The real Palin problem

[malaise]

is that she actually believes she was Vice Presidential indeed Presidential) material.
http://www.arachnoid.com/psychology/narcissism.php
<snip>
Narcissists typically attach themselves to the more dogmatic and less flexible sources of authority, sources unlikely to undergo modification, because the entire point is to be absolutely certain — more certain than life really is — and be beyond the possibility of refutation or criticism. This means narcissists find themselves attracted to such callings as religion, law enforcement, and, ironically, clinical psychology, because these fields contain a very high percentage of inflexible content, and little possibility for challenge or refutation of their principles.

The basic idea is that a narcissist wants to secure himself against the need to say, "Okay, I made a mistake, I was wrong." To a narcissist, this is a fate worse than death, and many narcissists quite literally suffer death to avoid the possibility.

Normal people are willing to be found wrong, over and over again, because this is in the nature of life. Such people expect their personal creative process to eventually bear fruit, and are willing to experiment with reality, walk paths not yet explored, sometimes stumble and fall, in the hope of contributing something new to the store of human knowledge.

At some risk of oversimplification, a normal person is willing to be wrong 100 times in order to create something uniquely new and useful, while a narcissist sacrifices this opportunity, this stage of personal evolution, in order to be secure against the possibility of being found wrong. For a normal person, being wrong is the price we pay for the creative process. For a narcissist, being wrong is too high a price to pay — better to label other people as wrong, from within an impregnable fortress of mediocrity. Unfortunately, in exchange for an infantile kind of security, narcissists sacrifice any chance to positively influence the world.
----------------
I can't imagine being one of her professors - that must have been an experience to forget. It explains why she took so long to graduate and changed colleges they way she changes outfits.

[samplegirl]

1. Someone should of told her....

this was not a beauty pageant!

[malaise]

3. It was to her

and don't forget she didn't even win that contest.

[saltpoint]

13. For the Talent component of the contest, she offered

"flippant and dismissive public remarks about community organizers."

The judges weren't amused.

Hi, malaise. Good mornin'.

[malaise]

21. Beautifully stated

How are you this morning Old Crusoe :hi:

[saltpoint]

25. I'm hangin' in there, by god. I'm all ready for a new, smart president.

I just didn't like the one we had the last 8 years all that much!

[malaise]

27. LOL

I am hopeful.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

4. Yep. Someone should've.

[Obamanaut]

45. "should have" nt

[ima_sinnic]

2. yes, & the other real problem is that the corporate media treat her as if she were qualified

... they are still interviewing her, ferchrissake, as though she has anything intelligent, weighty, wise, renowned, pithy, insightful, educated, informed, or even intuitive to say.

Her 15 minutes is dragging into a full hour.

[malaise]

6. The corporate media view her as prime time

entertainment. They are enjoying the circus and are hoping that she continues to provide ratings material.

If Palin believes that attacking campaign handlers will endear her to the GOP for a future election, she must be in direct contact with Grandma Johnson.

edit subject

[machI]

10. And we keep exacerbating the problem by bringing her sorry face to the forefront

Palin is a piece of roughage that needs to pass, be flushed down the drain, and forgotten about.

[saltpoint]

15. I'm thinking she may be en route to her own political funeral.

She's whipping out the victim card. Actually more than one. Her personal life seems to be under strain, even before the world media began commenting on it. In the public light, her own naked ambition seems to be more important to her than her role as mom. She and Todd don't seem to like their kids.

Each time the woman opens her mouth, she falls farther from viability as a national candidate. She's all the way up there in Alaska, dontcha know, and terribly busy shooting wolves from helicopters on the way home from making addresses to secessionist groups. If a presidential candidate is in Alaska, it's a lot more difficult to mount a national political campaign. The lower 48 contiguous states is where it's at, and she's someplace else.

If Obama is successful, it won't much matter who eventually winds up on the Pukes' ticket in 2012. If Obama is felt to be vulnerable, I'm not seeing Huck and Willard stepping aside to permit Palin's ascendancy in the GOP. I think they are already at work planning her political annihilation.

