Leftwing of the Far Right Pandering: Befuddled Palinite Tries to Pinkwash Sarah Palin With OCIHACOSP. LOL!

Pandering.

This post is one in a series on political pandering.

1 - Academic Showbiz, Celebrity Profs, and Crankage-Creep on the Left
2 - Prophetessor West: Crankage-Creep Part 2
3 - Crankage-Creep Part 3: Black Whackodoodles, Advanced Tokenism, Minority Authenticity, and Blackaphilia
4 - (Not) Queer Like Me

Just when you thought the mindless meme of a Palin-Bachmann catfight was so last month, Michele Bachmann's recent signing of the litmus test proffered by Christian sharia group THE FAMiLY LEADER, has provided another jump-off point for Bachmann-Palin comparison. Rick Santorum also signed it, but you will not hear much about that, since it doesn't generate eyeball counts.

Des Moines Register:

It notes, as the first piece of evidence toward its thesis that "the Institution of Marriage in America is in great crisis," that "Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA's first African-American President."

Signers agree to support making divorce more difficult and reject "Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control." And they agree to call for "humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy — our next generation of American children — from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence."

Lovely.

Meanwhile, this link to a blog by M. Sheppard kept showing up in my referrers today: Gays Commence Bachman Destruction-Palin's Advantage Is Their Love.

The threat of Bachman winning the nomination has been recognized by the Beltway insiders, who have commenced their hatchet jobs "The rise and fall of Michele Bachman" already. This would be a drop in the bucket compared to the unleashing of the full fury of a community which felt threatened. A Bachman nomination could, without a doubt, result in an election defeat worse than Mondale's as the Obama team would not, as the courtly Reagan did, to not unduly humiliate Mondale by him losing all 50 states, refuse to campaign in Minnesota.

On the other hand Sarah Palin is seen as a moderate on social issues by many in the Gay and Lesbian community, including some high profile media personalities. Hillbuzz, a significant Gay voice is hugely supportive of Palin, as is Tammy Bruce and, eccentrically and perhaps for libidinal reasons so is this gay site "Oh Crap I Have a Crush On Sarah Palin". It would be difficult for the leftist Gay sites to attack Palin as homophobic, when everything she has done in public life (and private) points to the other direction.

E for effort; F for the Private School Vouchers Grad analysis.

I really love it when white social conservatives purport to appoint pre-approved minority leaders for us, such as Herman Cain, Alveda King, Tammy Bruce, and cetera. It's even funnier watching the response when their choices are invariably rejected, and sent packing.

In fact, I would say "the leftist Gay sites" generally don't care one whit about what race-baiting conservogays like Hillbuzz and Dummy Bruce have to say about anything, let alone their unyielding love for Sarah Palin and her ridiculous, eyeroll-generating policies. In fact, I'm probably the only one who pays them any attention.

With this latest litmus-testing stunt, THE FAMiLY LEADER reveals the converging points of the far right's slavery-nostalgic, anti-Black pathologies. Though, somewhat predictably, the single-issue name brand gay sites today seemed utterly oblivious to the slavery-bait in the pledge (which can be downloaded at Think Progress.

(And although he showed up to their latest Presidential Lecture Series, no word yet on whether the only Sharia-baiting, gay-hiring, self-identified emancipated slave in the race thinks about this comparison of today's Black families to a whitewashed, agenda-laden, pandering caricature of the slave household. I'm guessing, probably not.)

Black-interest sites like Jack and Jill Politics chimed in with stuff like this:

Given that families were broken up regularly for sales during slavery and that rape by masters was pretty common, this could not be more offensive. I mean, putting aside the statistics on this, which are likely off-base, I could not be more angry. When will Republicans inquire with actual Black people whether or not we’re ok with invoking slavery to score cheap political points? It has to stop. It is the opposite of persuasive and is another reason Republicans repel us. It’s hard to believe that Michele Bachmann would be foolish enough to sigh this pledge.

But proving Bachmann may be crazier and more hardcore than Sarah Palin, she has.

What do you think? Will this torpedo her primary bid or propel her forward with the GOP base?

Those have got to be rhetorical questions. The answers would be: NEVER, and NO. Why bother asking.

Sheppard, on the other hand, indulges a delusional fantasy that the extremism of the Bachmann candidacy is really acting as a red herring to promote a more electable Governor Guess-Who as the more desirable Christian conservative. Since she's so popular with and loved by eccentric queers such as yours truly. Read/weep:

The media, at least some anyway, had a residual shred of decency, and Washington Beltway insiders Douglas Kahn and Eleanor Clift "Bachman's Rise And Fall" couldn't stomach the charade and ran a column, which is quite prescient in retrospect (although it would be hard not to have come to their conclusion give Bachman's record).
but the Gay community sounded the real mass alarm, followed very quickly by a wider commentariat-including Rachel Maddow who has a foot in both camps, and who confirms the tenor of my previous post that the Gay community will show Bachman no mercy, and have influence out of all proportion to their numbers.

This leaves Palin, who is adored by many in the Gay community, once again showing her brilliant strategic qualities, as she has let each new bright shiny object rise and self-destruct whilst finalizing her decision to run or not.

If she does she can only look better for Bachman having self-destructed, and will appear in an even better light to the Gay community. Further, whilst her support from those quarters will be even more firm, the possible antagonism by the liberal Gay element will be blunted by the comparison with Bachman, whom a cynic might think is deliberately making Palin, whom she secretly wants to win, look good in contrast.

I would suggest Sheppard read what Tea Party Express's Pwn(ed) Professional Black said about this conundrum of inelectability.

I hate to keep sounding like a broken record on this topic, but I must ask. Is Michele Bachmann the NEXT Sarah Palin? Several patriots have said, “I adore Sarah Palin. But, she has been so destroyed in the media, she would be a disaster as our republican presidential candidate”.

Well to all of you who subscribe to this opinion, have you seen the shock and awe campaign launched by the liberal media to destroy Bachmann, since officially throwing her hat into the presidential ring a few days ago?

If Bachmann becomes our nominee, suddenly the liberal media will portray Sarah Palin as the far more reasonable candidate rather than the ultra-conservative idiot nut case, Michele Bachmann.

Should we kick Bachmann to the curb adding her with Palin on the list of unelectable candidates on our side; considered too toxic, too tea party and too conservative to win?

Talking loud with nothing to say, Lloyd Marcus concludes, "Patriots, let's go for the gold and select an unapologetic conservative who will speak to ALL Americans without pandering to any group."

And that would be whom, Lloyd? Just as Palin's followers and defenders whimper about "sexism", both Marcus and Herman Cain talk incessantly about race. They should revel in their quota slots as martyrs of Black liberals, while they still can.

