Palin’s Cunning Sleight of Hand Frank Rich

[elleng]

Liberals had a blast mocking Sarah Palin last weekend when she was caught addressing the Tea Party Convention with a cheat sheet scrawled on her hand. Even the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, couldn’t resist getting into the act and treated a White House briefing to a Palin hand gag of his own.

Yet the laughter rang hollow. You had to wonder if Palin, who is nothing if not cunning, had sprung a trap. She knows all too well that the more the so-called elites lampoon her, the more she cements her cred with the third of the country that is her base. Her hand hieroglyphics may not have been speaking aids but bait.

If so, mission accomplished. Her sleight of hand gave the anti-Palin chorus another prod to deride her as an empty-headed, subliterate clown, and her fans another cue to rally. The only problem is that the serious import of Palin’s overriding political message got lost in this distracting sideshow. That message has the power to upend the Obama presidency — even if Palin, with her record-low approval ratings, never gets anywhere near the White House.

The Palin shtick has now become the Republican catechism, parroted by every party leader in Washington. Their constant refrain, delivered with cynicism but not irony, is this: Republicans are the anti-big-government, anti-stimulus, anti-Wall Street, pro-Tea Party tribunes of the common folk. “This is about the people,” as Palin repeatedly put it last weekend while pocketing $100,000 of the Tea Partiers’ money.

Incredibly enough, this message is gaining traction. . .

This G.O.P. populism is all bunk, of course. Republicans in office now, as well as Palin during her furtive public service in Alaska, have feasted on federal pork, catered to special interests, and pursued policies indifferent to recession-battered Americans. And yet they’re getting away with their populist masquerade — not just with a considerable swath of voters but even with certain elements in the “liberal media.” The Dean of the Beltway press corps, the columnist David Broder, cited Palin’s “pitch-perfect populism” in hailing her as “a public figure at the top of her game” in Thursday’s Washington Post.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/14/opinion/14rich.html

[lazarus]

1. I disagree with how much traction this whole thing is gaining

her poll numbers have been plummeting for months, and more people have a favourable view of socialism than they do of the Tea Party.

[xxqqqzme]

2. Her book tour may have been a farewell tour.

She loves the spotlight and I think she is about to enter the land of obscurity from over exposure. She'll be divorced in 8 years.

[lazarus]

3. Yup

She's just not that entertaining anymore, since she doesn't have quality speechwriters working for her. Her appearances on Clusterfox have been embarrassing, worse than the Couric interview. She doesn't even bring the hilarious crazy like Beck. She's just dumb.

She'll always have a small rabid contingent of fans, but everyone has that. Heck, I even got a heart somehow. :evilgrin:

[opihimoimoi]

4. Double YUP....Her lack of general knowledge is astounding...on par with W Bush

What is it w them Pubs...??

Is it the Air, the food, the water??

What causes them to lose sight of REASON, TRUTH, and LOGIC?

[lazarus]

5. It's the other way around, Opi

The lack of reason, truth and logic is what made them Republican. I actually know a few Pubs that are halfway intelligent, they're just sadly misinformed because of their upbringing. When you drill down to the core issues, they're mostly progressive, but they've had the "liberals are bad" meme pounded into their heads for years.

[opihimoimoi]

11. Most uppity GOPers are BULLIES...always want their way

Worse, they deny evrything...

"Green" is a dirty word....Climate Change ?? "Whot Dat" ??

[mwb970]

7. 8 years!

Try 4. That ego will never fit in the same marriage as Tawd.

[xxqqqzme]

13. I was being generous -

softie liberal that I am. I think 'That todd' gets off on being the power running the show from the shadows. Right now she IS the show w/ no reward of power. He will stray, as will she, there will be great pronouncements of reconciliation and poof! it's all over from start to final decree in 7 years.

[Chemisse]

6. I don't think she is cunning

That requires more intelligence than she possesses.

With every blunder - and the writing on her hand like a school girl while railing against Obama using a teleprompter was a very big one - her base gets more narrow.

