A Quick Observation...

I think Sarah's self-defenestration from the soap opera of Alaskan politics might be due to a very prosaic reason that Chuck Todd more or less put his finger on tonight:  she could use a lot more money than the $125,000 that the Alaskan governor gets paid. After all, there's a family circus to keep happy and afloat as well as, uh, ongoing wardrobe expenses, all of which big speaking fees will certainly defray.  And for another prosaic reason: As the old song in the 1920s went, after American GIs came home from France at the end of World War I:  "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paris?"  Meaning: The infotainment media adore her, but she's hours and hours away from the fawning cameras and the heart of the dwindling Red State Empire way up there in the land of moose-shooting. Immigrant-hating, "Obama's-a-socialist"-shouting right-wingers would walk across hot coals to be on her rope line, and now there'll be manifestations of her on tarmacs all over the lower 48.

There is one downside to all this:  The sleepover party of nine-year olds that passes for the Washington press corps will be unable to resist covering her every wink and every misstatement of the President's views and positions.  Patience at the White House will be tried, and hopefully not found wanting.

http://www.laprensahn.com/Ediciones/2009/07/03/Noticias/Si-lo-hubieramos...

Reading that interview is a chilling experience. Just wow... Its like the twilight zone for those guys. The power of US indoctrination.

There is one downside to all this:  The sleepover party of nine-year olds that passes for the Washington press corps will be unable to resist covering her every wink and every misstatement of the President's views and positions.  Patience at the White House will be tried, and hopefully not found wanting.

Maybe that's her plan but remember, as she became more familiar to the public her approval ratings sank like a stone.  I think her as a public spokesperson for the GOP would be a gift to the Obama administration.  There's a hardcore segment of the population that loves her and then there's everybody else including most of the GOP establishment.  I think it's a scandal that caused her to resign but if you're right that she just wants more airtime I expect the Steve Scmidt's of the world to go after her harder than any Democrats will.

Al, spot on as always. This makes John McCain's judgment and temperament all the more ridiculous, no?

Current rumor is that it has to do with the building materials for her house- http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7280

(Story broken at Daily Kos here- http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/7/3/749722/-Brad-Blog:-Federal-In...)

I will never forget how mean her RNC Convention speech was.  It was sarcastic, belittling, and simple.  And they ate it up.  But now, people are treating her the same way, and she can't handle it.  She decided to quit and regroup...to hell with the people who elected her in Alaska.

She will be the spokesperson for the teabagging right.  You heard bits of their laments in her "speech."  She came off just as angry as them, just as spiteful as them, and just as resentful.

I expect the White House to do what the campaign did, and that's pretty much ignore her.  They took her seriously as a V.P. candidate, but they didn't elevate her to credible candidacy levels.  I think they will do the same this time around - they shouldn't treat her like she's credible, but they shouldn't disrespect her either.  She thrives off of victimhood, and her supporters do too.

I think it's very important for us on the left to report on her, but do so in a measured way.  We should also not forget that if the economy continues to weaken, jobs continue to shed, her "anti-government, I love freedom" shtick will grow more and more appealing to middle-of-the-roaders and low info voters. 

As the President often says, things are never as bad as they seem, nor are they ever as good.  He was once a longshot too....

Al - I've really appreciated your writing on what's going on in Honduras.  I will admit that I don't follow Central and South American politics at all, so your reporting has been very helpful.   It seems like things are getting more and more complicated and dangerous.

But can't we dream?

If she does run for president in 2012 and fails in the primaries, she can run as an independent and split the vote! And if she wins the primaries (y'never know), others can run as an independent and split the vote!

Sigh. If only... And honestly? It could happen.

I'm a foreign policy addict - as long as there's guns involved.  I admit it, I'm really a war junkie.  The Bolivian indigenous uprising first brought me to this site, and the Honduras coup has me coming daily again.

However, my nose for trouble is coming home.  I live in Texas, where a governor suddenly embraces Confederate terms like nullification and state sovereignity, and the Christian Right reigns supreme.  Fourth of July parades here will be hijacked by teabaggers who approve of Limbaugh wishing that they could bring in some Hondurans to deal with Obama.

I can't help consider the similarity of this to Palin's ties to an outlaw Pentecostal network that coveted Alaska as a stronghold for the End Times, or the secession movement in Bolivia, or the Honduras coup.  Is it all a coincidence?  Or will the rich from Calgary to Argentina begin to secede de facto, protected by their control of the media and the mercenary industry?