White social conservatives rather legendarily resent and hate nonwhites who talk about race -- in ANY context, with a special rage reserved for we Black nonwhites. The leftwing of the far right types will temporarily allow it from the few Black people trying to impress them, in this Age of Obama. But eventually, they'll get the Condi/Colin/Kicked-to-the-curb treatment when defeating Obama stops being the goal.

And yet, have I not predicted many times over that Breitbart/HotAir tokenists like Sheppard would use Bruce's Sarah-crush and Palin's near-silence on gay issues to do exactly what Sheppard does, above? Yes I did. Oh, yes I did.

OTOH, Sheppard can put down the oxy pipe and read what this author has had to say about Palin's leftwing of the far right politics for the past three years.

Poor Palin diehards. I know they are getting desperate in their zeal for Esther/Deborah/Moses 2.0. But I didn't think any were so desperate to try and hammer and saw this blog into being even remotely pro-Palin politics.

Rotfl!

Crankage-Creep Part 3: Black Whackodoodles, Advanced Tokenism, Minority Authenticity, and Blackaphilia

Find Crankage-Creep Part 1 here

Crankage-Creep Part 2 is here




So um, who actually bought into this representational nonsense?



Two items: One from We Are Respectable Negroes:

Herman Cain, Grand High Vizier of the black garbage pail kids black conservatives and political coprophagist is upset that John Stewart mocked him. Apparently, when he gets called out for flubbing the Constitution, rank bigotry against Muslim Americans, or silly talk about a 3 page maximum limit on all Congressional bills, it is an act of racism. The critical self-reflection rule would seem not to apply, as Cain, in an act of self-delusion that is enabled by his white populist fan base, quite literally has the complexion for the protection.

And one from The Propagandist

Even after the President dismissed Hamas as a peace partner, said a unilateral Palestinian statehood push is a dog that won’t hunt and promised to veto any such resolution at the UN security council, right-wing activists called him “the worst President of the United States that Israel has ever had.” This is a piping-hot crock of bunk. The sole purpose here is to scare grandma. And if a picture tells a thousand words, what better way to illustrate Republican Israephilia than for the Tea Party's biggest rock star to wear a Star of David around her neck on Yom Yerushalayim. What’s next? Piper’s bat mitzvah?

Today's topic is political solicitation and pandering. It's not just the Republicans trying to rack up all those upper-middle-aged Jewish votes from Florida, or letting people like Herman Cain absorb and deflect the anti-Black race rage of their constituencies for them, all while labeling everyone else with the world's most infamous shut-up, "racists!!!"

It's also leftydoodle Cynthia McKinney's traveling A.N.S.W.E.R. Circus of Crazy, which I was remiss to have missed at the local Universalist-Unitarian church last week, because I was on a deadline. I really wish I could have shown up. Ah, I've no doubt there will be plenty more amusements in coming months.

The New Progressive Alliance (NPA), the latest lefty factionalists who showcase such steering committee members as Cornel West and Cindy Sheehan, is on some pander tour around the Black parts of Washington DC. Which is to say an awful lot of DC, minus the Capitol and toney areas. They are there to inform, um, certain people, that Obama is a Republican!

Just like MLK! oh wait...

Curious Negro Re-education campaign it is, which suggests people not to vote for Obama, yet offers no alternative of their own. Read a fantastic takeapart of this obvious get-the-country's-most-coveted-voting-bloc-to-forfeit-their-numbers-from-Obama campaign at Angry Black Lady's.

Not to be outdone in the downward slide into offline sockpuppetry, there is an emergent, please-pander-to-me type, who raises the concepts of "shill" and "sellout" to the level of a sacrament; who seems to think tokenism is good, desirable, and a symbol of status (even as they are used as status symbols themselves.)

After a tumultuous two weeks for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which included the resignation of the organization’s President, Jarrett Barrios, and seven members of the Board of Directors, Troup Coronado, a former AT&T executive at the center of the controversy resigned from the Board of Directors yesterday of his own accord, according to a statement from GLAAD.

Coronado wanted “to do what was in the best interest of GLAAD,” the press release stated.

Little else was available about the Board member’s departure, but the Board did release parts of Barrios’ letter of resignation from this past weekend.

“Of utmost concern and foremost in all of our minds must be the well-being of GLAAD,” Barrios wrote to the Board. “The staff continues to work hard and does not deserve to work under a cloud, nor do they merit the distraction that it has become from our organization’s fine brand.”

According to Michelangelo Signorile’s blog, Coronado remains on the Boards of several LGBT organizations including the Equality California Institute. While GLAAD stood at the center of the scandal, the spotlight is beging to shift to other organizations tied to Coronado through his work as a Board member or supporter, or his work at a liaison to LGBT organizations from AT&T.

Speaking of Equality California Institute, this scandalette peaked just in time for our transition from celebrations of mere pride to celebration of legal equality.

Nice going, fellas.

This advanced form tokenism conflates being a target market with having political clout. That's not a new observation in the queer community; the critique of the corporate-sponsored commerciality of pride parades, for instance, have been around strong for at least 15 years. I fit your narrow standard of beauty and have lots of money, it says; market your political platform to me and I might reward you with a vote. Regular people call this being a tool. I'm dating myself, here, but we used to call it After the Ball syndrome. Today, that critique goes by that mean epithet, Gay, Inc..

It gets worse in Homotopia. Oh Crap has mentioned before this BDS-creep into the political lgbt world. Ostensibly standing against "pinkwashing" on the part of Israel, this movement seems a pinkwashing, pandering effort itself, to put a gay face on anti-Israel/anti-Zionism.

Hey now don't get me wrong. It's a free country, so far be it from me to stop anyone's boycott of high-end foodie olive oils and fine bath salts I can't afford, anyway.

BDS campaigns seem pretty easy; a lot easier than the boycott of the originary Apartheid state in the 80s and that was even prior to Usenet and Compuserve! Just tack scare words like apartheid and human rights to your social media. That should help in getting the lecture circuit's hottest walking commodities to lend credibility to your cause, and say it's a Freedom Ride, or something. The more Black people recruited for that effort, the better for your perceived, symbolic moral/civil rights standing.

Anyone who thinks I've jumped off the deep end of cynicism should try it, it works (major caveat: if you can find someone to play that role for you.)

Or, you could just slather those three magical letters "MLK" all over everything. Since we're monolithic, single-issue voters mesmerized by those mystical, thought-stopping initials, I'm sure that will work, too, just like it's working so well for the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln that also campaigns on the Confederate flag...oh wait, you mean that might not work??

