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Things are not as they seem: thoughts on Obama / Palin

snl

Now that her Oprah appearance is over – and boy, did Oprah let the liberals in her audience down; what a waste! – let me confess to my own Palin fatigue. I just can't take seriously the idea that she'll ever be president, even after her moderately successful softball game with Oprah. Palin sealed that fate when she quit being governor (although maybe she can run with Lou Dobbs on the All Quitters ticket in 2012). She'll never obtain the record or the reliability she needs to run credibly for president now that she gave up the modestly challenging job of running Alaska. I don't see her ever having the self-discipline or the humility to admit how very much she'd need to learn to be remotely qualified. (Joan Walsh, “I have Palin fatigue already,” Salon, 16 November 2009)

Intuition: I wonder if it will end up that Pailin is to Obama, as McCain was to Bush? That is, despite it all, I am not actually convinced that those who support Pailin actually hate Obama -- I think they fear him, are afraid of being co-opted by him, but could actually find themselves by his side if Pailin motioned at some point for them to support him. I think we're at a time when a heck of a lot of people are going to be crossing sides -- and the groupings that remain, whatever they are, will be composed of people psychologically similar to one another but who may hereto actually have been members of different parties.

What's moving this thinking is the tone in which some guy on FOX news this week admitted Jon Stewart was right, and "they," wrong, on some issue or another. Wasn't angry -- but sort of welcoming. Somber dressing, ex-smoking Stewart, was never flower-power. You can feel with the aesthetic touch of everyone on the show, that there's more than a bit of FOX in them. Not going to go Republican, but might end up seeing a different tone in which his show engages with FOX, though. Or different media targets. As with GG, perhaps more anti- Tucker Carlson and David Brooks attacks, than anti-FOX.

Also, how Glenn Greenwald reported recently that George Stephanopoulos admitted, through twitter, that GG was right to lambast his reporting on some issue or another. Again, of the moment -- both GS and GG seem psychologically similar, and I could see both of them, in the end, being important supporters, essentially agents of, Obama's administration.

Two absurd claims here. But I believe them both true.

@Saintzak

Those bigots you grew up with, wouldn't be ones who loved WWE's the Rock -- the black guy who played Obama-Hulk last year on SNL -- would they? Maybe what is most key about bigots is that they possess an intense need to project their own unwanted character traits, feelings, onto others, and not their hatred of a certain, particular group of people? That is, maybe they could all get behind Obama / Palin, so long as they provide them with groups to hate, efforts in which to sacrifice themselves for the glory of the mother-nation? What is coming to mind here is how the Nazis turned to hating Jews a bit late in the game--after all their anger and hatred was targeted at the needy and poor, who were keeping Germany weak. Anti-semitism was supposed to be a French thing (Dreyfus affair) but materialized everywhere in German when "they" now seemed the most appropriate group. The hatred was key; targets-flexible. Maybe true here too. Something we will know for sure if these tea-bagger-folk end up supporting Obama, as he sends off more young men and women to kill muslims, sacrifices more of our "selfish," "greedy," "needy," youth (representatives of our striving, ambitious selves) so we can all feel pure and good again.

Link: “I have Palin fatigue already” (Salon)

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