Part of being a grifter is believing your own bullshit...

[Javaman]

this is the basic fault line in all grifters.

As I have written before regarding how grifters work...

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Javaman/343

There is also another part of them that they must maintain and that is believing their own bullshit.

A good con starts and ends with the grifter believing and carrying out a good sell.

failin quitters star took a massive hit this past week. Why? Because she backpedaled on her own scam.

When she didn't own up to the targets on her website and her hate rhetoric, it bit her squarely in the ass.

But wait, isn't part of grifting never owning up to the past or bullshit that's been said?

Yes, but given the fact that she set up her own trap, a good grifter would take a certain amount of the responsibility while not taking any of the blame. She chose the very risky tact of doing neither.

As a result she took a major hit.

A good con is a long drawn out process. Sometimes taking many years. And along that way, each piece has to be expertly managed as so not to distract from the larger long term goal. Sometimes along the way there are little stumbles but with any good grift, there are back up plans or quick covers to "reright" the plan.

failin quitter failed in the most basic way of her grift. She didn't have a back up plan. And it's becoming glaringly obvious.

So instead of admitting minor defeat. aka taking a few steps back to regroup, replan then push ahead again, she's trying hard to polish the turd in the hopes that no one notices.

Sadly, everyone has. And those that follow her blathering like hungry dogs waiting for meal, paused a bit. I might not have been noticeable, but they did.

failin quitter is now into full "cover my ass" mode, by going all fox news. Hoping that the constant unending coverage of her "explaining away her sociopathic behavior" will somehow fix her image.

failin quitter by making this mistake and now compounding it into a complete fuck up, has effectively now put herself into the political wilderness.

Any shred of hope she falsely maintained within herself for even a remote chance at a 2012 shot, has been effectively shut down.

She knows this. And what we are now witnessing is the sour grapes of a beauty queen wrestling with the winner for the crown.

It's a very sad display.

[upi402]

1. They all remind me of grifters and gameshow hosts

Toss Televangelists in there too somewhere.

Good points. They have bottomless nerve too. Like a sociopath, they are not a bit worried about how you think or feel. Just hoping you buy it and they gain from it. If not, they walk away - but will walk right up and try it again without guilt or a second thought if they see you again. Free of restraint and limits of conscience.

[freshwest]

3. That's right. And the reason they have to keep repeating their lies is to convince themselves!

[knowbody0]

2. clusterfucktress

[bullwinkle428]

4. In a nutshell, it can described as the "George Costanza philosophy" -

IT'S NOT A LIE, IF YOU BELIEVE IT!

[Javaman]

5. The Costanza Rule of Grifting.

While George did choose to believe his own BS, he did so knowing that he wouldn't hurt anyone in the process. It was purely for self protection.

While the failin quitter corollary allows for personal gain.

;) LOL

[DCKit]

6. Do you really believe they use their own snake-oil? Oh, to be a fly on the wall at the Palin house.

[Octafish]

7. Speaking of grifters: The Big Con at Dealey Plaza....

The Big Con at Dealey Plaza

EXCERPT...

The movie the Sting is based in part on Professor David Maurer’s "The Big Con," a study of street slang of the American confidence men of the early part of the last century. Maurer’s "The Big Con" was first published in 1940 and updated and republished later as "The American Confidence Man." The book began as a linguistic text on the slang and lingo of the grifters and confidence men, but became a manual on how the big confidence scams are played.

Maurer, a professor at the University of Louisville, Kentucky, wrote that, "My approach is simple. I determine who the good professionals are, secure their assistance, and work with them much the same as an anthropologist might work with an American Indian tribe he is studying."

"I have scrupulously refrained from passing any judgments with a moral bias. My only aim is to tell for the general reader, the story of American confidence men and confidence games, stripped of the romantic aura which commonly hovers over literature of the modern big-time criminal."

When Professor Maurer saw the movie "The Sting" when it first came out in the early 1970s, he felt like he was stung. Maurer recognized his story of The Big Con was the basis for the screenplay, without credit, authorization or restitution, and filed suit.

Eventually and reluctantly, the movie studio recognized and compensated Maurer before the case went to court. They could produce no other published work from anywhere that mentions Henry Gondorf, one of the movie’s protagonists (Played by Paul Newman), and a real life person and character in Maurer’s book. Gondorf, according to Maurer, was a bartender in and Big Con artist who set up "Big Stores" in the 1920s in Chicago, Atlantic City and New York, running the type of Big Cons portrayed in the film.

CONTINUED...