Oh.



The United States of Social Hysteria

Pandering efforts towards ethnic, religious, and racial minorities are about as old as they are completely transparent. Yet, they work...for someone. Somewhere.

With Cain and Palin becoming the public faces of both Christian Zionism as well as the victimized-conservative narrative the states' righters have apparently been chomping at the bit to finally try out for themselves;

with white nationalist professional gay-baiters like the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer callously attempting to bless Muslim-baiting Cain as the "real", "authentically-black man in the race"

and Cain, just as antigay, turning right around to say he'd welcome gays and lesbians into his fantasy/fictional presidential cabinet, based on some confused ideas about "Shariah law";

with crankodoodles like C. McKinney and those A.N.S.W.E.R. creeps who never seem to have met an antigay Muslim-supremacist dictator they didn't like (this is currently passing for some form of "progress");

with LGBTs who litmus test on how much you hate Israel, as if that has jack crud to do with anything;

with their absurd Homocon counterparts like Michael Lucas parroting skinhead arguments against Islam and Muslim immigrants to "defend Israel";

and with some of mainstream rightwing's second-string unhinged crazies on board looking like tea party tokens Allen West and Alveda King, the Innisses of CORE, ("A Black Pastor") Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Palin Mama Black Bear Endorsees Star Parker and Angela McGlowan,

...I don't know who that "someone" is going to be, in the coming election season.

Indeed, it seems the Obama Age is the era in which a noted presence of Black People™ stands not only as symbolic racial redemption, but also are becoming the go-to face for the crazy. Like Chauncey often relates, this gives me the frowny-face.

Meanwhile here on terra firma, Sarah Palin is often derided for her moneybags attitude in racking up those speakers's fees, but she's by no means alone.

Does anyone really believe the Republican party or the hate-Obama left truly want Black constituencies, or a Jewish one? or a Muslim one? No, they want hashmarks at the polling place, a lot like the theater owner wants rear-ends in seats: temporarily, then quickly shuffled out to make room for the next batch of dupes. Neither are poised to get it, in my view.

Showbiz...




ETA: Link corrected.

The Chauncey DeVega vs Herman Cain Revue: A Farce Full of Ironies

A version of this essay first appeared as a guest post at Chauncey DeVega's We Are Respectable Negroes. Formatting and style have been adapted for Oh Crap's template.

Note to Republicans: hire some new PR people. The minions you've sent out screaming "Democrat Plantation" at Blacks in an effort to make a dent in the largely Democratic voting bloc are an abject failure. Read on to find out why they are consistently rebuffed, and treated with the all the derision and ridicule a fool deserves.

Still in the Shadow of Uncle Tom: This Week's Political Showbiz and the Race-Based Melodrama That Ensued

I was raised by Reagan Democrat(ic) Moral Majority Christian Coalition parents, both ordained ministers, who were primarily "race people". That is, they saw their own work as the first/only Blacks in their places of employment, our positioning as the first/only Blacks in our neighborhood and their decision to send me to all-white Christian schools as desegregation part 2. Many liberals do not know about, or understand, this aspect of Black conservatism. I do, because I lived it, and am a product of it. I spent three years at Fundagelical U., where I had my first more-than-friends same-sex set of events (oh, the things that go on in those sex-segregated dorms...) My father was emeritus and board member of a Christian college with ties to the New Apostolic Reformation. My first vote was for Pat Robertson.

And yes, I really do have a crush on Sarah Palin.

With those ex-conservative bonafides out of the way, I can say with certainty there's good reason not to trust people like Herman Cain, Unhyphenated-Americans like Lloyd Marcus, and the seven other Black characters on the Tea Party circuit. Their sincerity is in question, due not simply to their skin color, as Chauncey's detractors wish to make one believe, but because of their behavior which fits longstanding patterns of race-opportunism.

Enter: coonery, tommery and minstrelsy--the popular American art form infamous for distorting and misrepresenting Black people to their audiences. Make no mistake: Race minstrelsy continues in the 21st century.

Ask yourself the following. Do tales of black incompetence, vindictiveness, threats of socio-political instability, and white slavery sound familiar? They're really old complaints.

Have you ever noticed that Republicans, for with all of their loud wails of being the "party of Lincoln," do not mention the postbellum era of Republican Reconstruction, 1865-1877? Though "Jim Crow" was a character out of blackface minstrelsy, white state's rights conservatives imposed this formal type of racism on all non-whites immediately after the end of the Civil War, with this period of de facto white supremacy being codified into law with the landmark Supreme Court case Plessy vs Ferguson (1896). Furthermore, in many regions of the US, such as the west, south, north and midwest, this condition lasted into the late 1970s and sometimes decades beyond.

So of course Republicans don't mention the problematic era of Reconstruction--at least not in their outside voices anyway. Why? To do so would alienate their state's rights, Confederate flag-fetishizing constituents.



Hey you, the voter with all the values! Have some Obama waffles!

For example, the Obama Waffles caricature, based in Aunt Jemima visual rhetoric, is directly out of minstrelsy branding. Black conservatives know this. The Muslim-baiting, McCarthy-lite inside content was even worse. But how many conservatives, outside of one, professional homo-hater Bishop Harry Jackson, have ever dared to speak up against such bigotry?

Have you ever noticed how these "lovers of the Constitution" are silent on Tammy Bruce's almost-daily characterization of President Barack Obama as "Urkel?" What is a reference to a 1990s-era sitcom character that scholars Mary Dalton and Laura Linder associate with minstrelsy stock characters such as Sambo the coon. Moreover, it never made the news when Bruce asserted back in January that she gets to call gays "homos" because she is one.

Of course, we heard a few grumbles from their corner when Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake.com posted an illustration of Senator Joe Lieberman in blackface. But, I do not recall it making the news at Fox News.

And no maliciousness or death wishes are ever directed at those who wield the epithet "race-pimp", which on the American right is synonymous with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Yet we saw it happen against Mr. DeVega over at Alternet.

Conservative jihadis from the lowliest twitterers to the twits at Fox/Kingdom Holding News Channel seek to silence Chauncey DeVega's so-called "racism" as they are quick to condemn and police the behavior of every Black person outside the conservative fold. Ultimately, a Black man speaking his mind about the behavior of a Black conservative without the permission of white overseers, and without apologies or reservation, is an affront to their white authority.

To white states rights conservatives, this is bad behavior. Moreover, it is bad behavior that must be punished. Preferably, with repeated epithet strings like like "you're on the Democrat plantation"; "only Black conservatives (i.e. 5% of Black voters or less) think for themselves"; The KKK is the Democrats Robert Byrd; Nazis are Socialists; Read some Ayn Rand, etc. etc. etc.. We observed this behavior from freeper after freeper over at Alternet.

