"That Look On Her Face"...Don't feel sorry for Sarah Palin

[Jade Fox]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/that-look-on-her-face_b_129638.html

So, I watched pieces of the Palin interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson. I turned off the sound just so that I could read her facial expressions. I recommend it. Her facial expressions and her hand gestures are quite interesting because they are those of someone who knows she is bullshitting and is trying to put it over by being extra emphatic. She is full of resentment and entirely exasperated that she is not being accepted in the way she thinks of herself. Don't you know Alaska is right next to Russia? Don't you know only a small strip of ocean separates the two? Putin might raise his head! (except that Moscow is 6000 miles from Alaska). Her every expression says, "How dumb are you, that you don't know what I know." She is so ignorant that she doesn't even know that others know things that she doesn't know. She is confident in her belief that Henry Kissinger, of all people, is naive. Many in the liberal blogosphere are beginning to feel sorry for Sarah Palin, but I don't think we should go there, even for a moment. Every report out of Alaska indicates that she is ruthless above all, that she uses and exploits others for her own purposes, then betrays them when they are no longer useful. When I see her talking, I can see that -- her face shows impatience with the process -- why bother, she is saying, let me just have what I want.

Let's talk about blinking. Lots of us who jumped on Palin's case when she first got tapped as VP candidate were taken to task for not giving her a chance. Aside from the fact that it's all important when dealing with Republicans to jump right on them and start the fight on your own terms, we also had an intuition, a la Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, that she just wasn't right -- that her manner and her life choices didn't add up to a full deck, and, speaking for lots of women, that the white Right men had gone for the pin up girl without asking her to pass the exam. Le voila, as they say in France. No amount of cramming has prepared her to pass the exam, and the way she thinks gets more and more edgy, disorganized, mixed up, and aggressive.

So. It's working. As I said last week, attack attack, attack, expose expose expose. Only two things are possible if McCain wins--Americans will knowingly go for the two least defensible candidates in living memory, or we will have those candidates thrust upon us by fraud. I hope it goes to Obama. But we have nothing to lose from taking the fight to them. Kathleen Parker over at the National Review Online says that Palin should drop out. I say keep her. Sarah Palin IS the evidence that John McCain doesn't know what he's doing, and that the Republican party is a bankrupt, empty, greedy, power-mad cabal. I want that on display.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Somebody else who has seen the REAL Sarah Palin.

[valerief]

2. She's "hungry like the wolf" she kills from helicopters.

She's a vulture. I don't understand how anyone can't see that.

[Warpy]

3. I always watch at least a portion of everything political

with the sound off no matter who which party is featured. It's extremely instructive because without the sound, you start to notice a lot of subtle signals.

For instance, the DNC featured people who paid close attention to the speakers, who spoke among each other with animated gestures. The RNC was more muted, people milling around and ignoring the speakers.

Likewise, Friday's debate turned up a Magoo who was old, tired, and testy. His failure to acknowledge his opponent visually made him look petty at best, shifty at worst. Obama, on the other hand, appeared cool, calm and collected while looking at his opponent frequently, something that signals honesty in US body language. This is how low information voters saw the debate and it's reflected in the poll numbers.

The time for Palin to drop out was before the convention, citing the conflicts between being a mother of an infant and a demanding national job. They're pretty much stuck with her now. Thursday will be a lot of fun to watch, mostly with the sound off.

[bulloney]

11. "The RNC was more muted, people milling around and ignoring the speakers."

In my experience in discussing issues with Republicans, they don't listen. They have their pre-conceived idea of how things work and they just throw their pre-rehearsed lines back at you. They don't listen to your side of the issue. That's why everything's black-and-white in their world. There are no shades of gray.

So, when their speakers are preparing to address the RNC, they already know what they'll say to throw red meat to the audience.

That's why they continue to use phrases like 'tax and spend' when describing liberals and Democrats. Never mind that our largest budget deficits in history have come under Republican administrations. Bush's largest deficits came while the Repubs controlled the House and Senate. Reagan had the luxury of working with a Republican Senate for his first six years.

And their audiences are too ignorant to take a step back and ask if what they just heard is true.

[Warpy]

12. They paid rapt attention to Reagan in the 80s

and they paid better attention to Stupid in 2000 and 2004.

I'm afraid familiarity has bred contempt for most of them. The only one they listened to was Palin, and that was because of the novelty she represented.

[varun]

4. I felt sorry for her at one point

but then, I also know that she is a power hungry, lying and opportunist woman. She did not become the governor of Alaska by being a nice mom.

[FirstLight]

5. NAILED it! KICK to the moon!

I have been reading her attitude and taking a closer look at her fundamentalist beliefs etc...it is downright scary, and so fucked up. I love the part about the white men who picked the pinup girl and didn't ask her to pass the exam, and yes, she is quite put off that she can't charm her way into the white house. But thsat is all an cam too, she wants the Oval Office for her own purposes, and she isn't too sly about hiding it.

