Sunday 30 August 2009

Sarah Palin: unreliable and unhinged


Our friend GinaM has provided us with some very good links to many articles, so I thought it would be good to have some highlights of what went on in Sarah Palin's gubernatorial campaign and compare it to her more recent behaviour in a single post.

There are a few interesting points: Sarah Palin's stupidity, vindictiveness, "transparency" and unreliability.

The article "Who's Your Daddy?", quoted in the post "Sarah Palin's dad", was written by Sarah Palin in response to a tongue-in-cheek remark on ADN in 2003, which pointed out a degree of nepotism in Lisa Murkowski's appointment to the US Senate by her own father. If anything, the remark was favourable to Palin.

The Columbia Journalism Review explained:

Given its tone, location, and context, the “Who’s your daddy?” line is clearly a joke. And not only that, it’s a joke at the expense of Palin’s potential opponent, pointing out the nepotism tainting the younger Murkowski’s appointment.

Sarah Palin's response:

"Who’s Your Daddy?" Great question! I see that I got a “thumbs down" on the Anchorage Daily News Sunday scoreboard with an accompanying insinuation that I may not have the appropriate dad to allow me a particular public service role.

In my original post I said her article was written during the gubernatorial campaign in 2006. I stand corrected. It was written much earlier, then posted on her campaign website.

...details make it clear that it was written long before the forum, probably shortly after the original item ran. For one, in a section where she describes her siblings and their spouses “all happily doing our thing serving Alaskans,” she mentions a brother in law who works as a state trooper. Palin’s sister would file for divorce from state trooper Mike Wooten in April 2005, and the rest, as they say, is history.

One of the comments on the ADN article focuses on her stupidity and the usual "transparency":

October 17, 2006 - 11:17pm | alaskastraightalker

New Energy for Alaska? Transparency too?

Sarah Palin claims to want transparency in government. Yet, if her campaign is any example, Alaska will be back to secret meetings and limited access to public documents as quickly as you could say...Fuhs.

Why do I say that? Palin handed out a document yesterday to the school principals' conference. Unlike Knowles, who distributed position papers on things like K-12 education, preschool education- issues one would expect from a candidate for Governor, Palin copied something posted on her website that was, especially in the context of a principals' conference, a little strange- and slapped it on her letterhead. When its distribution was reported on this blog, what do you think happened?

That's right. The Palin campaign took it off their website. Quickly.

I think it's great that Palin loves her parents. I'm sure the other candidates love theirs as well. The question is: Wasn't the candidate for Governor prepared to hand out her positions on critical issues facing our schools, instead of a document which indicates simmering anger over an event which occurred over 3 years ago? And why did the campaign attempt to cover up the existence of the document? Is the speed in which it was removed from the Palin website what they mean by new energy?

We know very well how things had a tendency to disappear from her governor's website later on...

Some comments on another ADN article:

October 16, 2006 - 9:41pm | opal

I heard

Knowles and Palin were guest speakers at the Shop Steward Leadership conference in Girdwood. Once Knowles began speaking Palin realized the event wasn't what she thought it was. Caught off guard and unprepared she was heard bawling out a staffer over the phone. Apparently when it was her time to speak, Palin composed herself and made it through her speech. Anyone else have more details??

October 16, 2006 - 11:17pm | justintime

Meltdown at IBEW

Reportedly Palin expected 15-20 people at a meeting and when she showed up and there were 200 she went into the restroom, screamed at her staff, and burst into tears. My friends in attendence were not impressed at all, and they were undecideds.

That's the first three items clarified. Sarah Palin has been stupid, vindictive and "transparent" for a long, long time. Which brings us to her unreliability (Not without a generous dose of stupidity as her main reason for avoiding public events).

Back in 2006, she had a different spokesperson, but please note the similarity between the following e-mail and the more recent statements by Meg Stapleton:

Republican gubernatorial candidate Sarah Palin's campaign told UAF on Thursday she would not be attending a debate on campus set for next week.

Palin spokesman Curtis Smith said Palin's sorry she can't attend.

"I'd like to state for the record that she never agreed to do so," Smith said in an e-mail. "As you can imagine, her schedule is extremely packed."

The real reason:

...her opponents say she's trying to avoid public forums that would reveal her lack of understanding on the issues.

This reminds me of the GOP dinner she finally decided to attend more recently:

This morning, the Knowles campaign announced a joint press conference with Halcro that was to follow a candidate forum in front of a group of school principals at the Sheraton. The topic was to be: Where's Sarah?

But Palin showed at the forum, spoiling the press conference, which never happened. Halcro says he and Knowles are frustrated by Palin's absence at events.

