The template for the perpetual Sarah Palin feud was set last Valentine's Day. The animated series Family Guy aired an episode in which a character with Down Syndrome said her mother was the former Governor of Alaska. From her platform as a paid Fox News contributor, Palin pounced on the moment to condemn Seth MacFarlane. "Cruel and cold-hearted people who would do such a thing," she said on Bill O'Reilly's The Factor. She also used the occasion to demand then-Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel step down for using the word "retard." When asked, Palin said Rush Limbaugh -- who constantly uses the r-word -- is "using satire."
Following Palin's determination of what satire is, the actress Andrea Fay Friedman who played the character with Down Syndrome -- who also fittingly has Down Syndrome -- made a statement to the press: "I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor...My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes."
So the mold of Sarah Palin's taking to the airwaves to blast someone using incorrect facts solidified. If she had just done a little Google research, when asked about the episode she could have graciously said, "I would be proud for such an accomplished actress like Miss Friedman to be my daughter." Instead Palin appeared volatile, insulting and ignorant.
During the same appearance in which she slammed MacFarlane, Palin also pronounced to O'Reilly, "Let's not call each other names because it invalidates what our arguments are all about."
Uh huh.
This is the same woman who refers to her critics as "jerks." Palin called CBS-affiliates "corrupt bastards" in the same week she called reporters "impotent and limp and gutless." She called the McCain campaign's Steve Schmidt a liar and in her book said he was "rotund." She called journalist Joe McGinniss a "pervert" and implied he was a peeping tom. She labeled feminists as a "cackle of rads." She blasted Alaska bloggers as "bored, anonymous and pathetic." She deemed David Letterman "sexually perverted" after accusing him of making a rape joke about her then 14-year-old daughter. And don't forget when she accused her opponent/enemy of "palling around with terrorists" and still refers to him as "Barack Hussein."
How's that not name-y because it invalidates your argument thingy working out for ya?
In fact, Palin is now our nation's only full-time professional duelist. She fights with everyone. Her entire post-quitting career is centered on flame wars, most of which she starts. They are often petty, sanctimonious, trumped-up jabs which do nothing but make the media talk about her more. And she's monetized the drama. She's gone pro. Yes, she's found the formula Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian pioneered: shameless and shallow sells. I'm inexplicably addicted to the show Jerseylicious, and if it weren't for conflict it would just be a bunch of frosted-lipped spandex-clad women cutting hair. Instead it's World War III in a rhinestone-studded turnpike-adjacent strip mall. That's what makes it a show.
The media loves conflict. It's easy to cover verbal battles. And so we do.
Palin has dueled with McCain staffer Nicolle Wallace; father of her grandson Levi Johnston; Ashley Judd; Karl Rove; Politico; Alaska teacher Kathleen Gustafson; Arnold Schwarzenegger; columnists Maureen Dowd, Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker; Reality TV mom Kate Gosselin; Ben Bernanke; Katie Couric; Senator Lisa Murkowski; Congressman Spencer Bachus; Mayor Michael Bloomberg; Gawker; and, Barbara Bush -- just to name a few.
The common denominator in all these feuds? Sarah Palin.
Besides viciously accusing men with whom she disagrees as somehow being sex perverts, while at the same time granting a pass for indiscretions to men with whom she agrees (Limbaugh), Palin's main accusation is that people are lying. They are "making stuff up." Yes, according to the trumpeter of the "death panel" canard, everyone else is a liar. It's just a coincidence everyone Palin encounters isn't truthful. Poor, Barracuda.
Palin has gotten a couple of number-one hits with the same old song. That's why it's all starting to sound alike.
I've watched enough nature shows to know that if a real Mama Grizzly fought this much of the time -- we'd have to assume the beast was rabid.
A tally of the Sarah Palin feuds can be found here.
CORRECTION: The original post mistakenly said Levi Johnston was the father of Palin's granddaughter instead of grandson. The text was changed to fix the error.
Follow Tina Dupuy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TinaDupuy
Thank you for your item on Pravda. Yesterday I tried to leave a note here about the article - but for some reason it was not included.
And now she turns not only against the fibre and backbone of her country, but against its democratically elected President, accusing him of being incompetent for not stopping Wikileaks. Where was she and where was her GOP before and during the 9/11 attacks? She accuses President Obama of not taking “steps” to assure the leaks were not published. What “steps”?……
If anything is a threat to the national security of the United States of America, it is this screaming, unrefined oaf with as much class as a searing release of flatulence followed by hysterical giggling at a state banquet. Is this what the people of the USA deserve?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IC4N5wkp2Ug&feature=youtu.be
LYRICS:
GO AWAY, SARAH PALIN, GO AWAY
YOUVE HAD MORE AIR TIME THAN BRITTANY OR O.J.
YOUR IDEAS WERE UNSPECIFIC,
BUT YOUR OUTFITS WERE TERRIFIC
GO AWAY, SARAH PALIN, GO AWAY
GO AWAY, SARAH PALIN, PASS THE TORCH
GO ON BACK TO WATCHING RUSSIA FROM YOUR PORCH
YOU HELPED OUT WITH THE ELECTION
THANKS, McCAIN, FOR YOUR SELECTION
GO AWAY, SARAH PALIN, GO AWAY
GO AWAY, SARAH PALIN, ITS GOOD-BYE
YOU SAID ANY OPEN DOOR WAS WORTH A TRY
WELL, HERES YOUR OPEN DOOR
LET ME SHOW YOU WHAT ITS FOR
GO AWAY, SARAH PALIN, GO AWAY
GO AWAY, SARAH PALIN, CUT IT LOOSE
GO ON BACK TO HUNTING WOLVES AND DRESSING MOOSE
AND WE HOPE THAT WHEN YOU GO THERE,
ITS YOUR FINAL BRIDGE TO NOWHERE
GO AWAY, SARAH PALIN, GO AWAY
WEVE STILL GOT TINA FEY
SHE WAS BETTER, ANYWAY
GO AWAY, SARAH PALIN, GO AWAY
(Back to Alaska, at least for four more years!)
Most of us here in Alaska don't want her back in Alaska.
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Nice!
Ha! I knew the volley was sure to follow! It must have taken time to research snide petty juvenile phrases like:
"steaming pile of bovine excrement"
"his immense melon being largely hollow"
"Slow Joe is obviously imbibing?"
"Noonan, the aging has-been"
"Quarter-termer Joe Scarborough"
Then BRAGGING that Palin served TWO-THIRDS of her term (before she QUIT) and comparing THAT to President Obama leaving his office as Senator (to become POTUS!!!!!!)
OMG, these people are completely delusional!
http://www.conservatives4palin.com/2010/12/quarter-termer-slow-joe-scarborough-to.html
Enter Sarah Palin; the antithesis of the educated. What others see as Palin's liabilities, her loyal flock views as her strengths. It matters little to the tea party crowd that Palin is often ill-informed and that she shamelessly lies in her attacks. What matters most of all is the constant attacks on those who they consider the elites: President Obama, the media, and what she and they consider to be the GOP establishment.
His forthcoming book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power will be released by St. Martin's Press in February 2011.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/geoffrey-dunn
Nice job!
It's a DREAM matchup...and a nightmare for the rest of us.