4 September 2010 Ignore the press and ignore the truth

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer flounders at start and end of debate

UPDATE 9/3/10: Jan Brewer says she won't be participating in any more debates. The Arizona Daily Star reports:

Incumbent Republican Jan Brewer said Thursday she has no intention of participating in any more events with Democrat Terry Goddard. She said the only reason she debated him on Wednesday is she had to to qualify for more than $1.7 million in public funds for her campaign.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2010/09/jan-brewer-flounders-at-start.html



Capehart writes in the Washington Post:

Palin is a true star. But she is a raw talent who refuses to do the necessary hard work that would catapult her to heights unknown. She also seems content being a latter-day mean girl who attacks President Obama, Democrats and other opponents with sarcasm, snark and smirks. Michael Joseph Gross writes in Vanity Fair about how the half-term governor has become increasingly isolated as her prominence has risen in “Sarah Palin: the sound and the fury.” There’s some good dish in it that ranges from the petty to the serious. None of it will stop her ascent. What will is Palin’s consistent low-standing with the public.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/09/sarah_palin_is_everywhere_--_a.html

Ruth Marcus adds:

“As in Palin's comments to Sean Hannity about the Vanity Fair piece: "Those who are impotent and limp and gutless and they go on their anonymous -- sources that are anonymous -- and impotent, limp and gutless reporters take anonymous sources and cite them as being factual references."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2010/09/_i_resisted_really_i.html

There is an emerging strategy among tea party mob candidates and GOP right wing extremists to ignore the press and broadcast media. They have discovered that they can reach their core supporters by means of talk radio, Fox News, and social networking sites such as Face book and Twitter. Why bother with the press/broadcast media and their demands for accuracy, truth, and sources? After all, they expect to be able to ask questions that right wingers would rather not answer, that point out holes in the party platforms, that, if answered truthfully, might cost a candidate or incumbent votes, funding, or legal difficulties. They also keep asking questions that, if answered truthfully, can point out the glaring lack of qualifications for some candidates.

Palin found out that her followers had no desire to watch the real media question her. The loyal core is all too willing to forgive her lack of preparation, lack of qualifications, lack of ability, and unwillingness to even bother trying to acquire knowledge &/or ethics she does not possess. Her true believers are willing to listen to her lie on Fox News. They are willing to accept ghost-written face book posts and tweets as comparable to position papers, platforms, and policies that qualified candidates take the time to compile and publish, then defend. Palinistas see no reason that their clique leader should have to prove anything she says to be true. Nor do they require her to defend her positions (or those ghost-written for her.)

Now the practice is spreading to other candidates fielded by the tea party mobs and GOP. The senatorial candidate from Utah running against Reid actually wants to press to publish her press releases without commentary – free and unquestioned advertising. Fox News is already doing this for its preferred candidates. That is yet another reason they are not a valid source of news. Now the governor of Arizona has declared that she will no longer behave as a real candidate but follow the Palin school of “lie about whatever you can and never answer questions.”



I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have ever read anything from Vanity Fair. I followed the link from Marcus’s article. It is a hit article, no way around that. But if 10 percent of the allegations in the article are true, they are sufficiently damning to convince anyone not in thrall to the religious right and the rest of the right wing extremists that she is absolutely and permanently unfit for any office, at any speed, at any time.

The various polls indicate that sufficient numbers of Americans find her unqualified for office that she will not be electable. I hope that is correct. She would bring about a disaster greater than the combination of Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II before she grew bored or lost interest due to the demands of the job. But assuming she won’t be electable, the question remains, “How much damage can she cause without being elected?”