So her crowd may love her even more now, but her crowd has shrunk.

[CanonRay]

8. Her "base" is a lot less than 1/3 of the country, more like 2%

She got 11% of the Rethugs to pick her as their choice. Only 20% of people no identify as Rethugs. so 11% of 20% is about 2%.

[Zoeisright]

10. Yes, that is more accurate.

No way a third of this counry supports her. And if those people think that writing notes on your hands so you can remember basic things you should know is just fine, their IQs must all be well below 100.

[Paladin]

9. Yeah, And The Republican Party Was Destroyed By Obama's Victory.....

....and the Tea Bagger movement will never gain traction, because the predicted huge numbers of people aren't turning up at the rallies.

Anyone else remember these sort of empty-headed, triumphal statements being brayed with such certainty here at DU? There were multiple, daily postings, trumpeting the fact that Obama's election had slayed all the right-wing dragons, and that we Democrats were on Easy Street for decades to come. Teddy Kennedy's seat going to an accomplishment-free Republican? C'mon, what are you smoking? Health care reform destroyed by a majority party's ham-handed political fumbling? Puh-leeeze.

Frank Rich makes a good point with his column today. We would be idiots to ignore it, and even bigger idiots to write off Sarah Palin........

[vssmith]

12. Unfortunate that so many Americans are anti-intellectual

[elleng]

14. Serves the repugs. Part of the training.

[lunasun]

15. Bait it was -well termed

and too many took it. I thought the same thing from the beginning!
Who puts notes on their hands but crosses stuff out so folksy?
It was just too aw shucks Palin for me!
They have been getting mission accomplished alot lately ...of course our corporate media helps that along a little.....

[AdHocSolver]

16. If you don't get this post, read "Deer Hunting with Jesus" by Joe Bageant.

The right-wing is aiming to take over the populist movement from the "left", and the Democrats are handing it to them on a silver platter.

A majority of the people do not have college degrees, are religiously conservative to far right, and do believe (quite correctly in many cases) that college educated liberals look condescendingly on non-college-educated (working class) people.

You don't win over people by subtly putting them down. From reading about the campaign for Senator Kennedy's seat, Brown went out and actively engaged the voters, while Coakley ran a half-hearted campaign. Her attitude was "you expect me to go out and talk to the unwashed masses?" Potential voters for Coakley stayed home.

I am reminded of a post on the Web (I think it was on DU) back in 2004. It was just before the presidential election. A guy mentioned a conversation he had with his grandmother, a white southern Republican. He asked her if she were going to vote again for Bush. She replied that he was a horrible president and she was not going to vote for him. So, he asked her if that meant she was going to vote for Kerry. She said that she was not going to vote for Kerry, because he never came to ask for her vote. And the Republicans were able to steal another one.

Which only proves the correctness of Howard Dean's fifty state strategy. If you run a candidate, and ask for the people's vote, you have a good chance of winning. You don't succeed if you don't even try.

When I saw the video of Palin's speech, where she turns her hand toward the audience, I felt that she was showing her hand on purpose. If you are cheating on a test, you don't leave your crib sheet where it can be readily observed. That cross out and edit seemed tacky as well. The entire action seemed planned on purpose.

Why do it? She wants to be ridiculed for being "ordinary" and somewhat inept. That earns her sympathy from the crowd that she is appealing to, birthers, teabaggers, creationists, and similar "ordinary folks".

One last point. I can't help but feel that the DLCers hoped that Coakley would lose. That means that they don't have the sixty votes "needed", as they keep telling us, to pass meaningful health care reform legislation. They can blame their failure on not having sixty votes, rather than the real reason, which is that they sold us out to the insurance companies and their lobbyists.

Just my two cents.

[Doctor_J]

17. Agreed - her stupidity speaks for itself. Her lies don't

Gibbs could have provided humor by holding up a sheet of paper and saying, "Well, the quit governor of Alaska gave another speech yesterday. Here are the corrections." and then read off 3-4 of them and post the rest at whitehouse.gov.