[Prophet_Tenebrae]

Agreed, TheZookie007 - I'll be interested in anything that goes beyond a mere commonality of viewpoint... although, I suppose there is also the fact she's an outsider to Capitol Hill but then, I'd have thought the point of that was that it meant you weren't corrupted by the lobbyists etc. but she managed to get caught with her hand in the cookie jar as governor of Alaska all by herself and now she has advisers in DC... so, she's hardly a paragon of virtue as far as her executive conduct goes or even untouched by Washington now.

[Q_BE]

Although I do take a certain pleasure in seeing you around this forum again, Prophet, I wonder why my favorite frienemy is again skulking these boards...

Q-"Darkness is as Darkness does"-BE

[Real]

its the simple fact that people on the extreme will rally behind, apologize for and spin the idiotic words and actions of anyone who claims to have adopted their position.

ultimate case in point imaginable; george w getting a second term.

[Prophet_Tenebrae]

The terms Palin supporter and Palin apologist do seem almost interchangeable but then, Palin is in need of defence most of the time. I'd say she seemed to have adopted the "orchestra pit" tactic - as described by FOX "news" head honcho to be, if you have two guys talking to a crowd and one of them says "I've got a solution to the Middle Eastern problem" and the other guy falls into the orchestra pit, everyone is going to forget the other guy and remember the guy who fell into the orchestra pit... or something along those lines - but that would be giving her too much credit, I suspect.

It's pretty obvious to see why there are a lot of people on both sides of the fence who like her in the media - she's a continual train wreck, smashing into a car crash on the Titanic, about to hit an iceberg and the Hindeberg has just caught fire and is about to REALLY get the party started. Hence, the liberals get a nice big easy target and the conservatives get to moan about how the liberal media hates Sarah Palin so much, leading to more hamfisted rebuttals by Palin and rinse and repeat. So, she's pretty much guaranteed to have more coverage than any political figure other than Obama in the run up to 2012. Needless to say, that in and of itself is worth its weight in gold.

Certainly though, Real, you're right. She represents a rather extreme point of view and as such it's not surprising that those who support her do with such fervour. It's easy to see the other side of the argument though - any self-respecting Palin supporter would just point at Obama's zealous supporters in the run up to the elections. Which is a valid point, so long as one realises that like is not being compared with like.

[3deroticer]

Sarah Palin on the tonite show!

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/3/4/843138/-Lenos-Tonight-Show-Reality-Hacking,-adds-Laugh-Track-to-Sarah-Palin-Appearance

[Prophet_Tenebrae]

Reading that article... I honestly wonder what kind of man would get beguiled by Palin after she started talking? But then, most men are terrible listeners.

[3deroticer]

"We used to hustle over the border for health care we received in Canada. And I think now, isn't that ironic? ”— Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor and U.S. vice-presidential candidate

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/sarah-palin-sees-eye-to-eye-with-albertans-in-calgary-speech/article1492634/

Isn't this interesting that she takes advantage of socialize medicine that she fought so hard for everyone else to not have!

[onion_writer]

Damn, but Tina Fey just absolutely nailed her again, just now on SNL!

[TheZookie007]

Slate: "Hegemoron: Sarah Palin's ignorant imperialism."

Sarah Palin thinks Barack Obama is a wimp. She's been going around to Tea Party rallies, invoking the spirit of revolutionary Boston and castigating Obama for failing to exalt American power and punish our adversaries. She seems blissfully unaware that the imperial arrogance she's preaching isn't how the American founders behaved. It's how the British behaved, and why they lost. Palin represents everything the original Tea Party was against....

The other target of Palin's criticism is Obama's press conference at last week's Nuclear Security Summit, in which he argued that "so many of the challenges that we face internationally can't be solved by one nation alone." He cited Russia's help in reducing nuclear weapons stockpiles, and he noted that the United States couldn't bring peace to the Middle East without Israeli and Palestinian cooperation. Nevertheless, Obama said that the United States must work to resolve such conflicts, "because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them. And that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

So when Obama said "like it or not," he was expressing misgivings about costly faraway wars, not about power. But that isn't what makes Palin's argument so stupid. What makes it stupid is that it's how Britain botched the Boston Tea Party and squandered its empire.