There are so many examples of Sarah Palin's unreliability... As we've seen, it's not a recent development, it's more of a matter of style.

During the 2008 legislative session she was absent for so long that the legislators started wearing "Where's Sarah?" buttons. In 2009, she dodged discussions with lawmakers regarding the stimulus package, didn't show up for a teleconference and then proceeded to blame the lawmakers, saying they were too busy holding a press conference of their own.

These things should be sufficient to write Sarah Palin off as a serious candidate for anything, but as the icing on the cake, she's also completely unhinged. Geoffrey Dunn makes a good analysis on HuffPo about Sarah Palin's obsession with president Obama, culminating with what can only be described as paranoia:

Palin's official spokesperson Meg Stapleton asserted that there is a White House conspiracy behind the anti-Palin groundswell led by none other than Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. "The trail is pretty direct and pretty obvious to us," Stapleton declared.

"[Palin] represents the biggest threat to Obama," Stapleton stated. "She's the only one who can get the base excited....I just hope to God Rahm Emanuel isn't using taxpayer money to come after Alaska."

When Sarah Palin's adoring fans accused the progressive bloggers of being paid by Axelrod or Emmanuel to write hateful stuff about their idol, we laughed. But seeing these accusations coming directly from her spokesperson is a bit scary.

We're not afraid of Sarah Palin because she has a monumental intellect or the ability to mount a real challenge to the president and his policies. What frightens me is the way her celebrity status is being used by cynical GOP elements and the big corporations to derail the debate about healthcare reform, for example. I get very worried when I remember how George W Bush was "elected" twice and the effect of his two terms in office on world stability plus the economic crisis we're still living.

The trolls say I don't have the right to criticize American polititians. I'm a British citizen living in France. Young British soldiers are still dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. The homes of many British people are still being repossessed, our children can't obtain mortgages, many can't find jobs. The ripple effect of the disastrous policies of those eight years are still being felt all over the world.

We cannot risk having the likes of Sarah Palin anywhere near the White House. If she has a powerful machine behind her, the risk of a GW Bush in a skirt happening to all of us is very real.

Can we afford to sit back, ignore Sarah Palin and let it happen?

Perish the thought!
.

42 comments:

ProChoiceGrandma said...

Typo alert:

We know very well how things had a tendendy

regina said...

Thanls, PCG. My husband caught it as well. After writing a long post I go word blind and can't spot the typos...

regina said...

See? It was supposed to read "thanks"!

Virginia Voter said...

Fabulous post Regina. Unfortunately your rationale for writing about Sarah Palin will be lost on her disciples. Despite her ethics investigations, tabloid family, ignorance of the issues, unreliability,dominionist beliefs, and long track record of mental instability and "QUITTING", there are still fools who will take every word she says as gospel.

Sarah has been spewing hatred and venom toward our president for a year now, and I fear that will once again incite violence and death, just like it did a few months ago at the Holocaust Museum. The wingnuts with guns at town halls, comparing our democratically elected president to Hitler, and all the other whackjobbery that has been going on is cheered on by Palin's facebook rants.She incites a type of racism not seen since the 60's...and it must be stopped. We know Sarah has many more skeletons in her closet, and we must continue to expose them.

ProChoiceGrandma said...

Kudos to GinaM and anons for finding all these scrumptious tidbits! It certainly gives a clear picture that Sarah has always been unreliable and unhinged, not just recently. So it is NOT President Obama’s fault!!

I used to scoff when people would say they were having a panic attack, but after seeing Sarah’s resignation speech on the shore of Lake Lucille, I think we saw a real panic attack in progress.

I especially liked the comment about the Meltdown at IBEW. I do hope someone has saved screen shots for posterity.

McCain, can you see NOW what you could have wrought upon Americans? It is your fault because you were pressured by political dominionists to put one of their poorly groomed lunatics on the ticket. That, my friend, is why there should always be a separation of church and state.

Let us all remain vigilant to make sure we never come this close to disaster again!

debinOH said...

Do you understand my frustration with the MSM? All you hear about from her supporters are POOR POOR Sarah MSM is so mean to her.

For the love of god if the reporters even bothered to find out anything about her other than a few talking points she might not have such a following now. She should have been discredited BEFORE McCain ever chose her as a running mate.

Perhaps if the Alaskans had bothered to READ the thinks people said about her while she was running for gov. she would not have become gov. either. I am NOT faulting all the wonderful Alaskans who were trying to let the masses know because clearly she has never changed.

Reading about this campaign and what has been going on in her camp must make give those Alaskans a great sense of seeing through the BS!

