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Aaron Sorkin

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In Her Defense, I'm Sure the Moose Had It Coming

Posted: 12/08/10 02:26 AM ET

"Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation."

You're right, Sarah, we'll all just go fuck ourselves now.

The snotty quote was posted by Sarah Palin on (like all the great frontier women who've come before her) her Facebook page to respond to the criticism she knew and hoped would be coming after she hunted, killed and carved up a Caribou during a segment of her truly awful reality show, Sarah Palin's Alaska, broadcast on The-Now-Hilariously-Titled Learning Channel.

I eat meat, chicken and fish, have shoes and furniture made of leather, and PETA is not ever going to put me on the cover of their brochure and for these reasons Palin thinks it's hypocritical of me to find what she did heart-stoppingly disgusting. I don't think it is, and here's why.

Like 95% of the people I know, I don't have a visceral (look it up) problem eating meat or wearing a belt. But like absolutely everybody I know, I don't relish the idea of torturing animals. I don't enjoy the fact that they're dead and I certainly don't want to volunteer to be the one to kill them and if I were picked to be the one to kill them in some kind of Lottery-from-Hell, I wouldn't do a little dance of joy while I was slicing the animal apart.

I'm able to make a distinction between you and me without feeling the least bit hypocritical. I don't watch snuff films and you make them. You weren't killing that animal for food or shelter or even fashion, you were killing it for fun. You enjoy killing animals. I can make the distinction between the two of us but I've tried and tried and for the life of me, I can't make a distinction between what you get paid to do and what Michael Vick went to prison for doing. I'm able to make the distinction with no pangs of hypocrisy even though I get happy every time one of you faux-macho shitheads accidentally shoots another one of you in the face.

So I don't think I will save my condemnation, you phony pioneer girl. (I'm in film and television, Cruella, and there was an insert close-up of your manicure while you were roughing it in God's country. I know exactly how many feet off camera your hair and make-up trailer was.)

And you didn't just do it for fun and you didn't just do it for money. That was the first moose ever murdered for political gain. You knew there'd be a protest from PETA and you knew that would be an opportunity to hate on some people, you witless bully. What a uniter you'd be -- bringing the right together with the far right.

(Let me be the first to say that I abused cocaine and was arrested for it in April 2001. I want to be the first to say it so that when Palin's Army of Arrogant Assholes, bereft of any reasonable rebuttal, write it all over the internet tomorrow they will at best be the second.)

I eat meat, there are leather chairs in my office, Sarah Palin is deranged and The Learning Channel should be ashamed of itself.

 
"Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation." You're right, Sarah, we'll all just go fuck ourselves now. The snotty quote was posted by Sa...
"Unless you've never worn leather shoes, sat upon a leather chair or eaten meat, save your condemnation." You're right, Sarah, we'll all just go fuck ourselves now. The snotty quote was posted by Sa...
 
 
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04:00 AM on 01/24/2011
If my evolutionary ancestors ate meat, why should I be expected to do otherwise? Did I miss some universal law which states that at some point, possibly the arrival of an albertsons produce dept, I'm morally obliged to stop consuming fellow mammals and stick to "beans"?
07:15 PM on 01/23/2011
It saddens me to think you, Sarah TRY to be incideous about the main Tea Party themes!! Scare tactics and the slaying of animals by you! The fact that you know something about the outdoors is not rocket science ! Many of us have grown up in beautiful areas such as Alaska and have learned to respect the wildlife, wilderness and the pure waters that are unspoiled because of the long journey down from the mountain top! Have you EVER looked at an animal and seen beauty, have you ever seen an elk, deer, or wolf that made you want to protect and appreciate rather than destroy?? Instead of thinking greed and compromising these magnificent creatures habitat by drilling for oil which we all know is your prime endeavor, ask your self do I want this to be my legacy!? Do I want to have this brutal destruction on my conscience or can I do what is right and join the cause to save our planet and all living things now before it's too late! Alaska, is our last frontier and contains many wildlife refuges and this could be part of your legacy if you could just say no...no ..more drilling...go somewhere else!
03:09 PM on 01/15/2011
At the end of the day I have to be on Team Aaron Sorkin.

