So I seriously hope the national media keeps following Sarah Palin around, because we would be bereft without report of her sheer verbal amazingness:
“Now we kick in that fiscal conservativeness that needs to be engaged, and we progress this state with $57-a-barrel oil,” Ms. Palin said. She said the state would have to “be prudent with public dollars and provide services more efficiently than have ever been provided in the state of Alaska before.”
Yes. You kick that progress oil prudently, Governor. I guess Bill Kristol’s already leading the Keep Sarah Famous caucus, but we need to get Camille Paglia on the case; if nothing else, she and Sarah are natural allies in the ongoing war against the English language.
November 8, 2008 at 1:11 pm
One thing I’ve noticed about her way of speaking is that she uses completely gratuitous non-specific specification. For example, “that fiscal conservativeness.” Which fiscal conservativeness? That one over there, or this one over here? She could have just said “let’s act like fiscal conservatives,” but no.
It’s not like she’s just using weasel words or being vague on details. Language like this invites the mind to follow a link – to resolve the word “that” into something concrete – except the link doesn’t go anywhere. So not only does she say very little, she actively trips up people trying to figure out what she’s saying.
November 8, 2008 at 1:13 pm
we need to get Camille Paglia on the case; if nothing else, she and Sarah are natural allies in the ongoing war against the English language.
You have earned my undying readership with that cheap crack! Not to mention my appreciation.
November 8, 2008 at 1:18 pm
cyrano, you have no doubt heard of “speaking in tongues”. Well Sarah does another schtick called, I believe, “speaking in the Spirit”. This is the type of speaking used, say, in an extemporaneous testimony. We know it as sanctimonious blather. It goes over so well in church, it’s natural to start using it everywhere.
Isn’t it like a wingnut to blame God or Jesus for everything, even their inability to handle their native tongue?
November 8, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I hate it when people regress the English language like that.
November 8, 2008 at 1:36 pm
What I don’t quite understand is how, if Alaska’s economy is dependent on oil, dropping the price of oil almost $30 a barrel is supposed to help improve the state.
November 8, 2008 at 1:48 pm
That’s super, how she is conservative and prudent with the money the rest of us donate to Alaska.
November 8, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Builds character.
November 8, 2008 at 2:45 pm
“One thing I’ve noticed about her way of speaking is that she uses completely gratuitous non-specific specification. For example, ‘that fiscal conservativeness.’”
This to me always sounds like someone who has been “briefed” and has a head full of talking points and cliches that she feels she should use. So when the temptation arises, she throws one in. It’s “smart” and “informed” to do so, she thinks.
Those free-radical “that”‘s seem to point to an antecedent that doesn’t exist, but it does exist–in her head. “That fiscal conservativeness” means “…that those guys were talking to me about the other night, that everyone says is so important and stuff.”
November 8, 2008 at 2:51 pm
“be prudent with public dollars”
Oh, please, honey. Bitch prolly couldn’t even tell me me how many pennies there are in a dollar, let alone the name of the man pictured on front (hint for the brainiac, if she or her genetically defective fans are reading: he was our first President, not the mother of the one who’s leaving on January 20th.)
November 8, 2008 at 3:22 pm
“Now we kick in that fiscal conservativeness that needs to be engaged”
Well, it would be disparaging to engage that fiscal conservativeness that needs to be kicked in…
As for “completely gratuitous non-specific specification” that’s just bubba talk. Things are more personal in bubbaland.
Hand me that ol’ crescent that’s hanging over the kitchen sink that utility belt.
In the South, ‘he’ is not the standard male pronoun. Rather, ‘that ol’ boy’ is the SMP.
By itself, charming, disarming, and surprisingly supple. Alloyed with beltway bloviation, it’s a redneck converting an ’86 BMW into a funny car.
November 8, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Language like this invites the mind to follow a link – to resolve the word “that” into something concrete – except the link doesn’t go anywhere.
Yeah, I think it’s intended to make your brain segfault if you try to think about it with your elitist “logic” and “grammar.” Sarah Palin, double-check your damn pointers.
November 8, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Her mind is an endless bridge to nowhere. Beautiful, that.