[malaise]

19. Yes indeed

Imagine being the 'poster girl' for values voters and then parading your pregnant teenage daughter on the stage of your party's convention (along with the baby daddy) and then complaining that people are attacking your family.

Did she not expect that her daughter's pregnancy was going to be exposed? Why should people feel sorry for her when she and her party ridicule pregnant teenagers and single mothers.

Great comment re Huck and Willard - I have no doubt that Huck is already digging deep re House-gate and never forget that the GOP has access to hacks who can and will leak all her 'dealings'.

Keep talking Palin.

[malaise]

23. Nothing she says or we say

will save her political career. Let her spew her incoherent babble - even her base will eventually disown her. Look how they have run from Bush.

[Buzz Clik]

32. First, she was qualified. Second, the media interview her because she's still a hot comodity.

This thread attests to that.

[ima_sinnic]

33. "qualified" for what, pray tell? I find that a very odd statement

--or are you being sarcastic?

[Buzz Clik]

41. A 35-year-old American citizen. Are there more requirements?

Is she so stupid to frighten me with the thought of her being President? Absolutely. Do she have any relevant experience that would make her a credible choice? No.

[ima_sinnic]

43. oh right, waste our time with semantics. fine. np.

[Buzz Clik]

49. Yeah, God forbid that somebody actually uses the correct words to express themselves.

[ima_sinnic]

61. the "correct word" is "eligible," then. "Qualified" also connotes talents and skills

that make one not only eligible but also more than competent to do a job.

so, nice try at being supercilious.

[terisan]

5. A lot of men in our party have had that same crazy idea. Weird isn't it

The women are uppity, the men are rightously ambitious or committed.

Palin didn't bailout the corporations that cheated us, male Dem politicians were the majority in that giveaway, including our PE and VPE/

The female politician bashing has gotten old, Let's hold our own accountable instead of focusing on the candidate who did not win.. They have the power to further hurt my life, she does not.

[malaise]

7. There are way more male narcissists than female

and you are absolutely correct that Palin is diversion from the more serious crimes facilitated by male (and female) politicians and crooks in the financial and business sectors. That said we can walk and chew gum simultaneously.

[saltpoint]

11. Had Palin been elected and had McCain croaked a few months into office,

she would have had PLENTY of opportunity to hurt you and millions of others in a vast number of ways.

And it would have nothing whatsoever to do with gender politics.

The woman is a flirtatious dolt. She has the brains of a soup can. If that.

We blasted Dan Quayle from all angles 24-7 when Poppy named him the GOP veep nom, and we blasted Palin, too. We don't like them. We distrust unambitious selfhood and petulant narcissism. And properly so.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

17. The woman is a flirtatious dolt. She has the brains of a soup can.

Oh mah gosh.... you have nailed it.... soup can... alphabet soup with most of the consonants missing... heh.

[terisan]

40. Would have- She isn't hurting me, my party is hurting me, The new head of the DNC wants to limit my

my rights based upon his private religious beliefs dictated to him by male elitists who run the organized religion in which he holds membership-a religion I have intimate knowledge of having also held membership in it)albeit second class membership..

The new head of HHS has voted against women's health when a senator from SD

The new PE has elevated Rick Warren who claims to speak for God and tells women it is their duty to stay married to an abusive spouse.

There is a pattern here.

There is a similar pattern in the area of finance. Robert Rubin has finally been pressured to step down at Citibank --. He is a chief economic advisor to Obama and an old friend of Larry Summers, new tTeasury head (and the guy from Harvard who made the statement about his doubts on women's intellect. He just presented an old-fashioned supply side economic plan. Wall Street backed the Democratic Party, not the Republican this time around and they are being richly rewarded.

Sarah Palin is not in power. She does not have the power to hurt me. The current administration and the Democratic government have that power, and they seem to be on the verge of abusing it.