Sorry Sarah but you breed hostility with every comment you make by only caring for your own self preservation. After all human nature is to act or react. You have mastered having most of the country react.

Being a user you abandoned the people of Alaska to adorn yourself by making money pretending to be a self imposed speaker, reality star and a political hopeful candidate. Note the word “hopeful”. Someone has to wonder if you were used to set up John McCain to not win because frankly dear you are not qualified to be even a play ground supervisor. It would be plausible you would trip a young child out of your own selfishness. Aaron Sorkin may have actually come up with the best description. Cruella.

To promote yourself in false descriptions including but not least an outdoor hunter concerns me that next you will be shaving sheep to make the thread so you can sew those boots together that you so desperately need. Another idea is you could support local proprietors and farmers by buying their goods. Oh.. wait.. then it would not be about you would it?

In as much as I would like to discourage you from responding to anything and go away I can’t. I will sit patiently because the one thing you are so damn good at is sabotaging yourself. You Betcha! (Wink)

Just call me Mom
02:14 PM on 01/11/2011
Mr. Sorkin, your tremendous insensitivity illustrates a serious ill in our modern culture. You are perfectly willing to allow animals to live terrible, terrible lives caged, yet you feel that hunting is barbaric.

I am no fan of Ms. Palin - in fact, I'm as far from Ms. Palin as can be imagined - yet, sadly, I find myself far from you, too. I cannot in good conscience associate myself with a person so willing to flaunt their ignorance of the wild and their ignorance of today's horrific agricultural practices, someone who wears their ignorance and callousness like a badge...

Just like Ms. Palin...

Perhaps the two of you find yourselves in very close company. Get cozy with her, because she is you, doing this for attention, callously ignoring the impacts.

I hunt. I fish. I raise my own eggs. I do these things, in part, because I recognize the evil perpetuated by a factory farming system that allows folks like you to happily believe that you really weren't responsible for lives or deaths. There is something in you that is missing, and I pity you for it, just as I pity Ms. Palin.
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elcerritan
My bio is not micro
08:00 PM on 01/14/2011
Amen.
11:01 AM on 01/11/2011
Mr. Sorkin I would like to politely challenge you to Google on "factory farming" and "youtube" on it as well. I mean this literally, with no disrespect, you are unaware of the issues you wrote on in this article. The deaths of livestock animals are far worse than what Sarah Palin's Moose experienced and as someone who eats the products of factory farming you are just as responsible as she is for the kind of things you were disgusted by. For the record I don't like Sarah Palin's politics or her personality.
05:43 PM on 01/09/2011
The way pigs, cows and chickens die in factory farms is far worse than anything Palin did to that Moose. Palin's gloating and happy dance isn't much different from people getting all smug about having a nice steak. I can't Sarah Palin's politics and I don't like her personality. I agree with you Mr. Sorkin that her hunting reflects a cruel and ignorant mentality.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Exactly702
SUPER DUPER USER
06:12 AM on 01/09/2011
YES!
06:08 AM on 01/09/2011
Aaron does display some hypocrisy here: why is the enjoyment of hunting that Palin is getting--regardless of her arguable motives--any less moral than the unnecessary enjoying that Aaron is getting by sitting in a leather chair or eating meat (I mean really, what's wrong with cotton on wood?)? But the question of whether her act was one of contrivance really draws the line in the sand, I think. Sarah tends to propose a self-image of a visceral (good word!), simple, subjective participant of life, in that she doesn't live in a world of abstract ideologies, but rather in one of getting things done and making things work. And I think most of us understand such a notion and find it commendable, even if we don't actually attain it ourselves (who builds there own homes here?). But the point is, whether the caribou was a victim of this or not, Sarah Palin is not actually that woman. Whether her politics are based on a real, person-to-person basis or not, she has never fared for herself in the wild I'd wager. She grew up in beauty pageants, high school band, and funded university, like all of us ideologues (I speak for myself). So painting herself as a survivalist, especially considering the millions coming from book sales and Fox News commentating, is sheer absurdity. And I'd wager that it is meant to build a new electable persona, if only she weren't painfully transparent to so many.
04:39 PM on 01/07/2011
Best thing I've read in years!!!!!!! BRAVO. Thanks for the truth
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Jrg Frei
01:44 PM on 01/02/2011
She used a rifle that was not zeroed in....a big no no
Her dad reached over, blocked her view, and reloaded the rifle while she was holding it.......tztztztztztztz...no no
She grabbed the second rifle, with the safety off, and placed her finger on the trigger while fumbling to get in to position.....bad girl
she shot up hill, against the skyline......a huge no no......all i know, there could have been a group of girl scouts behind that hill ,selling cookies.