November 8, 2008 at 5:42 pm
Her mind is an endless bridge to nowhere. Beautiful, that.
Poetry. In fact:
Endless autumn words,
interrupting logic like
a bridge to nowhere.
November 8, 2008 at 5:42 pm
What I don’t quite understand is how, if Alaska’s economy is dependent on oil, dropping the price of oil almost $30 a barrel is supposed to help improve the state.
It’s not good and it’s worse than that. The permanent fund takes all it’s input and invests it in the stock market. So all the money from the high oil prices just got set on fire.
Alaska is going to need some “spreading the wealth around” or they are all going to starve and freeze up there.
November 8, 2008 at 5:43 pm
“Endless autumn words,
interrupting logic like
a bridge to nowhere.”
Endless autumn words,
interrupting thatlogic like
that bridge to nowhere.
November 8, 2008 at 5:48 pm
“It’s not good and it’s worse than that. The permanent fund takes all it’s input and invests it in the stock market. So all the money from the high oil prices just got set on fire.
Alaska is going to need some “spreading the wealth around” or they are all going to starve and freeze up there.”
Ohhh! Me sees in me 8-ball me sees me sees – it’s a big dip in precious Sarah’s popularity.
It’s teh funny!
November 8, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Her mind is an endless unresolved reference.
November 8, 2008 at 7:54 pm
“Bill Kristol’s already leading the Keep Sarah Famous caucus…”
Please Lord, let Bill Kristol be right about this one thing.
OhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPleaseOhPlease.
November 8, 2008 at 8:47 pm
We know it as sanctimonious blather. It goes over so well in church, it’s natural to start using it everywhere.
Bingo. Thou hast hit thine nail soundly on its head. Also. That which you have spoken so well and, also, with thine heart.
November 8, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Serious though, this is exactly why Palin was picked. She was an attempt by the Rove crew to give Churchy one more under-the-radar blow job. Just like what worked with W.
Perhaps the best outcome of this election is that the College Republicans of the Reagan and Bush I administrations might finally be forced to find honest work. Personally, I’d prefer to see them in jail.
November 8, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Glittering Generalities. It’s a major component of Republican Squid Ink. The Rovebot is programmed to squirt this substance out on demand until such time as it appears that the question got answered or the talking point got made.
It works best when the water is already cloudy and there is little or no chance of cross-examination or follow-up questions. Which is why it works so well during vice-presidential debate formats that allow ninety seconds to speak with no rebuttal, and why it works so poorly in those rare interviews when the interviewer insists on seeking clarification (Couric and, well, Couric).
November 8, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Blather. Mince. Repeat.
November 8, 2008 at 11:42 pm
I gru up talkin’ Engrish, as a ‘Merican, thiz carp you R syan’ smawps mi mynd… U mst B 1 ‘f dem Herford Piled higer -n- Deper eli… um eggheads… FU.
November 9, 2008 at 1:02 am
That’s super, how she is conservative and prudent with the money the rest of us donate to Alaska.
States that like to talk a lot about secession seem to have that in common. As I’ve often said about Texas, if they wanna deal with all their hurricanes and tornadoes on their own, I certainly won’t stand in their fucking way.
November 9, 2008 at 1:06 am
Bitch prolly couldn’t even tell me me how many pennies there are in a dollar, let alone the name of the man pictured on front (hint for the brainiac, if she or her genetically defective fans are reading: he was our first President
I’m sorry to do this, but no he wasn’t.
November 9, 2008 at 1:28 am
Please stay and hasten the demise of the GOP. If the GOP thinks Palin, Jindal, and Newt Gingrich can compete with Obama and demographics, they’ve been on crank too long.
November 9, 2008 at 2:30 am
George Washington wasn’t our first? Color me aghast. I never went to college, so I don’t know better…
November 9, 2008 at 9:22 am
Sorry, I misunderstood your sentence. I thought you were saying Washington is on the penny.
November 9, 2008 at 9:56 am
Washington was the first US president under our current constitution, but there presidents before that constitution.
Google John Hanson.
November 9, 2008 at 10:44 am
Seward’s Folly.
November 9, 2008 at 10:58 am
We had the Articles of Confederation during Washington. The constitution came later.