Women are more than 50% of the population of the US and only 17% of the members of Congress.
Rwuanda has over 50% representation, Turkey is reaching high numbers, the Scandinavian countries have an enviable record on female representation and economic well-being. The US is not doing all that well.

Just as the new leadership in the Democratic Party is reaching out to anti-women males, women Democrats will increasingly be making common cause with pro choice Republican women. How many women, I wonder, will be voting for the pro-choice Meg Whitman for California governor. A lot of Democratic and Independent women in California are excited about the prospect.

If the Democratic hierarchy continues the courting of the religious right (following the Ortega model in Nicaragua of Leftists teaming up with the Catholic Church to oppose women's rights) I think the current slow flow of Dem women into the Republican Party may become a stampede.

Eight years ago Bill Clinton warned Democrats that they would underestimate George Bush at their peril. Yet we did it anyway. Dems laughed at him , made fun of him, called him ignorant and unintelligent, stupid, crazy--in fact the ad hominen attacks caused people to defend him longer than they would have otherwise. He ran circles around us and the last eight years has devastated us and the country. Bush won, we lost and our leadership gave his friends (and their friends) the 700 000 billion that now you and your children have to pay off. Tell, why and how did you do that to yourselves?

Are you holding our leadership accountable? If you don;t they are going to do it again and we will get crumbs in the new economic bailout while big business and corrupt shadow politicians get a huge payday.

The ad hominen attacks on female politicians are going to boomerang and they should. You are going to unite a lot of women who have been divided, and you may find yourselves in a party dominated by the religious right, just as Republicans did decades ago.) A sad state for the party (Republican) that had initiated the ERA and it will be a sad state for the Dem Party which had once championed women's liberation.

[saltpoint]

46. For some many decades, only males occupied seats in government.

The attacks then were relentlessly savage and not hurled on a gender basis.

It is not reasonable to assume that people in the political arena are immune from attacks. If they want to dissolve their egos and join monasteries on remote mountaintops, they are entirely welcome to do so. No one is stopping them.

But when female candidates enter the arena of politics and power, they are as subject to the same elbowing and backstabbing and media slander and libel as male politicians have always been. The issue is who holds power, how he or she wields it, and who wants it instead.

That is not a gender issue. That is a power issue.

Sarah Palin is in fact in power. She is the governor of the State of Alaska. Millions of people voted for her and John McCain for the presidency. Her quest is plainly and directly in pursuit of power.

There are many female Congresswomen, Senators, Governors, and so on down the ballot in many different regions of the country -- more now than ever before in fact -- and the attacks on Palin's stupidity and her profound cluelessness are directed by women as well as by men, and properly so.

She took the job she's in. She wanted a higher job than she has. In addition to her being a fool and an idiot to begin with.

I say she got what she paid for.

[malaise]

57. Ditto

That is not a gender issue. That is a power issue.

Dumb women have no right to fall back on gender to escape scrutiny.

[saltpoint]

58. Hi, malaise. Not surprisingly you've put up yet another

interesting and provocative post.

Thanks for that. It keeps this site hoppin'.

[malaise]

59. Thanks Old Crusoe

Palin really annoys me. As a woman I hate women who fail and use gender as an excuse.

[saltpoint]

60. Yep. It would help if the pro-Palin faction out there would

consider that many women have done very well as public servants.

Barbara Jordan. Bella Abzug. Barbara Boxer.

I just don't think Palin is in their league as citizens, never mind as public servants.

[lonestarnot]

8. Pssssst.

If we just ignore this freak, won't she just go away?

[Fire1]

37. Ain't it the truth! I'm so sick o' that dim wit!

[KharmaTrain]

9. This Is Modus Operendi In The GOOP

Look at all the narcisssists that inhabit that party. Who could top Nixon? OK...Chenney could.