Regina, I don't give a crap where you live. My son will be going to get his Masters degree in London next month & he adores France so it is not such a small world after all! Keep up the good work.

PS - If this woman ever gets near the white house she will cause everyone in the world problems. Keep this in mind........

debinOH said...

Oops, noticed a typo in my post I guess it is in the air!

I forgot to add that it cracks me up that they think Rahm is spending his time & money to make SP look so bad. I guess they don't realize that he has much more on his plate than to make Sarah look bad.

When will they ever realize everything she & her camp do makes her look bad? You don't have to pay money to do that.

regina said...

debinOH,

Typos appear to be the "plat du jour" today. At least we don't have word salad on the menu!

LOL

Anonymous said...

Sarah's offense at the ADN "who's your daddy?" remark, which was clearly aimed at Lisa Murkowski, may be what's known as an "idea of reference." That's not a term well known to most people; it is used mostly in psychiatric hospitals.

sjk from the belly of the plane said...

She is afraid to come out in public. She is avoiding photo opps. Her FB stuff appears to be coming from different ghosts.

I'd venture she has panic disorder and or severe depression.

Take her keys and increase the Valium.

Anonymous said...

Idea of reference:
a delusion that the statements, events, or actions of others, usually interpreted as deprecatory, refer to oneself. It is often seen in paranoid disorders.

Ideas of reference and delusions of reference involve people having a belief or perception that irrelevant, unrelated or innocuous phenomena in the world refer to them directly or have special personal significance. In psychiatry, delusions of reference form part of the diagnostic criteria for psychotic illnesses such as schizophrenia, delusional disorder, or bipolar disorder during the elevated stages of mania.

Anonymous said...

there was a blab on Pee site about why she isnt at least tweeting or saying anything yesterday HER BIG CELEBRATE SARAH day...

her fans excused it off saying writing a bio was excrutiating (their word) .. or that she said trust her!

They either cheer how she bites heads off with speeches and is strong a strong lady! Why WE Support her!
Or they coddle her and make excuses for her like.. poor poor sarah she has it so hard.. she deserves this rest..

For them to want her to be Commander in Cheif.. would you want a PRES that has to be coddled? Where writing a bio is "excrutiating?"
Oh my.. if writing a book (about yourself.. doesn't take a whole lotta research) ... is too hard for her.. where she can't acknowledge her fans with one little 5 second tweet
Think she could be relied on to do real government work?
Obama doing 18 things at once, health care decisions, the war going on, yadda yadda
Do you see him curled up in a ball somewhere ? The nation would be in outrage.. anyhooey

regina said...

My dad was bipolar. His depression was bad, but when he was manic he was a lot of fun. At least he wasn't paranoid.

Sarah Palin's behaviour spans so many possible mental afflictions, it's difficult to work out what's up with her.

It could be that she's simply not very intelligent, highly incompetent and lives in fear of being found out (too late!). Her disappearance may be due to plastic surgery.

If she's mentally ill, I hope she gets help and leaves public life.

If she's a vain, narcissistic airhead who wants to get above her capabilities, then I'll have no pity for her.

She has caused enough damage to the people of Alaska and constantly puts the safety of the president at risk with her inflammatory statements.

We'll see...

Anonymous said...

The style of the 'Who's Your Daddy' article does not ring true to me as authentic Sarah. I think that Chuck Heath wrote it, and given the dynamics of that family, it would make sense (in a palinesque sort of way) that he would take offense to the original article. There is some really creepy stuff in that little gem, particularly the part about holding the 'warm ungulate parts'. I really so have to wonder what went on during those early am father-daughter hunting trips . . .

Anonymous said...

Great post, Regina. The more I read about this, the angrier I become. Sarah Palin has exhibited, in pubic forums, signs of mental illness FOR YEARS. And still she was elected in AK. And still no one in the MSM went after her mental illness, even though it was noted in ADN throughout the Gov.'s campaign in 2006!

Babygate belongs in the list of her mental health symptoms; any way it is "spun," it was a reckless act (either as "the wild ride" which could have injured her and her child) or as a bizarre, faked pregnancy).

lynnrockets said...

Kudos to you. this was an impressive post that was packed with information.
These types of faux pas make you wonder how Palin ever rose to prominence in Alaska in the first place.

midnightcajun said...

Great post, Regina. How did a woman with so many obvious mental problems EVER get anywhere near public office?

The "Who's Your Daddy?" business is weird from so many angles: That she would distribute a snarky, high school English class Why-I-love-my-daddy essay rather than a real position paper on education (and still get elected gov!). That she didn't understand that the joke in the ADN was on Lisa (this woman seriously does not seem to grasp humor). And that in all likelihood the piece was actually written by Chuck Heath himself.