November 9, 2008 at 11:34 am
As I understand it, Ben Franklin was actually the nation’s first acting president, filling an executive void at a crucial time.
But then, history is nothing if not revisionist and I am majestically under-informed.
Anyway, they forget to give him time-capsule song-writing credit:
The Sons of Han
November 9, 2008 at 11:37 am
I know you won’t believe me (and don;t ask me how I know this, for my powers must remain secret), but TiggerSpideyman started dancing around when I test-clicked the Sons of Hanson, getting jiggy with it like Michael Jackson with a case of crotch rot.
Must be all them spiders?
November 9, 2008 at 11:50 am
Oh, c’mon, this is too simple.
Obviously, what the woman actually meant to say was:
“that there fiscal conservativeness”
November 9, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Obviously, what the woman actually meant to say was:
“that there fiscal conservativeness”
I cannot disagree strenuously enough, sir! If such were her intent, she would have said “that there fiscal conservativeness what needs to be engaged (but seein as it ain’t, they’s a shotgun shell with that ol boy Levi Johnston’s name on it”
November 9, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Ha ha that would be funny if I thought Lincoln was our first president.
Wait, no it wouldn’t. It would be proof that just being aware of the McCain/Palin campaign made me permanently stupider.
November 9, 2008 at 8:28 pm
And what of our young man Levi Johnson? I hope he’s not fated to fade into the woodwork.
November 9, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Yup, and it was a classic case of the Republicans eating their own dog food.
IN 2000, voters were put off by the folksy, unedjumacated style of Bush. He couldn’t name foreign leaders, he didn’t seem clued in. But a lot of voters figured that, 1) he’s got degrees from Yale & Harvard, and 2) his DAD was an internationally respected President, and so hey, how bad could he be?
Yeah, now we know.
But the wingnuts don’t know. With their signature grasp on reality, they decided that voters wanted more of the same, another Bush – and they went long on the folksy and unedjumacated, and forgot about the Yale, Harvard, and Dad-used-to-be-President angles.
Result: the Palin pick. We all knew wingnuts would burn themselves with all that highly concentrated stupidity one day.
November 9, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Well well well.
US Secret Service blames Palin for death threats against Obama:
story here.
November 10, 2008 at 7:17 am
Humpf! The US Secret Service— a bunch of bleeding heart liberals— WTF do they know about death threats to presidential candidates anyway?
November 10, 2008 at 12:40 pm
What DO they know about death threats to Presidential candidates, indeed, and when did they know it, anyway?
November 10, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Camille Paglia,
I’d forgotten that the dim one had gladly licked Palin’s boots and encourage other Americans to do the same. She loved Palin’s fabulouslness …
November 10, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Folks, don’t get too self-congratulatory with all the “people saw a candidate as dumb as Bush, and said ‘no thanks’”.
Because 48% of them said “thank you, sir, may I have another?”.
After the record of the past eight years, McFailin’s miserable campaign, economic meltdowns, et-frickin’-cetera, that number should have been 4.8E-12%, which would correspond to a handful of McCain’s more radically treasonous skin-cancer cells rather than nearly half of the voting public.
So while it is encouraging that lil’Billy Krystal is hard at work maintaining that 0.000000 batting average (give or take a few dozen zeros), the ground still must be prepared for 2012: “Palin II: The Dumbening”.
Criticizing her credentials and intelligence won’t work; her fanbois don’t care about that, if she sends a wink their way.
No, it’ll soon be time to roll out a line of SuperRealistic Palin Sex Dolls. That will distract the fanbois, and they’ll be so busy ‘holed up in the basement with ere…eLection stuff’. That’s pandering to The Base that we can believe in, my friends.
November 10, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Super Realistic Palin Sex Dolls? An unnecessary expense. I think that an 8 X 10 glossy would do the trick.
November 10, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Snarki,
John “Off my Lawn” McCain got closer to 46%, not 48%, but your point is well taken.
November 10, 2008 at 4:55 pm
The newest android Palin sex-dolls have a unique feature: they can arouse a customer in the dark and from several feet way. Push the remote and she begins what her designers call bloviational foreplay. About thirty seconds of listening to her interview with Couric, for example, will arouse the average male to 90% erection just so he can stick it in her mouth and put both of them out of their misery.