Maybe it is being narcissistic, but I think it's just being arrogant and ignorant. It's being led around by "staff" and hangers on who fuel her ego and ambition and who will buy anything and everything she says. They feed off one another...and the big thing is to never admit defeat or mistakes. When something goes right (which is rare), scream it from the hilltops, when they don't...if you can't ignore it, then just say "shit happens". This makes the ego feel good as she not only absolves herself of the loss, but sets her up as the "savior".

Palin, above all, demonstrates what "growing up under Raygun" is all about. She's the right wing dream...totally brainwashed with talking point with little understanding of those points and lacking any other substance. She's shallow for a purpose...a shared shallowness that is a reason so many wingnut not only could relate with, but made her their "great white hope".

Above all Palin has been a player...in her private life, in her public life and lives to play. She doesn't want the game to end and knows how to pull strings and pit people against each other to further her own ambition. Be assured this lady is a terror on two legs if you cross her and those who've helped her are soon forgotten. It's all about Sarah. Now that could be narcisstic, but I tend to think she's way to shallow to be anything more than on one massive ego trip.

Cheers...

:hi:

[malaise]

12. I disagree

There are lots of shallow people and then there are narcissists. She is a classic narcissist.
And yes, there are many in the GOP. Think about it - Greenspan publicly told them that neo-liberalism was a flawed model but they refuse to admit they were wrong. Reagan is still their god and Pat Buchanan still believes Nixon was wrongly villified. You can't help those people but they should never hold office.

[KharmaTrain]

14. She's Too Shallow...Probably Doens't Know What The Word Means

I agree that there are plenty of narcissists in that party...anyone from the Nixon and Raygun years will suffice. It's all but a prerequisite to become a member of PNAC or become a neo-con. I honestly don't think Palin was that smart...definitely not on the mental level with the Ginfriches...if anything, a puppet for those people...thus why they didn't see her as a threat, just a useful tool.

Palin's shtick is purely visceral...getting attention and reactions. She's so brainwashed with talking points and a narrow intellect that even a powder puff like Katie Couric looks like a real journalist and it's what sunk her ratings as the campaign went on. It was very obvious in the debate with Biden where she couldn't debate substance thus went to gimmicks...ones that gave her fellow wingnuts big stiffies. She personifies the ideal wingnut in so many ways...ignorance is a virtue.

[malaise]

20. LOL

I get your point, but only a narcissist (even if she doesn't know the word) would dare to tell a national debate moderator that she will not be answering the questions asked because she's speaking to her base.

:hi:

[ErinBerin84]

16. my problem with her

is that she thinks EVERYTHING is unique to her....I mean, it sucks that her kid may get fun of, but at the same time, she should have known that she would be thrusting her pregnant daughter into the limelight, and the right wing would have gone crazy if Chelsea Clinton had gotten pregnant in the 90s. May not be fair, but it's certainly not unique to her. And what is she talking about when she says "THEY respected that in him (when Barack Obama said that he thought his family should be off limits), and I naively thought it would be the SAME for me!" Who is the "they"??? Bloggers, who endlessly gossiped about a non-existent whitey tape of Michelle's? Many in the media also said that Obama was wrong that his family is off limits, if they are campaigning for him. Who is the they?! And the fact that she says "We would have seen a prettier picture if I were on the Democratic ticket." (on edit, she said "DemocraT ticket", right?) She was really treated with kid gloves.....the media DID want us to take her seriously at first, and we were subjected to endless propaganda about her being a "feminist hunter", and pictures of her wearing fur and shit. And they wanted us to believe she was the second coming of Ray-gun after one speech. Does she not think that, if Obama had for instance chosen someone pretty unknown like Chet Edwards, HE would not get made fun of if the campaign tried to hide him from the press, and surrogates were directed to say that he had economic experience because he is a father and has created a home budget? Because that's the crap they were trying to do with Palin. She was in the running for what, two months, and the Obama campaign basically ignored her. Since she manages to embarrass herself every friggin interview, I'd love to see how she would melt under the pressure of a two year campaign. You can't use the "I may not answer the question" bs every debate lady, nor can you wink some morse code hypnotism into the audience as a defense mechanism.