On Dec. 16, 1773, colonial dissidents famously protested British taxation without representation by dumping shiploads of tea into Boston Harbor. According to John C. Miller's Origins of the American Revolution, British hawks responded exactly as Palin now recommends: by focusing on ego, power, and dominance. They called the Tea Party a "wanton and unprovoked insult" and proposed "to blow the town of Boston about the ears of its inhabitants." King George III declared, "We must master them or totally leave them to themselves and treat them as Alien."

The British hawks, like Palin, saw self-restraint as wimpy and dangerous. If Britain retreated from the tax policies that had provoked the Tea Party, they warned, the colonists would take this as "Proofs of our Weakness, Disunion and Timidity." Miller writes, "Few Englishmen believed that the mother country could retain its sovereignty if it retreated in the face of such outrage: it was now said upon every side that the colonists must be chastised into submission."...

There was no America, as a nation, until Britain foolishly behaved as Palin now wants America to behave. Her advice is a prescription for superpower suicide. If she understood the Boston Tea Party as more than a slogan, she'd know that.

Some comments from that article:

Every time I read some comment on how "socialist" this country is becoming I am just shaking my head. I've lived in eastern germany. The (much needed) reforms here, like healthcare, are not socialist. Even the banking bailout (that was co-initiated under Bush jr.) that gave the government essentially ownership over some of the biggest banks are not socialist (last time i checked BofA was still as capitalist as ever). Believe me when I say that socialism is something completely different. The only thing that the new healthcare-bill is adding is a bit of a social component to the free market economy.

I am assuming that you're in the middle tier, and are thus enjoying the lowest federal taxes in almost 60 years. You should use the word 'socialist' with a little less vitriol; socialism is not communism. The largest economic entity is 'socialist': the EU 27-member bloc (by GDP), not the USA, by the way. Socialism evidently does not necessarily usurp capitalism (communism clearly does however). Oh, and if you were a EU citizen you'd liver longer than Americans and if you got really sick there is zero risk of losing your home and / or filing for bankruptcy. Hilarious. And then there's the 6 weeks of mandatory vacation and many other social benefits. I suspect that you haven't even visited a 'socialist' country let alone lived in one. One more thing: these 'socialist' countries are our close allies. As I say, if you are a patriot a little less vitriol would be appropriate. 
 
And no, I'm not a liberal before you ask.

Ben Franklin's essay, "Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One," is both a great piece of satire and a pretty good discussion of this point. 
 
See here for the text: http://www.milestonedocuments.com/documents/full-text/benjamin-franklins-rules-by-which-a-great-empire-may-be-reduced-to-a-small/

[SamV]

Actually the sign wavers at those Tea Party rallies who declare Obama to be a socialist, and a fascist, need to take a moment to sit down together and figure out what socialism and fascism are, and which one they think Obama is.  

He can't be BOTH, and hopefully they might then have one cohesive message to put on their signs, so they won't come off looking like such idiots.  

And as far as being unaware of what life is like in other countries, well with the majority of Tea Party supports being white (89%) and older, I have a feeling most are very xenophobic when it comes to their views and/or experiences outside of the US.

As one 67 year-old Tea Party lady in FL was quoted regarding her views about the President. "...He's a socialist. And to tell you the truth, I think he's a Muslim and trying to head us in that direction. He's been in office over a year and can't find a church to go to. That doesn't say much for him."  

----
EDIT: In the name of fairness I fixed what I wrote about the FL Tea Party lady. I was in a hurry and went by my memory and accidentally combined quotes from two different persons.  
  

[Real]

the problem is, as always, republicans have nothing to gain by informing their followers

the more "general" anger, distrust, hate and meaningless rhetoric and the less that gets done by a different team trying to do the exact same thing, the more people are frustrated with government and the party in power.  the better chances the republicans have come november.  

the 25% right fringe have proven themselves capable of not only backing, but whacking anyone in sight over the head with a screaming self righteous patriot hammer of whatever their corporate masters tell them to...

[TheZookie007]

This is just so wrong.

[SwitcherX]

This is just so wrong.

Funny though! 

[MaxBigfoot]

This is just so wrong.

Heh, she could have a fourth one, somewhat lower.   

[Real]

wow.

now this bitch is going back in time and out and out lying.

http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA/status/15216694830

today's tweet blaming environmentalists for the oil spill and claiming she warned us all about offshore drilling (bahahaha) even tops yesterday's when she advised you only read publications with an admitted israeli bias for your info on the flotilla massacre.

if youre into "so obstinately stupid that it cant be anything but laughable" @sarahpalinusa is one to follow...