November 10, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I’d go for a well crafted Palin doll, even after what she said about President Bush. Here in the camp, the adult entertainment consists of videos of spike heeled women stomping on balloons. Getting a bit old already.
November 10, 2008 at 8:11 pm
Her breasts heave passionately while her mouth creates wet sucking gibberish sounds. It makes for super mastubatable starbursts. Right there on your TV screen, for free!
November 10, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Kippy nominee and new instant classic. How does this guy do it?
Powertool:
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/11/022038.php
via:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/243834.php
“Obama thinks he is a good talker, but he is often undisciplined when he speaks. He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not. In this regard, President Bush is an excellent model; Obama should take a lesson from his example. Bush never gets sloppy when he is speaking publicly. He chooses his words with care and precision, which is why his style sometimes seems halting. In the eight years he has been President, it is remarkable how few gaffes or verbal blunders he has committed. If Obama doesn’t raise his standards, he will exceed Bush’s total before he is inaugurated.”
November 11, 2008 at 1:45 am
Hans Says: “—”
OMFG! Hilarious!
November 11, 2008 at 2:33 am
He needs to understand that as President, his words will be scrutinized and will have impact whether he intends it or not.
What an excellent point! Mr. Romney, on the other hand, needs to understand that his words will not be scrutinized and will have little impact whether he intends it or not, as he is a pathetic loser who needs to shut his inconsequential pie hole.
November 11, 2008 at 2:36 am
Oops! That was Hindracker quoted above, not Romney. But that, of course, is central to my point.
November 11, 2008 at 5:57 am
“Here in the camp, the adult entertainment consists of videos of spike heeled women stomping on balloons. Getting a bit old already.”
Mere words cannot express the sadness of this Orwellian abasement of humanity.
Jesus wept.
November 11, 2008 at 6:51 am
Hey kenmeer!
Cool gravitar, you hep cat.
November 11, 2008 at 8:07 am
You mean that there ol’ boy:
Zoot Suit Yoakum ?
An unsung veteran of the early liberal fascist putsches. If they’da stopped us in the streets, we’d never have taken over the sewers like we have.
November 11, 2008 at 9:08 am
I’ll have no word spoken or typed against the Zoot. In fact this place should be renamed the Zoot Toot.
It reigns forever as the bees knees.
November 11, 2008 at 10:39 am
Zootin’ the Suits
November 11, 2008 at 10:52 am
To think that all those people were totally hopped up on whacky tobacky….
November 11, 2008 at 8:33 pm
‘Nuther post?
November 11, 2008 at 9:13 pm
We ran out of ponies?
November 11, 2008 at 11:41 pm
This surely says it all… Perhaps The Editors lie dreaming…
http://www.cthulhulives.org/solsticecarol.html
November 12, 2008 at 10:28 am
We ran out of ponies?
No, but you can only eat so many before you’re bloated and need a nice long nap. They’ll wake up and want pony casserole any day now.
November 12, 2008 at 10:31 am
“So…” (Jonah Goldberg in Ann Coulter drag voice) “Obama EATS ponies? Oh, America will rue the day.”
November 12, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Hummm.
The Dim One can’t get enough. Watch the girl on girl action as she works her love magic on Palin’s figure.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/11/12/palin/
Reading the Dim One’s ode to omgobamaislamomaxistalienayersism, you have to wonder if she was created whole cloth in a moment of suspended space time, where God reached out, removed one of Rush Limbaugh’s ribs and built like Eve. A miracle. A miracle my Lord!!!!
November 12, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Or was it that God reomoved some of the flesh from her native newborn ‘foreskin’ and fashioned thereof the fleshy fatuousness of Rush?
November 12, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I think she sprung forth fully-formed from the forehead of the American mass mediated consciousness from the hole placed there by a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
November 13, 2008 at 10:08 am
Why is it she has a teaching gig to pollute the minds of our youth with her ‘epistemic relativism’ (or: ‘new age Pepsi corn-porn’ to the rest of us) and yet Ward Churchill does not?
November 13, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Sifu, you are obviously at fault for this.