[malaise]

24. Very well stated

:hi:

[ErinBerin84]

28. another thing

It seems like the potential first ladies were scrutinized more than Todd Palin, whose role in government affairs in Alaska (in addition to the Troopergate thing) is really sketchy. I mean, Todd Palin was sort of made fun of at times, but he was actively campaigning and allegedly telling donors to "keep money for 2012", etc in Alaska. Todd was pretty much ignored. That being said, it was also probably because she was a VP candidate, but still. She didn't have it THAT bad.

[Arkansas Granny]

18. The biggest Palin problem, IMO, is that so many people persist in

the belief that she is Presidential material.

[Mike Nelson]

22. I LOVE PALIN!

She helped Obama win and I hope she's the Repuplican pick in 2012!

[malaise]

26. She won't make it to 2012

Keep talking Grifter, keep talking!!

[Mike Nelson]

29. Well, how about BRISTOL?

She should have found an alter by then!

[malaise]

39. She'll alter her

dress size. :D

[marshall]

30. We've had enough narcissists in the White House!

That shouldn't be a qualification.

[Are_grits_groceries]

31. I have come to the conclusion that

most Rethugs can be broken into groups using the DSMV-V.
Democrats are not immune considering what Blago just pulled.

About Palin and her family - I have never seen anyone running for office drag their family around to campaign events like Palin did. I can still identify all those children (shudder). If she does that, she can expect some scrutiny of them. As I have stated before, those kids would probably have been better served if they had been left to be raised by wolves.

I cannot listen to Palin. Trying to follow her syntax gives me a migraine. I have yet to hear her utter a short, complete sentence. It sounds like she learned English using Rosetta Stone with a DJ remix.

[malaise]

34. I'd love to get my hands on information

from her various colleges.

The vast majority of people finish a college degree in one place and in four years. This woman has had issues for decades.

[Are_grits_groceries]

36. I'm sure anyone who taught her in an English class

has had someone hack into the system to remove their names from any transcript.

[malaise]

38. Hehehehe

:rofl:

[ima_sinnic]

35. lol!

[rvablue]

51. "Rosetta Stone with a DJ remix"... oh my, when will I stop laughing?

That is the absolute best!

:rofl:

[MajorChode]

42. Calling Palin a narcissist is an insult to narcissists

I don't believe Palin is a narcissist. Narcissism exists in all of us and is simply a natural tendency, but calling someone a narcissist implies they have a serious disorder and I'm not sure Palin's inadequacies rise to that level.

There's a far simpler explanation for Palin:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect

[Blue_In_AK]

44. What I hate about her

is that she has our legislature cowed into submission. I spent some time last night talking with Bill Wielechowski, who some of you may remember from Rachel Maddow's show during Troopergate, and he says he has no hopes at all of getting any of his legislation passed in the coming session because Sarah now refuses to talk to him, and most assuredly won't sign any bill he proposes, no matter how good it is. He insists that there are not enough votes in the legislature to hold her accountable for ANYTHING that's gone on in her first two years as governor. While I could tell he was frustrated, it seemed like basically the message to constituents is STFU if you aren't a Palinbot.

I'm SO sick of her, and we still have two more years to put up with her as governor, because obviously the legislature isn't going to do anything to stop her. You guys can have fun laughing at her and making fun and saying you hope she runs in 2012, but please have a little pity for us who have to deal with her foolishness every single day.

[rvablue]

52. I definitely have pity on you guys up there and while I do laugh at her she also makes me shudder

because I fear that somehow she is going to wiggle her way into national politics.

[saltpoint]

47. Diana, the Huntress, is a noble adventurer.

Palin, who shoots wolves from helicopters, is an amoral butcher.

Shooting wolves from the sky is not hunting. It is slaughter.

Diana is an essential feminine archetype. http://www.geocities.com/iona_m/Virtualtantra/artemis.html

Palin flagrantly violates Diana's domain. Those wolves are Diana's. They are not Sarah Palin's.