ERGO.....they violated every gun safety known to man.
03:29 AM on 12/31/2010
Sorry -- Sarah Palin and her family LIVE off the land of Alaska - it's called organic meat and fish. I'm so sorry you don't agree with how she lives but frankly it's none of your business. The CARIBOU that she shot - NOT MOOSE - was killed humanely - moreso than a cow in a slaughterhouse ...
Since you do eat meat and use leather - I guess you have no place to stand in this discussion except to say that you don't like Sarah Palin or her family ... that much is understood!
03:05 PM on 01/03/2011
Palin doesn't live off the land, and neither does her family. Palin lives off of campaign cash, campaign-f­unded shopping sprees and the millions she's been raking in since McCain turned her from a failed half-term governor into a right-wing Faux Noose celebrity.

She's a fake, a phony pioneer girl, someone who kills animals not for survival or nourishmen­t but for political gain, branding, image, and possibly the fun off of killing another living creature. That was Sorkin's point, and he's right.
12:24 AM on 01/07/2011
It's very apparent you didn't watch the show where the Palins went hunting. It was made abundantly & crystal clear that the Palins use the meat from the animals they hunt to get through the Alaskan winters. Palin could have fed a third world nation with the meat she gathered from her hunting expedition and you would still find fault with Palin's Alaskan lifestyle of hunting to provide food for the winter for her family (you wouldn't fault all Alaskans, just Sarah Palin). You clearly have a severe case of "Palin Derangement Syndrome". It is a highly contagious disease that takes over the mind of relatively intelligent people who potentially could think for themselves, but it is contracted through getting all your information through television, network news, MSNBC and The Huffington Post.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
mamala4
08:02 PM on 01/11/2011
Palin does NOT live off the the land of Alaska....she lives off of people who worship her ignorance.
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CateManhattan
Common sense is way too uncommon.
01:34 PM on 01/14/2011
Yeh, but they are all GOP and tea partiers . . . so let her take their money and run!!!! LOL Sarah is grifting the GOP and tea party!! Joke's on them!!!! Go Sarah, go!!!
11:03 PM on 12/28/2010
Sarah Palin is unkind. Send her light. She has a very dark heart.
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PaganDancer
Photographer, artist, dancer, dreamer, astronomer.
07:37 PM on 12/27/2010
Big difference between my wearing leather shoes, or eating a steak. I do it because I need shoes that last, and I'm hungry. I'm not doing it to garner fans from the lowbrows.
04:11 PM on 12/26/2010
It was a karibu and not real bright- Palin missed the shot the first 10 times- then when a fellow hunter hander her a high power rifle w/ scope, she hit it. Still, I'm not a big hunting fan. We've destroyed too many natural resources and wildlife. Tragic mistake.
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CateManhattan
Common sense is way too uncommon.
01:38 PM on 01/14/2011
Sure it wasn't hit by a marksman with a silencer to make it look like Palin could aim correctly? And how many other takes were done with no hits? LOL TV never tells the truth.
11:32 PM on 12/24/2010
What is on the menu for Christmas at your house Aaron? Turkey, pork, beef. Do you know where your food comes from? Every critter you serve up tomorrow has been killed by someone.
Just not you.
You wouldn't be able to feed your family on your own as you have no stomach for the hunt.
I myself will feast on bison, elk, and antelope - all shot and killed in my hometown - as well as some bacon from a 4H pig that was slaughtered by a 12 year-old after last summer's county fair. MMMMM.
Maybe you're the guy who gets the tofurkey... and some good blow
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axollot
....
09:40 AM on 12/28/2010
Read the article.
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Maliengus
Go vote! It will make you feel big and strong.
06:24 PM on 12/31/2010
Jholerz -- like axollot says -- read the article. READ IT. THINK ABOUT THE WORDS. Read it again, think about what Mr. Sorkin is saying. Think hard.