Nobody with common sense buys their stale old Reconstruction-era hysteria. This is the fundamental issue conservatives have with Chauncey DeVega's article, and his subsequent, rage-inducing refusal to be intimidated by even the loudest, most obnoxious Right-wing bullies.

For Herman Cain's part, he is simply using this as a free publicity grab. He should be thanking Chauncey DeVega and giving him 15% for putting Cain on the cultural map, instead of leaving him to stew in Tea Party obscurity.



At A Crossroads of Cognitive Dissonance: The Leftwing of the Far Right

Despite what the paleoconservatives at Outside the Beltway would have us believe, images out of race minstrelsy are ugly. So is minstrelsy-inspired talk like "Sambo beat the bitch" if that was actually uttered (personally, I doubt it.) Who can blame white state's rights conservatives for wanting to distance themselves from this history?

At present, the mainstream state's rights crowd and affiliated Tea Partiers seem to be testing out another remedy.

Armed with language and concepts stolen from liberals, the left wing of the far Right is on the march. They are bringing the conservative movement to a social crossroads.

This week, we saw all manner of state's rights conservatives labeling the entire left "racists" who, like Chauncey DeVega, victimize them with "hate speech". The late 20th and early days of the 21st centuries are apparently moments when the bizarre and surreal have seemingly become the new normal and mundane.

Conservative gays like GOProud attend CPAC. Even Glenn Beck says same sex marriage isn't a threat to America and shouldn't be a priority of the right. Sarah Palin wears the label "feminist" with in-your-face aplomb, and, seeimingly, singlehandedly introduced the concept of "misogyny" to the same right-wing males who have spent the past twenty years denying it's existence. Now, they use the term with relish against anyone who disagree with her policies. The feminists who did not vote for Mrs. Palin are now "the sexists".

Two years ago, no conservative would be caught dead engaging in such leftist Marxist progressive politically-correct anti-liberty speech. Today, it's the norm in many of their circles. However ironic and problematic, given their backgrounds the lemmings cheering on Herman Cain at CPAC are going to have a much tougher time repackaging themselves as mavens of diversity and true inheritors of the mantle of abolitionism and civil rights.

During the Civil Rights era, state's rights conservatives such as the John Birch Society (which bankrolls CPAC) and Ezra Taft Benson (Glenn Beck's favorite), routinely labeled MLK and any other civil rights workers Communists, Socialists, or Marxists. They were in the right-wing gaze people who were unable to think for themselves.

Today, the GOP runs candidates who dress as Nazi war criminals in their spare time. Their gubernatorial candidate for New York sends these emails to friends on the taxpayer dime. Conservative Republicans permit governors to impose Confederate History Month onto the public, and dig in their heels when others allow KKK members to be commemorated on state license plates. A Republican women's organization in South Carolina recently held a "Southern Experience" ball, complete with Confederate generals (Glenn McConnell, R - SC State Senate President), and rent-a-slaves. McConnell's colleague in the senate, Jake Knotts, called other GOP politicians "ragheads".

For me, this grand burlesque of extreme cognitive dissonance has been the week's entertainment. Save for a couple shows on Fox and the usual suspects on the Right-wing side of these Internets, their predictable antics in trying to shut down Chauncey DeVega turned out to be a flop. In a tragicomedy of sorts, conservatives have become the very anti-First Amendment PC police they have spent the past two decades decrying. And it is high comedy watching them try to fulfill this role on the public stage.

Sarah Palin Gets Gay-Baited

Sarah bestowed a couple new endorsements, today, using one as a platform to soapbox about the true real feminism, or something. The other, Karen Handel, is said by her opponent to be a pro-homosexual, ooo.

This morning’s endorsement of Karen Handel by former Alaskan governor Sarah Palin has already ratcheted up the tension level in the Republican race for governor.

A formal response by the campaign of Nathan Deal, the formal congressman, expresses disappointment – and immediately accuses Handel of voting to fund gay “outreach” to “kids.”

It’s disappointing that Sarah Palin has chosen to back the most liberal Republican in this race.

In past races, Karen Handel endorsed taxpayer-funded domestic partner benefits and gay adoption — and she’s been caught lying about it. Just last night, Handel finally admitted she’d written a check to a gay rights group — when previously she said the check was a forgery and she never lived at that address.

The endorsement is getting mixed reviews by the easily-led who populate Mrs. Palin's FB. Let's hope her froth-mouthed followers don't turn their legendary pitchforks on her again, like they did over the Fiorina endorsement.

When all else fails, gender-bait, race-bait, gay-bait, sex-bait, liberal-bait.

Don't social conservatives have anything better to do?

Palin and "P0rn" Part 1: Don't Hate Sarah Palin Because She's Not Afraid of Her Beauty

A version of this article was first published as Palin and "P0rn" Part 1: Don't Hate Sarah Palin Because She's Not Afraid of Her Beauty on Blogcritics.







When you've been blogging about the "Sarah Palin" phenomenon for a year and a half you notice something: when someone asks "Is Sarah Palin _______?" the answer, whatever the question, is usually "no".

Julia Baird's article in the current Newsweek recalled this theory when she reprimanded everyone to stop ogling Republican women.

There seems to be an insistent, increasingly excitable focus on the supposed hotness of Republican women in the public eye, like Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Michelle Malkin, and Nikki Haley—not to mention veterans like Ann Coulter. The sexual references are pervasive: they come from left, right, and center, and range from gushing to highly offensive. Harper's* asked, “Is Sarah Palin Porn?” as others quizzed the former governor about whether she had breast implants.

Right Wing News compiled a list of the hottest conservative women in new media. Playboy even ran an outrageous piece titled “Ten Conservative Women I’d Like to Hate F--k,” which read like a sick attempt to make rape cool. “We may despise everything these women represent,” wrote the author, “but goddammit they’re hot. Let the healing begin.” Moron.

I didn't see any analysis implied by (one of) her title(s) "why we sexualize GOP women", though Gloria Steinem's Women's Media Center offers one. A corollary question seems also studiously avoided by anyone doing these sexism-watches: what do you call it when Republican women, or any women, sex themselves up, or sign on to being sexed up in the service of something else? Like, say, winning a political campaign for top office in the world's most powerful nation? Since the announcement of Sarah Palin for VP in 2008, not only feminists but the voting populace in general have been grappling with these questions of sexism, objectification, and one's own participation in being on display, like never before.