I do not believe that Sarah Palin is a particularly bright soul. She is shrewd in many ways, but as soon as she burst onto the national scene in St. Paul at the GOP convention, she used the occasion to spew dismissive comments about community organizers, as if the people who build communities and try to hold them together were in some way representative of maladaptive behavior.

When the opposite is in fact true.

The men and women stomping and hooting in support of Palin's snide remarks on the convention floor in St. Paul were very likely NOT feminists. You would have been hard-pressed to find a feminist anywhere in that hall. Least of all at the podium. There were some in town, but they were being beaten and arrested by the St. Paul police force outside the convention hall.

A recent poll in Alaska suggested that were Palin to challenge incumbent U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski, she (Palin) would get her moose-gutting hind end whomped. Lisa issued a public warning for Palin to keep her distance. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/02/sen-murkowski-warns-palin_n_147643.html

So Palin is likely blocked from political advancement in Alaska by virtue of her being decidedly less popular now than she had been prior to McCain's plucking her out of the permafrost and placing her in the national spotlight after 10 or 20 minutes of vetting. I think her national ambitions will soon enough encounter the Huck-and-Willard buzzsaw of hardball politics.

I'm not real big on politicians who use their kids as props. IMO Todd and Sarah are guilty of this. There is something visibly off-rhythm in the way they behave around their kids.

Palin told Couric that she reads just about every newspaper there is. I'm guessing that when no wolf pack is sighted, Palin leafs through The Economist up in the helicopter.

Palin is a disgrace to feminism and to democracy both. She hasn't done parenting and command of language much good either.

[Blue_In_AK]

53. Sarah has no one to blame but herself

for her falling popularity here. What made her popular before August was the fact that she strove to be bipartisan, to get along and work together with the various factions in the legislature, that she seemed to stand up to Big Oil by raising their taxes, so on and so on, but when she took her hard turn right at the convention (and since) she turned off many of her former friends, all across the political spectrum. I would venture to say that she has as many enemies on the right (excluding fundie nuts) as she does on the left. That ultra-partisan stuff just doesn't go over well here where the vast majority of the voters are independent or nonaffiliated.

While I don't always agree with Lisa's voting record, she is at least an intelligent human being, educated, who listens and responds to her constituents, and seems to be working for the people of Alaska, not her own ambitions. That makes her far superior in my book.

[saltpoint]

54. It will be lucky for the rest of us, Blue_in_AK, if you continue to

offer dispatches from the Far North, especially now with a new president, and the Republicans in disarray.

That Palin is even mentioned in the media as a viable potential nominee for them against Obama in 2012 is appalling in and of itself.

The rest of us are beneficiaries of your posts on Palin and related doings up in Alaska as we watch her try to position herself as a national candidate.

I understand the distinction you are making with Murkowski, and IMO you are exactly right.

[barbtries]

48. by the by,

did bristol give birth yet? i've been out of touch...

[katanalori]

50. doubt it.........

A DISTANT relative told People Magazine that Bristol gave birth, but NO announcement or pictures of the baby and NO appearance of Bristol. I feel so sorry for this girl. She seems to be manipulated by her ambitious mother. I hope she escapes.

[samsingh]

55. she thought she was presidential material

so did bush and cheney the evil ones

[malaise]

56. That's just part of the problem

She also believes she does great interviews. All the problems belong to the interviewer. I think she should give them a prepared list of questions. :rofl:

There is something seriously wrong with you if you stand up at a national debate (with clear rules) and tell the person in charge and your fellow debater that you will not be answering questions because your agenda is speaking to your base. You have already violated the rules of the debate and if that was the intention, why the hell did she show up.

She should have been hidden from the public after that debate.

[canetoad]

62. What is more frightening

is that she has a certain kind of charisma that appeals to a certain kind of person; those with even less capacity for intelligent self-examination than Palin has.

[samsingh]

63. that's the baffling part

many people know she's useless but support her because of the milf factor.