Jon Stewart vs. Bill O'Reilly

So in the last three or fours days, courtesy of the tea parties, we've had Tom Tancredo telling us we need to reinstall the polling tax, literacy tests and grandfather clauses, and Sarah Palin telling us the current POTUS would be politically smart to start a war in Iran.

I'd laugh if there wasn't a sizable group of people at each speech who applauded when those two statements came out.

As Charlie Pierce said in Idiot America: America has always been home to cranks. It's just now we glorify them, give them a microphone, and make them part of the mainstream.

And I'm fucking scared.

 

I can think of one country where the crank was given the same treatment --glorified, given a microphone, etc. -- and wound up leader of that country thanks to desperate economic times and a populist demagogue appeal.

 

I just want to see her crash and burn so spectacularly at some point that there's absolutely no return. It has to happen at some point, right? You would have thought the Couric interview and some of the other shenanigans would have done it, but she's like a cock roach.

 

You would think so, but the 30 percenters don't subscribe to that kind of logic. Every time she fails, it's just another opportunity to blame someone for it and remind the brigade that everyone is out to get them.

That, and they're so deluded they think they're the majority.

 

I don't understand what they've invested in her that they can't pull back at this point. I get it with Bush. People elected him twice, and they were sticking by the guy they put into office. There was a real investment there, with real results and real consequences, good and bad. In this case, however, there's plenty of time to ditch this clearly incompetent person with absolutely no shame, no repercussions. The loyalty staggers me. She's nothing more than a wingnut wind-up toy.

 

I thought you were more open minded with the constitution and the political process Waylon.

Obvioulsy you feel threatened by Palin.

 

Because they don't want to. She's theirs. She's their collective raised middle finger to the 'political establishment'. They either don't see her as the idiot she is or they embrace her BECAUSE she's an idiot.

And when I say they, I mean her actual supporters, not the Republican leadership. I'm sure even they're smart enough to realize that she's electoral poison.

 

Yes, because I think she's a complete idiot. She has no real belief system except some vague, preschool level of "conservatism."

Antonin Scalia, for example, is far more dangerous currently to many of the opinions I hold because of the position he's in, but I respect him because he has a coherent world view and real thoughts. He has some positions I disagree with, but he defends them. In the purely political realm, same with Huckabee. Same with W. once upon a time.

 

It is amazing, isn't it? I mean, Bobby Jindal, who was supposed to be an up-and-comer, made one pretty bad Republican-response speech where he sounded like Kenneth the page from "30 Rock" and the GOP all but put him in exile. I mean, Tim Pawlenty wouldn't even accept his invitation to watch the NFC championship game with him, and that speech was a year ago later (fixed)!

Yet Palin is teflon when it comes to looking un-presidential. Seriously, the day she should have disappeared forever was the day she QUIT the governor's job halfway through her first term. How can any conservative support her after that? Never mind all of the other craziness (she could barely name her favorite founding father when Glen Beck asked her the question) -- she quit the job she was elected for. Game. Set. Match. At least as far as I'm concerned.

 

Yeah, that is pretty much spot-on what I'm trying to get at. I don't understand why she's given such a long leash. And when I ask the question, all I hear back from Tony, Boom and the rest is that I'm "afraid" of her. Which I guess is true on some level, but doesn't answer my question. I concede that she has some weird appeal. I just can't for the life of me figure out what it is besides, "She's hot!"

 

Sarah Palin is the Republican version of Anne Richards.

 

Palin's appeal is naked anti-intellectualism. They won't let educated types tell *them* who to vote for.