In that context, perhaps Palin is seceding from accepting the legitimacy of any democratic institutions whatsoever.  The coordinators behind the scenes need her in the lower 48 to become a rallying point for America's fascist fifth.  A presidential run will occur, but only to emphasize to deranged rednecks that Satanic socialists have already gained dominion and made it impossible for a real American to win.  They will be whipped up into a frenzy.  Federal prosecution of Palin's crimes will only make it perfect.  After 2012 it is intended that the chaos will grow so fast that Obama will be forced to carry out the usual measures, which in turn will "prove" his tyranny.  The state will be delegitimized, the rich will use extremist movements like the plantation owners once used the KKK, and bourgeoise whites will turn to whatever fuehrer they offer to restore order.

None of this would be a surprise for any of the social movements south of our border.  They've always understood the inherent bias in bourgeoise democracy.  They are struggling for a form of self-government that cannot be bought.

for the Republicans. Sanford's disclosure is just the latest ho-hum sex scandal. As Jonah Goldberg wrote in his ever-pathetic colunm, Palin's "the IT girl of the Republican party." They are in very sad shape. Who's going to carry the mantle in 2012? Huck? Seriously? Romney? Fundamentalist Protestants are going to vote for a Mormon? Jindall? Flat-earth R's are going to vote for a man of color?

Kind of explains how the pasty-faced white guy won (by default) last time. Nex up, will it be Newt? Might as well dig up the corpse of Ronald Reagan. Man, they've painted themselves into a corner.

To think this Palin-loon could have been a 72 year old heart beat away from the presidency -- wow! Shows how truly fragile democracy is (and how truly stupid a sizable share of the American people are).

I agree she'l be looking for dollars, not just for paying lawyers to get her out of trouble.  After all, even the McCain staff described Palin's expensive designer shopping habit for her and her family with RNC money as "Wasilla Hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus stores from coast to coast."

I've been waiting for her to implode since Jon Stewart sent a reporter to tiny Wasila Alaska to find out about this great "executive experience" that supposedly made Palin "more qualified than Obama" (!). The current mayor unwittingly revealed that it primarily consisted of signing a few checks on Thursdays. I know we're unfortunately going have to keep hearing Palin's nails-on-a-chalkboard voice and lie-filled rhetoric.  However, it was nice to hear the media actually tell the truth about her erratic, incoherent, b.s. resignation speech, after they had overly praised her tacky RNC convention speech and after they never held her accountable for those vile KKK-type rallies during the campaign.  The loud birds drowning her out in the background made the resignation speech more enjoyable.

There's no question that Sarah Palin's natural constituency includes the militia-joining, "don't-tread-on-me", secessionist-minded "fascist fifth" (though I'd argue its ceiling is more like 10% of the actual electorate).  But if the recession is persistent and begins to threaten his political standing, I doubt that President Obama will continue his gradual policy reformism, much less permit the anti-government right to succeed in reframing our problems.  He has the capacity to be bold, and he obviously has the capacity to seize the high ground of political vision.  This ain't a talking-down-to-people, more-pious-than-thou Jimmy Carter kind of president, much less a sail-trimming, jive-talking Bill Clinton kind of leader.  This is a guy who knows how to forge a rational governing majority, as he did in his victory last November.  And that's the real battle, in the rest of the Americas as well as the U.S.:  between those who wave the flag of "freedom" in order to defend narrow parochial interests and are willing to corrupt the public discourse while doing so, and those who are trying to regenerate democracy by demonstrating that it's possible for elected leaders to govern on behalf of everyone and be honest and straight-forward while doing so.

Good points.  The one thing I know about our President is that he is a political animal and he will adjust accordingly to defeat perceived and real threats.

"Hiking the Appalachain Trail"

So many good choices!

'The one thing I know about our President is that he is a political animal and he will adjust accordingly to defeat perceived and real threats.'

Exactly.

In the irony of ironies this is also the weekend the base that loves them some Palin is holding a second round of Tea Parties. With little interest being shown by the establishment media for any more teabagging, as it were, the organizer have had all the wind sucked out of their sails by the sudden resignation of Governor Palin.

PJ Media has some photos of yesterday's activities and it is striking that I did not see one non-white face in the crowd. I'm a few non-white folks showed up but isn't it interesting that the people at the "parties" looked an awful doggone like the jingoistic McCain/Palin rallies from last fall. Shocking, I know.