I honestly think she DOES believe that she is on a mission from GOD to take that place (washington) and "reconsecrate" it for the lord. I am afraid what that might look like.
(more burning at the stake? or guillotine? or just easy and fast firing squads, you can kil more people that way)

Make no mistake, she is USING McLame.
WE know, SHE KNOWS, and most of THEM know he is not long for this world.
I fear of the future with her anywhere near that office, because she has an underlying EEEEEeeevil that cheney can't even touch. Cheney and most of his minions have outward ugliness that belies their dark little hearts.
Sarah Palin, who probably even dots her "i" with a little heart, is rotten to the core. and she could be pretty miffed if she doesn't get what she wants.

Anybody read Revelations around here? Ever wonder who the "whore of Babylon" is? I always thought is was the US, because we sold out for oil and riches, and will have to rebuild that city and land....but she is female.
And McCain has a head full of "wounds"
Now, I am not saying any more than that lest I get drawn & quartered. BUT these people, her Assembly, take it all LITERALLY.

Nope, don't feel sory for her, it is one of their tricks.

:tinfoilhat:
Geez, is it showing much today? yikes

[pansypoo53219]

6. butbutbut

don't ya know, republikkkans have 'special knowledge' they get from fux gnews. WE are the stupid ones. muslimians are trying to kill us. and teh russians too.

[trynotto_giveuphope]

7. Don't Count Her Out Just Yet

As bad as the Couric and Gibson interviews were, I still wouldn't underestimate her.

Go look at the Alaska gubernatorial debate from 2006 on Youtube...She comes off as MUCH MUCH more knowledgeable. Maybe she isn't 100% where she needs to be (hence McCain wanted to buy an extra week by "suspending" his campaign), but she isn't the idiot that many of us are making out to be.

Sure, in that debate she was mostly on her home turf, but if the sequestering of her the last few weeks has done any good, she'll be close enough to ready that, if she doesn't make any obvious gaffes, it will come off as a win for her.

Seriously. The expectations for her are so low that anything less than a repeat of the Couric interview will boost their numbers, and we will have shot ourselves in the foot.

We ought to start the narrative now that she *is* a good debater and, with all the time she's had to prepare, we should expect her to be formidable.

[SheilaT]

8. Watching without sound is very interesting.

I need to remember to do it more often.

Another thing that comes across to me about Palin Without Sound is that she's used to getting by on her looks. She's used to being the prettiest girl in the room and as such has never had to study or work very hard at anything. But she probably thinks she's worked hard, and so is (as has already been pointed out) utterly clueless about how much she really doesn't know. I bet she really does think that being so close to Russia really is meaningful foreign experience, and that actually going to other countries is pointless.

Her attendance at five colleges in six years is interesting, and I would love to see her college transcripts.

She reads well from a teleprompter, but that's not the only skill needed out in what we like to call the real world.

[shanti]

14. exactly

and studies have been done proving that the more attractive one is, the more successful. she (and the repukes) are playing on her looks. they don't give a damn if her head is empty.

[vssmith]

9. I saw some "bullshiting" body language from McCain in the debate too

[codjh9]

10. NO 'Sympathy For the Devil' for that bitch. EVER. For ANY reason.

[snappyturtle]

13. I'm going to try what you suggest. Should be interesting. Usually,

when watching a video, I pull up my Spider Solitaire game over the video screen so I don't watch her. I find palin's expressions and body language a detraction from her words. I swear she sounds even dumber with just an audio presentation!

[Waiting For Everyman]

15. She has to be coldly taken apart on her IDEAS, with no mercy.

Every dumb thing she says needs to be exposed just as ruthlessly as if it was said by someone who is credible and has a brain.

It has to be, "It's not personal, it's the stupidity stupid". The public needs to see what other heads of state would be thinking about her statesments. Biden needs to be a surrogate to show that. The difference between his abilities and hers, should ruin the grading curve for her.

He should be deadpan serious and hold her ideas to the "A+" standard that applies to everybody else in that realm.

[samsingh]

16. i can't feel sorry for her after the way she brutilizes animals - wolves and polar bears

[sasori]

17. If you start to give in, just think "In what respect,charlie?" and you'll feel better.

:banghead: what i don't understand is why anyone would support her. Yes, she's a nice person, and yes, she does have nice hair but that's not the point. Why are they supporting her? she has absolutely no reason to be vice president. Obama and McSame want to do things like lower gas prices, fix the economy,etc, but what does she have? nothing. 3:AM? don't call Sarah Palin.

[Kind of Blue]

18. BRAVO! BRAVO! ENCORE! AUTHOR! AUTHOR!

Thank your for the excellent analysis. :applause: :7 :bounce: :yourock:

[Jade Fox]

20. This was written by Jane Smiley at Huffington Post.....

That's why the link, and that's why it's in the "Editorials & Other Articles" forum. :)

[shellgame26]

19. I was tempted to feel sorry for her

when I saw how uncomfortably out of her league she was under Couric's mild questioning, but then I remembered that nasty hate-filled 'speech' she gave at the convention claiming she was more experienced than both Biden and Obama combined and mocking Obama's decisions to do work on behalf of his community. No I don't feel sorry for her at all. Let everyone see her for the shallow empty-headed narcissist with a diva-beutyqueen complex that she is.