commentators are going to be Daily Dish readers.”
Oh, no: actual DISCUSSION of an issue…not a mutual-love fest in which we reinforce what all of us already believe in…
Palin has NEVER believed in the right of a journalist to ask (on the public’s behalf) questions she doesn’t want to answer. Which is fine; it’s her right to stonewall, flame, and cry to the base–but then we get to see what kind of person is asking to be our VP, we get to see her character.
Which for me was defined by this behavior as petty, vindictive, entitled, shallow and dumb.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 9:20 am ¶OK I am a birther too, if that would qualify me to ask her to release all the details of the strange twists and turns of her delivery.
No sane woman will fly thousands of miles after her water breaks. Especially if the pregnancy is at risk.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 10:01 am ¶“No sane woman will fly thousands of miles after her water breaks.”
The point of the post, Gregor, is that “no sane” person would give a rat’s butt what she did after her water broke.
Sully’s (and apprently your) obsession with this non-story is the weird thing here—-not Palin’s behavior.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 10:05 am ¶Hopefully by this time next year Palin will be back in Alaska being ignored by the media and the public at large. She strikes me as someone who is wholly intellectually incurious and factually ignorant. The only person who sabotaged her last year during the election is Sarah Palin.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 10:29 am ¶As Sarah Palin would phrase it, “And this has to do with Health Care how?”
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 10:40 am ¶Well, John, in case you haven’t noticed, Palin has affected the health care debate more (from a Facebook page) than the President did with an address to a joint session of Congress.
The reality is that genuine reform will still be needed when Obama fails and then gets the bum’s rush, and Palin may well be a contender for the Republican nomination.
And unlike Obama, who can’t close the deal, Palin has actually done things about health reform.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 10:42 am ¶“McCain minions who sabotaged Palin during last year’s presidential campaign”
You have completely missed the point. It was Palin’s responisbility to support McCain-not the other way around. However, if there is one thing that is true, Sarah Palin is all about one thing-herself.
Exposing her as the fraud that she is is what Sullivan has done and had Palin sued she would have lost because Sullivan has printed and asked questions based on evidence in the public domain. Palin could have answered them-but chose not to.
Palin deserves all of the scorn she gets.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 10:43 am ¶The birthers have an official Hawaii birth certificate that has been vouched for by that state, plus contemporaneous newspaper birth announcements
Wrong. Do some research and repost a corrected comment. Thanks.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 1:19 pm ¶NE Elizabeth: Wrong. What do you read or understand that tells you this statement is not true? Show us the research, if you can.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 1:58 pm ¶You’re “requiring” B-Rob to “prove” what is already proven is further evidence of birther-type condescension, paranoia, and hubris. If you know so much, spell it out here so it can be disproved. You and Catron deserve each other.
Congrats on the flood of traffic from the loons that nest at the Daily Dish, Catron! Too bad they were all birthed from eggs w/ thin shells and since Mamma Sullivan only feeds her chicks a steady diet of irrationality, ad hominem, and non sequitur I guess you can’t expect too much in the way of reasoned debate. (Then again, if you’re like some of these posters and believe that the status of Palin’s vagina is ‘fair game’, well, you were already pretty nuts to begin with.)
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 4:21 pm ¶ECM, you should have read some of the ones I deleted!
Fortunately, these folks only represent about 2% of the people who read this particular post, and many of the other readers came in from other sources (like Bloglines, etc.)
So, hopefully, the other 98% are a lttle more rational.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 4:58 pm ¶palin destroyed herself.
Posted 14 Nov 2009 at 4:59 pm ¶She was unqualified to be VP and if you listen to her fellow Alaskans, she was not a great gov. either.
She has a history of threatening people with legal actions when she does not like what they say.
Let her destroy herself. She has nothing to offer except herself as a victim.
@Diane:
Palin “destroyed?” I don’t think so. She’s winning from all angles. Her influence and book sales are sky-rocketing while your side is crashing and burning
SELF DESTRUCT: The Dems, with their corrupt practices brought by Obama’s Chicago thugs, ARE THE ONES SELF-DESTRUCTING.
Have you seen their poll numbers lately? They are all going south. Have you watched the President’s approval ratings plummet?
Posted 15 Nov 2009 at 7:26 am ¶Damn those crazed liberal commies at the Wall Street Journal!
Didn’t anyone else see the Katie Couric interview?
Posted 15 Nov 2009 at 3:53 pm ¶OK, Jim C, let’s try this one more time. The WSJ piece doesn’t provide any more names than Sullivan.
As the Riehl post and countlesss other posts and stories make obvious, the “sources close to the McCain Campaign” are the same losers who sabotaged Palin during the campaign.
Otherwise, there would be NO REASON for Sullivan or the WSJ to keep them anonymous. If their names were revealed, it would be obvious to everyone that they have no credibility.
Posted 15 Nov 2009 at 4:45 pm ¶NE Elizabeth: Wrong. What do you read or understand that tells you this statement is not true?
K.Kiley,
I’ll lead you through this in baby steps, which you obviously require. First, give me the link the document that you allege contains the word “certificate” on it, and tell me when it was created and which state officials vouched for it. Caution: No word other than “certificate” — exact match — is acceptable. Also, link me to the birth announcement with Barack Obama’s name on it. Again, his name MUST appear on it, no substitutes! Thanks again.
Posted 15 Nov 2009 at 4:49 pm ¶Post a Comment