It's funny reading this in Newsweek, which has been raked over the coals by socially-confused conservatives for it's own "sexist" Palin covers. Who could forget the ignorant mountain/molehill conservative screamers on Fox, crying "sexism" because Newsweek didn't retouch my favorite cover photo? In the upside-down universe of Neo-PC Conservatopia, showing natural beauty, and thus one's humanity, is now "sexist". Every woman, they said on Fox, should be mortified by that cover. (Weren't.)

Then, there was the infamous cover photo originally taken from Runners World. Oh, the wails of "sexism" we heard from conservatives, suddenly sounding like the same feminazi threats they believe are policing their thoughts and destroying the very fabric of humanity with our calls for the end of gender inequities.

From Palin's own Facebook entry:

The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention - even if out of context.

This charge of sexism rings hollow, coming from someone paid to bloviate by Prince bin Talal of NewsCorp, whose own country does not allow women to drive, much less vote, or run for public office, or appear in public alone.

Was the Newsweek cover mean-spirited, below the belt, relevant to nothing, and a cynical (albeit successful) ploy to sell print copies of magazines? Yes. "Sexist"? No. Palin posed for that campy Runners World photo shoot of her own volition, of her own agency.

But is Sarah Palin p0rn, or not? If the Oh Crap theory is correct, we already know the answer. A better question is, Do people make porn out of "Sarah Palin" or the Sarah Palin public image? Obviously, the answer to that is "yes".

Jack Hitt's hit fluff — in the June '10 Harper's, not The Atlantic — doesn't answer what it purported to ask, either, though he did manage to write a money shot. While Mrs. Palin saw sexism in the Newsweek cover, Hitt sees in it the same pR-n Palin saw in Levi Johnston's Playgirl poses:

She seethes at the mention of her daughter’s old boyfriend, Levi Johnston, cattily characterizing his Playgirl photo shoot as “aspiring porn.” Her Facebook updates are as bitchy as those of any fourteen-year-old girl. And her treacly tweets are classic examples of what the philosopher Daniel Dennett calls “deepities” — vagaries that can easily pass as profundities ....

She can also do, by her own standard, some “porn.” She showed off major leg in a racy spread in Runner’s World, wearing a pair of tight, short shorts, with an American flag chucked on a chair like a sweat towel. In other pictures, she wears skin-tight leggings and assumes saucy “warm-up” positions. For her fans, it was an issue to keep in that special place where Mom never looks. When Newsweek ran the tight-shorts pic as a cover image, Palin swiftly denounced it as “sexist.” But she recently showed up at John McCain’s side in Arizona and thrilled her followers by wearing a black leather jacket, cut in butch style, with zippered accents defining her breasts. Palin knows her fan base, and she knows what they want: a brief tour of Google reveals dozens of Photoshopped Palin fantasy images — and it’s clear that they’re not posted by her enemies.

Oh, the act of defining "Sarah Palin's breasts". Ah, the fortunate jacket that got the honors, the one that sends site stats through the roof, the one Ms. Palin made look so, er, showstopping; no, not "butch" at all but rather femmed-out biker-girl.

As for those p0rn-based photoshop fakes with Sarah's noggin on them, an old email sig of mine reads: "All photos SFW, no fakes/photoshops, ever." Their persistent demand in trade determines, in part, what kind of images I'll put on my own site for both lofty feminist and practical reasons. Who wants a bunch of catcalling repressives trolling one's site for nonsense?

This brings us to the central question of this post: how do you theorize-so-you-can-talk-about-it all those second wave concepts — "objectification" "ogling" "the gaze" "sexism" — when the object embodies such in-yr-face agency? when the objectified individual is running for governor, senator or VP? when the objectified subject wink-winkies at the voting populace or steers movement conservatism from behind Facebook or uses the word feminism to argue against women's physical autonomy while so evidently comfortable in her own skin?

I enjoy this about Sarah Palin or at least the consumable, tabloidable, retweetable "Sarah Palin" image. She's got "it", she knows it, and she's not afraid to strut it. If it shows in a body-hugging leather jacket, or a t-shirt at a horse race, in a form fitting shimmery dress suit at a VP debate, or in Naughty Monkey red pumps that still have people like J. Hitt fidgeting two years later, then great. If it doesn't show, equally great; she doesn't seem to give a dern about it, either way.

Like it, hate it, be turned on by it or try to ignore it; Palin's rare form of straight-girl camp is worth paying attention to, if only because we have not seen the last of it. (And what self-aware queer doesn't appreciate watching a wry game of dress-up at the viewer's expense?)

For Part 2: In light of a pR#n undercurrent strong enough to spawn look-alike stripper contests, a complete news cycle ruminating on her cup size, a Hustler video series, a line of sex toy dolls that aren't her, and those silly photoshops; as a conservative feminist doing something different with gender imagery and the politicized female body in the public sphere, and with children sexting themselves to each other, just what is porn, anymore?

Do you, like Justice Potter Stewart in 1964, know it when you see it?

Is Sarah Palin pornography?

Do we know Sarah Palin when we see her? Well?

Sarah Palin Is A Title IX Feminazi

Article first published as Sarah Palin Is A Title XI Feminazi on Blogcritics.





The silence from jewsforsarah.com on Glenn Beck's promotion of Elizabeth Dilling is like a tree falling in the woods. I wouldn't wonder what they think if Palin were not sharing a bill with Beck on August 28 at the Lincoln Memorial. That's "I have a dream" day, in case anyone missed the significance.

Other people are hearing that tree fall. A couple days ago, the NAACP and Urban League expressed their intent to keep "I have a dream" where it belongs, not with Dilling-hugging white nationalists like Beck, but with the communities that gave it life.

The loud wails from the traditional feminist left over whether people like Sarah Palin can label herself "feminist" or not, however, that's a different matter. Yesterday, Kathleen Parker weighed in. Today, Gloria Steinem did.

In an interview for @katiecouric, writer and activist Gloria Steinem responded to Sarah Palin calling herself a feminist, saying, "you can't be a feminist who says other women can't" have an abortion.

Couric was joined by Steinem and Women's Media Center president Jehmu Greene. The discussion ranged from sexism in reality TV to the latest field of female GOP candidates.

Greene is a Steinem protege and a rising star within the DNC.

Like a typical rightwing woman, Parker — noted for her call to Palin to step down from VP candidacy — and her gender politics are on the right track, but going the wrong way. Needless to say, Parker, "as a woman" as they say, sounded embarrassed of and for Palin's damaged performance in the early days of her announcement. Like many, her attitude towards Palin has shifted since then. From yesterday:

Palin's full house and career haven't happened without the manly support of one Todd Palin. Real men don't hold their wives back.

