The very worst thing you can label someone who wants to be President or VP

[cali]

is mentally unstable. For all the gripes about Halpin's and Heilemann's book, this is by far the most damaging meme.

[Enrique]

1. yeah, they're not holding back

the GOP establishment is really going after Palin. Not that I mind.

[crikkett]

10. clearing the way for jeb bush

(god help us when he comes back into the spotlight)

[tularetom]

2. The very worst thing you can label someone who wants to be President or VP

is a republican.

Although that and "mentally unstable" are almost the same thing.

[DevonRex]

3. I agree. She was certainly delusional enough to think she needed no preparation

for interviews. None of us who have done oral exams would have gone in with no preparation, even after taking a whole semester of the subject.

[jaxx]

4. Reminds me of when Thomas Eagleton was the VP for a few minutes.

edit....he was the VP nominee, not the real live VP.

[dugaresa]

5. Her plan is to get rich, but sadly because she is mentally unstable I think

the money flows through her hands and she will eventually end up in some gutter somewhere.

[randr]

6. A new word to describe an unbalanced candidate?

Chenesque

[tonysam]

7. Actually that's the worst thing you can call anybody

School districts do this as a matter of routine when they want to can teachers they don't want.

[tammywammy]

8. I bought the book on Amazon Saturday night

And saying mentally unstable, is just...woah. I knew I wasn't the only one that thought she was batshit crazy, but that just takes it to new heights.

[Tippy]

9. Guess Who Halperin has a Special relationship with....

Good Ol Matt Drudge...

Halperin has a very special relationship with Matt Drudge. Halperin publicly blows Drudge whenever he's got a book to promote. Matt promotes. Others in the useless circle of hacks who make up the worst of the political journalism bubble take their cues from Matt, and promote the book too. Halperin has no shame about trying to sell his dumb books to the beltway political reporters he skulks around with. It is, of course, only natural that Politico would pick up an item from Drudge-worshiping Halperin in the hopes that Drudge would link.

But none of it is news. It barely resembles news. It's two hoary campaign 2008 anecdotes. This needs to stop.

Campaign 2008 is over. It is done. "News" from campaign 2008 is not news, anymore. Sorry if your book on the subject isn't out yet, guys, but you shoulda had it done before 2010 rolled around.


Send an email to Alex Pareene, the author of this post, at [e-mail].

[JuniperLea]

11. I've not heard of this yet...

Wondering where the "diagnosis" came from... was it a qualified mental health professional?

[NJmaverick]

12. Having seen some of the examples they use to back up tthis assertion

it's not an unsubtanciated label. She clearly is mentally unstable based on her actions.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. All one would need to do to realize how unstable she is

is watch that resignation speech a few more times. She was either having a "spell" during that speech or she was high as a kite.

[NJmaverick]

18. My guess would be a little bit of both

[mochajava666]

13. I remember Eagleton, too. I think he had electroshock

therapy to treat depression. America wasn't ready for that.

I'm not even sure that a candidate would be politically viable if he or she admitted to be taking antidepressants. Mental illness freaks people out to the point that no one wants to even talk about it.

[Blue_In_AK]

14. Well, it's about time somebody said out loud

what we've been saying for the past 16 months.

[Jennicut]

15. I think the book shows McCain in an even worse light because he is the one who picked her!

[Brickbat]

16. I do dislike the diagnosis-from-the-armchair approach, and feel strongly that

throwing around terms like "unstable" and "unbalanced" can do a lot of damage to a person who deserves it while also hurting people who don't, so much. It's like the last great stigma that it's still OK to throw around.

[NJmaverick]

19. What would you call this behavior?

<<Authors of "Game Change," book says the stress of vaulting onto the national stage caused Palin to have wild mood swings.

"One minute, Palin would be her perky self; the next she would fall into a strange blue funk," the authors write.

The morning of her ill-fated CBS interview with Katie Couric, Palin - "her eyes glassy and dead" - was unresponsive to attempts to prep her as she was being made up.

"As they were about to set off to meet Couric, Palin announced 'I hate this makeup' - smearing it off her face, messing up her hair, complaining she looked fat," the book relates.

Palin went on to give answers to Couric that were so incoherent the interview permanently damaged her.

Palin went into a tailspin. She stopped eating or sleeping, and drank only a half a can of diet soda a day, recounts the book written by John Heilemann of New York magazine and Mark Halperin of Time magazine.

"When her aides tried to quiz her she would routinely shut down - chin on her chest, arms folded, eyes cast to the floor, speechless and motionless, lost in what those around her described as a kind of catatonic stupor," the book says.>>

[Brickbat]

20. Considering the source,

I wouldn't call it anything.

[NJmaverick]

21. The source is the same one Harry Reid had to apologize for

[Brickbat]

22. I know.