The Sarah Palin Mentality in a Nutshell

[no_hypocrisy]

“She just doesn’t think it’s important to know things,” said Andrew Halcro, the conservative who ran against her for governor in 2006. “Issues register on her brain only in terms of populist appeal. She never thinks through the policy implications.” From the other end of the political spectrum, state representative Les Gara of Anchorage, a liberal, said,“She doesn’t spend time studying problems. She’d much rather deliver a sound bite than do the hard work of governing.”

-snip-

She may not be “a fucking psychopath,” as one very prominent Alaskan told me she was, but Palin does seem prone to what psychologists call magical thinking. At its most basic level, this is a tendency to believe that you exert more control over events than you actually do. It is the irrational belief that thinking is the same as doing, that you can actually cause a circumstance or an event to occur simply by wishing for it. It is common and natural in young children. Believing that you will become president of the United States someday simply because you want to would be an example of magical thinking. Another example would be believing that you can make a gas line happen, if only you want it badly enough and—as Palin has done—you ask schoolchildren to pray for it. Believing that as governor of Alaska you can bend Exxon Mobil to your will is magical thinking in the extreme.

-snip-

It’s almost as if, long ago, she adopted as a personal motto Mark Twain’s sardonic observation “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”

Read more: http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2009/03/17/Governor-Palins-Big-Energy-Battles/index.html

Article from last year, but it's the writer who's renting the house next door to the Palins.

[Skittles]

1. Gist: SHE IS AN AIRHEAD

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. She's a package

she is groomed and manipulated and she doesn't mind. I just hope that we do not get this 'package'

[Ned Bro]

3. I think your title says it quite succinctly!

[Kerrytravelers]

4. TRANSLATION: She is George W.Bush in high heels.

[NYC_SKP]

6. Like this?

http://www.dmumford.com/fun/wgirls/

[TrogL]

7. GHAAAAAAAAAAAA - Eyebleach!!!!

[Kerrytravelers]

11. *shudder* I will never be the same again.

:scared:

[jp11]

13. Ah, always put salt in your eyes!

[MindandSoul]

5. Now, that's what I call effective bi-partisanship! For once, the Right and the Left

agree on something! Palin is a pea-brain (bad) joke!

[lolly]

8. She's hardly alone

Isn't that the whole premise of "The Secret" and the "Prosperity Gospel" movement?

Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Bright Sided" has a lot on the American tendency to believe we all make our own luck, positive thinking can accomplish anything, etc.

The flip side is the belief that if someone has lost a job, has no health insurance, etc, it's their own fault. They just weren't thinking optimistically enough. That fits in with the Palin Republican mindset as well.

[tammywammy]

9. Good article

I believe I've read it before, but was still good the second time around.

All her huffing and puffing about ExxonMobile, but yet they still partnered up with TransCanada on the pipeline. She didn't look too upset when she met them in Dallas


Hypocrite.

[RandomThoughts]

10. I think the difference between faith and the false doctrine 'the secret'

Is a person knowing that they do not do something by thinking it. Nor would effects that do occur that could be called correlations to thought be credited to that thought.

It does not come from a person, even if a person thinks something should happen and it does, to take glory for it is wrong, and a perception that can create much problems. Sometimes it is a trap to get a person to claim they are something they are not. That is seen in many places. However there can be the contribution of a persons abilities in such situations.


There is a huge trap to try to get people to think they are God in the false doctrine the secret. While ideas of faith, while also accompanied with reason and even good works, if for better results, are more maintaining the hope that something can happen to make a difference. And that is seen to happen many times in many lives.


On a side note, I have a different view of, but a version of what that person calls magical thought, although I think of it differently, and actually think it is better to express thought, and find good thoughts, then doing something that would go against a persons beliefs. In that, thinking and feeling becomes the best action, not because of assumption of effect, but by choice of intent.

[jgraz]

12. You only need a nutshell to hold her mentality

[MrScorpio]

14. Sarah Palin is an idiot

And her fans... Ignorant people need role models too.

[Lil Missy]

15. The Sarah Palin Mentality .....

[sharesunited]

16. She is rich, and her magical thinking got her that much.