Oh Kathleen, for shame. This is an unprovable assertion. There are plenty of successful mothers in both the private and public sectors who did not have or do not need a man's blessing to be successful.

Such women raise boys to become presidents.

The reason Palin so upsets the pro-choice brigade is because she seems so content with her lot and her brood. One can find other reasons to think Palin shouldn't be president, but being a pro-life woman shouldn't be one of them.

Though this is ancient history for me and my generation, some of whom are now welcoming grandchildren into the world, some of the lessons we've learned bear repeating. Chief among them is that many women who have had babies find it harder, if not impossible, to see abortion as nothing more than a "choice" to eliminate an inconvenience.

This is a classic peter pan antifeminist argument, that the only true real women bear children, and that those women who have not borne children are naive enough to think reproductive autonomy is a choice out of lazy, amoral convenience.

Some of us women do not have the luxury of putting all our eggs in the reproductive-rights basket.

In the confused, gender-conflicted world of white rightwing feminism, the only women who count as "women" are those in traditional relationships, preferably with natural-born children, and those with children acquired/purchased by adoption coming in a distant second.

Though they readily (and sometimes rightly) castigate the Steinems of the world as basing "feminism" on one's abortion stance, they ultimately need "women's issues" to be defined solely in childbearing, and child rearing, because that is all their limited experience has afforded them. Why else would nonsense like career-politicians-as-hockey-moms, and mama grizzlies, and barracudas, and pink elephant stampedes, and other ridiculous metaphors like pitbulls-with-lipstick appeal to them? What else, outside of forced-childbirth/childrearing and state-based criminalization of non-traditional relationships, are their stale old elitist, exclusionist, special-rights-for-"opposite-marriage" values based on?

Love? Please. American conservatives define themselves by who and what they hate. American conservatives have little individual identity of their own outside of what groups they are told to despise. Without a hate-object, they are disoriented people.

Of course, that's not what Parker is getting at in her piece. Call it low expectations, but no one would ever expect a Parker critique to ever be able to encompass more than a myopic/white conservative, abstract/pie-in-the-sky/ivory tower point of view. And yet, to some degree, I end up agreeing with her over Steinem though for far different reasons.

Fact: the word "feminist" is a lot like the word "Christian". Just as there are "Blacks against Obama" Blacks, Christians and feminists are no monoliths. Still, Christianity survives and persists; so do Black people. Thus, OCHIACOSP's sentiments on the matter remain the same as ever; I don't accept these fallacious No True Scotsman arguments for who is and who is not a "feminist". Let Sarah Palin do the heavy lifting of making "feminism" interesting and popular again. Then when people inevitably inquire about what "feminism" is, simply tell them, based on actual history rather than Palinoid revisionism which seeks to topple pro-choice feminism, completely.

If we tell them, about our Civil Rights legacy, about feminism's legacy, they will come. I have that much faith in our history, and its full story. In Evangelical terms, this is called witnessing, or testifying. It's a principle that works well, in our Protestant Christian-dominant culture.

Let it also be noted again, probably for the millionth time, the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action, even as many of those mama bears try to eschew what they see as a stigma.

For her part, Our Pretty Tomboy is very quick to cite the federal statute Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972 in her own personal success story. But don't hold your breath for how long it takes the the confederate redmeats/conservative male-supremacists of the right to label Sarah Palin a feminazi. That word is reserved for the rest of us, even if on the same grounds.

So, in the meantime, go Sarah Palin. It's good that she is teaching these mouthbreathing teabaggers a thing or two about "feminism", and the gender inequities their side has spent many generations perpetrating. And maybe some day because of her, they'll actually get up off their lazy bee-hinds, go to wikipedia.com, and look up "sexism" and "misogyny", newly-discovered-as-of-2008 terms they were finally forced to take seriously after three waves of feminism, once "Sarah Palin", the phenomenon, burst upon their scene.

Posner Weighs In on Palin, Feminism and the Christian Right

I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.
-- Apostle/St. Paul, 1 Timothy 2:12

The teabaggers are bound to wax themselves into a corner around gender. With working mom Sarah Palin on the one hand and the ascent of Sharron Angle as the challenger for Senate majority leader Harry Reid on the other, The Sarah is once again going to be challenged to crap or get off the pot when it comes to the tea party. Sharron doesn't approve of households where both parents work. I suppose she intends to get small government to impose this on America's families, somehow. Along with getting the fluoride out of the water, and Alex Jones onto the basic package of every ISP and cable company in America.

Vague sentimentalism like the bumper-sticker sloganeering Palin uttered during that ridiculous Fox Business "summit" are going to wear thin for her if she doesn't make a decision about the whackodoodle direction of the tea party, soon. The same is true for her Christian beliefs. She's going to have to fish or cut bait, to keep them reigned in by (and of course voting for) the GOP or cut them loose.

And yep, it's true: Sarah's got people talkin', and thinkin' (and you thought that wasn't possible. Well, it is.) Regarding her political aspirations, there are a lot of people besides traditional feminists and the general left who feel they have a stake.

If it's one thing I've learned, it's when people ask "Is Sarah Palin __________?" the answer is usually "no", or "probably not", at best. Sarah Posner asked at Religion Dispatches today if Is Sarah Palin The New Leader Of The Christian Right?, in response to Lisa Miller's Newsweek cover article. I concur with her conclusion, "no", but for somewhat different reasons than Posner gave.

Along with the now-conventional wisdom that Sarah is not permitted to use the "f" word to describe herself and her sisterhood of female bigots, Posner takes up the idea that Palin could be considered the leader of the religious right. At issue is the age-old question of gender roles, Biblical interpretation, and the future of both the feminist and religious right movements.

Cutting to the chase,

Palin will no more become a leader of the religious right than [Marjorie] Dannenfelser will, because Dannenfelser, like Phyllis Schlafly before her, will be lauded but still marginalized by the religious right men.

That may be true, but it's only part of the story. Firstly, Sarah Palin has the religious right discussing the issue like no one else before her, not even Aimee Semple MacPherson, mentioned occasionally on these pages, and in Posner's article. The main reason Palin will not become head of the religious right is primarily theological. Her lack of a strong, clearly-stated personal theology -- including one that grounds gender roles as interpreted through the Bible -- may be working for her now, but it will work against her in the future.

This is a recurring theme at OCIHACOSP. From 10-20-08:

This just in from the Day Late/Dollar Short Department: "YouTube Videos Draw Attention to Palin’s Faith".

Ms. Palin responded by speaking generally, but extensively, about how she counts on God for strength, guidance and wisdom. “My faith has always been pretty personal,” she said. But she did not talk more specifically about her church affiliation or her beliefs.

She's not likely to. As covered earlier by this site, Sarah Palin keeps her theological views under wraps and is not likely to disclose them.

Appearances to the contrary, she is actually something of a cipher when it comes to "religion" and just what she believes.

Fact is, we don't know what she personally believes about much of anything because she never says, and seems content to just let people wonder and/or presume. Evangelicals and Fundamentalists prefer certitude to ambiguity, and do not trust the latter. Add to this that Palin employs weasel-language like the more neutral "pro-family" as opposed to yesteryear's "traditional family values"; outside some weasally ramblings on supporting a federal marriage amendment and that crank/dogwhistle comment about her gay best friend, rarely says much against homosexuality.

Expect theological litmus tests to be ramped up against Mrs. Palin as she rises in the political arena. At the rate she is going, she'll never pass very many of them.

Posner continues,

Miller talks about how the religious right base sees Palin as an Esther figure -- or, as I wrote during the campaign, an anointed figure. But that's not the same as being a religious right leader. When the religious right talks about an Esther figure, or an "Esther moment," it's a means of motivating the base to believe that anyone, like Queen Esther, can step up and save the world from evil. (Sure, Esther was anointed to save the Jews from genocide, and that's pretty much the same as saving America from socialism, eh?)

When the Southern Baptist Convention's Richard Land tells Miller that Palin "is going to be able to raise a lot of money for people she wants to support, and she will make a big difference in the primaries," he's referring to her Esther-mobilizing capabilities. And the religious right, and the Republican Party, are undoubtedly grateful for her ability to rally the shock troops and bring in some cash. But it's hard to imagine that any of the big guns would willingly let Palin compete for a leadership role. She may be leading a movement comprised of women, but that's not the same as a women's movement.

Esther is one Biblical figure; Deborah is another. Writing for his blog and as editor of Charisma magazine, J. Lee Grady covered this topic, a couple weeks after McCain's VP announcement.

When McCain announced that he had chosen Palin as his running mate, I was reminded of the biblical story of Deborah, the Old Testament prophet who rallied God’s people to victory at a time when ancient Israel was being terrorized by foreign invaders. Deborah’s gender didn’t stop her from amassing an army; she inspired the people in a way no man could. She and her defense minister, Barak, headed to the front lines and watched God do a miracle on the battlefield.

In her song in Judges 5:7, Deborah declares: “The peasantry ceased, they ceased in Israel, until I, Deborah, arose, until I arose, a mother in Israel” (NASB).

Sometimes it takes a true mother to rally the troops. I hope that Palin, a woman who believes in prayer and is filled with the Holy Ghost, will take her hockey stick and smash the glass ceiling in American politics once and for all.

Leave it to a Neo-Pentecostal/Charismatic man to detect this potential in Palin (though there is no evidence whatsoever she is "filled with the Holy Ghost".) That shameless, brazen gender card is what Miller chronicled in Newsweek. So far, it's worked very well for Palin.

Contrast Grady with what Brian Abshire of über-Reformed/Christian Reconstructionist Institute for Christian Culture wrote, the following week:

Sarah Palin, who affirms so much that is good, true and praiseworthy, may well be another Deborah in that she is living proof that the Republican Party is gutless, effeminate and cannot find godly men willing to take a stand on pivotal moral issues or that the ones who do will not be allowed to run for the highest office. Literally, she is the BEST that the Republicans can put forward and that ought to make Christian men in America hang their collective head in shame as they realize just how badly we are being judged.

I do not fault Mrs. Palin for having the wisdom, courage and ability to rise to the governorship of her state, or aspire to the office of Vice-President; but I criticize the party and the men who have rejected God and now face His judgment because they will not step up to the plate and be MEN.

Though Christian Reconstructionism, the more big-tent "Evangelical", and Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) are often opposed theologically, depending on the issue, socially, they share many of the same goals, and some of the same personnel. This Palin ≠ Deborah sentiment is echoed by James Dobson cohort Gary DeMar, one of the primary Christian Reconstructionist authors of this generation.

It was big news within rightwing Christendom when, as Pozner wrote about, the Council for National Policy vetted Palin, with the blessing of Dobson himself, one reason being that though Focus on the Family and James Dobson are associated with Evangelicalism as opposed to Christian Reconstruction, FoTF promotes and sells DeMar's books. Land, for his part, was taken to task by the CRs for endorsing a person with the wrong body parts for potential head of state, to impose his conservative-religious bigotry on the populace, even as he would deny Sarah Palin a pastorship even the smallest SBC church.

Palin’s candidacy took a bright yellow highlighter to that contradiction. This is good for us. The more she keeps them squabbling over Bible verses, the more we can get done.





To be continued...

OCIHACOSP Does Not Have A Category Called "Sarah-As-Savior" For Nothing

Funny lede from stupid HuffPo today:

How do you generate buzz if you're a magazine up for sale and fighting claims of irrelevance?

Combine two of your most reliable go-to topics: Sarah Palin and religion.

Interesting, coming from them, since they are well-known for shoving the words "Sarah Palin" into headlines just for clicks, themselves.

This will make what, 5 Palin-adorned Newsweek covers, and the second with totally-wrong and/or misleading-context?

Taking up two recurring issues at Oh Crap, I Have A Crush on Deborah/Esther/Moses2.0, Newsweek's feature story calls itself covering "what Palin's appeal to conservative Christian women says about feminism and THE FUTURE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT". After reading Lisa Miller's article, I wish she would have come read OCIHACOSP first. The focus on abortion is a grounding enough for the article, but there's much more to Palin's appeal to rightwing women than just her Trig stories and anti-abortion stance (which, by some counts, isn't nearly anti-abortion enough).

Restating Oh Crap's position,

1. What Sarah Palin is doing with the word "feminism" may be new for this generation, but politically-mobilized rightwing/reactionary white women is not a new phenomenon

2. The left should not once again make the error of dismissing or writing off that phenomenon. It leaves us with things like Viguerie/Weyrich New Right inventions like the Moral Majority, Christian Coalition, Eagle Forum, Prop 8 and its popular cultural products: Ralph Reed, Glenn Beck, Bob McDonnell, Michelle Bachmann, Sarah Palin, who are in prime positions to influence opinion and thus the voting populace. This is by design, since educating students to go into public life and take it over for Jeezus is precisely what schools like McDonnell's and Bachmann's alma maters were founded to do. They make no secret of it.

More Miller:

Palin has been antagonizing women on the left of late by describing herself as a “feminist,” a word she uses to mean the righteous, Mama Bear anger that wells up when one of her children is attacked in the press or her values are brought into question. But while leftist critics continue to shred Palin as a cynical, shallow, ill-informed opportunist, and new polls show her unpopularity rating to be at an all-time high—53 percent—Palin is now playing to her strengths. Even if she never again seeks elected office, her pro-woman rallying cry, articulated in the evangelical vernacular, together with the potent pro-life example of her own family, puts Palin in a position to reshape and reinvigorate the religious right, one of the most powerful forces in American politics.

Miller nails the left's reaction, and in my estimation, that reaction is a mistake, one the left makes over and over regarding rightwing Christianity. Conservative strategists bank on it. They are usually right.

3. If the left is often confounded by whatever the h. Sarah Palin seems to be doing, they're not alone. To the extent that the left is frustrated with her apparent, for-now staying power, she's got the right in ever the same bit of a tizzy

4. With that in mind, her pretend-preacher, ersatz Esther act is only going to carry her so far with the Christian right crowd, who, hopefully by now has learned something from having repeatedly followed her fellow Pentecostal girl Aimee Semple MacPherson into scandal, her fellow bull-headed bumpkin in a suit William Jennings Bryan into multiple public humiliations; rightwing televangelists into 900-foot visions, dozens of ministry scandals, and their Moral Majorities and Christian Coalitions into crumbling institutional impotence.

Some day, the left is going to get it through our collective heads that "trying take down a chick" like Palin, who models herself on Teflon Ronnie, isn't really going to work. Palin-gates and Trig Trootherism: didn't work. Calling her every gender-based epithet in the book: didn't work. Newsweek's silly cover from her Runner's World shoot: didn't work. Focusing on (and getting distracted by) her sexy looks, her nice body and starting ridiculous whisper campaigns about how big she may or may not be "up there": you know the drill; don't think she doesn't either, or doesn't effectively use this kind of behavior to her advantage. She does, like no other. So, keep yearning for that "final undoing" predicted in the press since some time in late 2008, but don't hold your breath for it.

That's because heckling from the orchestra never works, when people are playing to the balcony.

From a personal standpoint, had someone like me -- growing up queer while steeped in New Right/Post-Civil-Rights Christianity -- had a role model like Sarah Palin, my exit from the rightwing would have been hastened far sooner. So feminists quit fretting about the definition of authentic "feminism" in order to exclude the Palins of the world, let Sarah Palin go make the word "feminism" popular again. All we have to do is 1- kick our own institutions and educational drives back into gear and 2- provide a place for young women interested in Palin feminism to land, with a better understanding of what "feminism" is.

That's boon city, peeps. Miller, again:

Behind the Christian-military rhetoric, though, is a theology that’s generic, Griffith and other scholars say. (Though the video clip that made the rounds during the campaign of Palin being prayed over by an African minister gave foes on the left the willies, most churchgoing conservative evangelicals were completely unfazed.) In her speeches, Palin never damns anyone to hell. She never talks about sin: discussing her daughter Bristol, accidentally pregnant at 17, she talks about responsibility.

When Palin writes about her born-again experience, she talks not about an encounter with Jesus or the Holy Spirit, as so many evangelicals do, but of a sudden awareness of the awesomeness of creation. “Looking around at the incredible creation that is Alaska—the majestic peaks and midnight sun, the wild waters and teeming wildlife—I could practically see and hear and feel God’s spirit reflected in everything in nature.” Palin refers often to Ronald Reagan in her speeches, and even critics concede there’s something Reaganesque about the way she approaches faith. It’s easy. It’s optimistic. It’s future-oriented.

As has been covered numerous times here, Sarah's ambiguity on her theological positions is going to get her in hot water with these voters. Note to Palin: these same voters dumped Reagan in a big way when he wasn't "born again" enough for them, when Roe v Wade wasn't overturned (Republicans have a stake in it never being overturned; what else would they have to campaign on if they did?), when Gog and Magog remained dormant, when Reagan never ushered in the antichrist, when Jesus did not return to earth, on a horse, with a sword in his mouth.

Taking people on big rides is just one of the things demagogues do. The lesson for the left, which the left never seems to learn is, never underestimate the political power of religious bigots. Laugh at them, but don't write them off. Sneer at them, but don't make the mistake in believing that will ever make them go away. They will never go away. There will always be another Sister Aimee, another fundamentalist politician like Bryan, and yes, the next Sarah Palin.

We'd do well to follow the lead of Nina Simone, and leave the backlashers with the blues.

Sarah Palin's Big B®3@sts

Sarah Palin on the 2008 campaign trail

Nah, don't be writing in that I'm repressed because I said B®3@sts instead of the actual body parts. Lord knows I get enough dumbbells coming in here on Sarah Palin p00rnn searches; who needs more of those dorks? So, "b®3@sts" it is.

This is not the first time OCIHACOSP has written on this topic. Sarah Palin made us consider, even if in a downlow, unacknowledged way, The President's Body, and The President's Breasts. We as in the cultural "we" are still contemplating such things, evidently.

Lol, OCIHACOSP noted yesterday how a bunch of people are all verklempt about Sarah's buxom t-shirt pictures (though in everyone's haste to gawk at the mamm@ries, they're missing the real treat, which is Sarah's hecca gorgeous arms.)

It looks like the scandalized whispers have yet to die down. I think it's funny.

A roundup for Winks and Nods:

Google: " 'Sarah Palin'" 'implants' "

Spike TV For Laughable Males: Sarah Palin Gets Breast Implants by Busty Heart Classy!

Gawker: Did Sarah Palin Get a Boob Job? A Photographic Investigation Forget former Todd Palin employer BP, forget Helen Thomas, forget even that Lady GaGa released a new single today, this is the question on everyone's minds.

Jezebel: Sarah Palin's Possible Breast Implants Prompt Thoughtful Discussion I thought irony meters were passé. Guess not.

Washington Post: Sarah Palin (DD - Alaska)? She only wishes she could see Sarah's spectacular chest from her house.

Wonkette: Did Sarah Palin Buy Herself a Couple of Luxury Items? Probably not, but who's counting? (Apparently, a bunch of people named "Laura".)

Desperately Obsessed Palinluvvaz: Oh Sarah! - Open Thread - Update! Complete with six updates. She had somebody at palingates screaming "Oh Sarah!", indeed. What else is new.

Oh Crap, I'm Badly In Love With Sarah Palin But Can't Admit It: “First Dude” is a Stallion, You Betcha! Malia Litman is way farther-gone than I am, po' baby.

Just a couple more reasons one can't help but like certain things about Sarah Palin.