Seriously. No one on her staff wrote that--it has too many personal references. And that's certainly not Sarah's signature word salad. That leaves Chuck himself. And yes, the image of Daddy having little Sarah hold the warm orbs in her hand for a biology lecture rang alarm bells for me, too.

That said, whatever Chuck did to Sarah when she was little does not excuse her vile, racist attacks on our president or her ambitions to turn my country into a theocracy. She belongs in a padded cell.

Lisabeth said...

What infuriates me more than anything is McCains not vetting her! It's obvious!! Or if they did , and overlooked all of this and more about her, that is even worse!
He still will not say anything negative about her. I have lost all respect for him and I am still hoping someone decent will run against him in 2010. If he had any "honor" his word, then he'd say something truthful about her.

Lynn said...

Also "my dad is in Zimbabwe today" would mean, if true, she wrote this piece of fiction herself. The more I think about it the angrier this makes me that he/she said that the Heaths worked on clearing the WTC rubble. Those workers who really did the work of cleanup are suffering and dying from all the toxins they dealt with. What kind of person uses this tragedy to enhance their resume??! I live in a town close enough to NYC that I was able, on that day, to go to a high parking garage roof and see the smoke. The cleanup was not a little community service project manned by Habitat like volunteers. It was a crime scene for one thing. They barricaded every approach to the site so you couldn't just stroll up and do a little freelance cleanup.

Furthermore, how do the Heath's manage to afford so much travel and when exactly? Summer is free time for teachers. By the summer following 9-11 there wouldn't have be even been much cleanup to watch.

I'm wondering if Sarah wrote this. In which case it would be more proof of her "makin' things up". Or is it her father's writing and we can see how she was taught by a master story teller. Myth making in action!!

wv=fauctin as in "factin"" only faux

regina said...

Anon@17:58,

Was the "pubic forums" a freudian slip? It sounds very appropriate, somehow...

LOL

Anonymous said...

Thank you Regina for allowing the discussion to go where it has the last few days.
Last September, I mentioned Track and Bristol as the possible parents of Trig.I am firmly convinced that the real scenario was so awful, it was easier to throw poor Bristol under the bus. The father may not be Track, but I do believe incest was involved. This is the only possible reason that her "mother" would throw her to the wolves, rather than produce a birth cert.

I am also getting seriously creeped out by Chuck Heath.

Bones AK said...

Excellent post.
In some respects I hope at the next anniversary of Palin Day we are still wondering "Where's Sarah?" BUT if she does surface I doubt that she will be any smarter or nicer and we should "be prepared"

Anon@17:58 said...

LOL, Regina. Yes, a typo and perhaps a Freudian slip as well... Sorry about that.

Re: Sarah's possible "nicer" re-emergence. Mental health experts should weigh in, but I believe SP's symptoms are so severe that she cannot be "taught/repackaged" at this late point in her life. The GOP tried once--spent hundreds of thousands on it, actually. It was an EPIC FAIL and as we can all see, her symptoms have only gotten worse as time goes by.

Anonymous said...

Reg, you have every right to be writing about sarah from france, uk, or anyplace else on earth. today the us president's actions affect everyone. it is not a job for a figurehead or beauty queen type ruler.

Virginia Voter said...

Regina, my mother was manic depressive/bipolar, and myexperiences with her when she was manic were anything but fun. When she had manic episodes, you literally could not see the same person in her eyes...she was mean, rude, and downright scary. She yelled, screamed, and one time even disappeared on Christmas Day and drove from NYC to just north of Delaware. We got a call from a state trooper to pick her up at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. She was a danger to herself and others. Alot of the behavior I have seen and read about Sarah is symptomatic of bipolar disorder...the wacky clothes, the pathological lying, outrageous rants in her speeches and on facebook, etc. But the disease can manifest itself in different ways for different people.

I truly believe that Sarah has some type pf psycholgical disorder...whether it is bipolar, NPD, I cannot tell, but she is definitely not sane and rational.

GinaM said...

Thank you for the "shout out" Regina :D I would like to take all the credit but I can't. It was actually Anon @ 20:23 on the "Sarah Palin's Dad" post who started it all. So Anon @ 20:23 KUDOS to you!!

Her/His link led to the Columbia Journalism Review article titled "Shades of Lipstick" which has links to the ADN with those wonderful enlightening comments!

Wow...to see my "name" in Regina's post just made my day!!! Viva La France!

GinaM said...

Virginia Voter....and SHAME on the people who KNOW that this woman is mentally disturbed and are USING her for whatever purpose. Because frankly speaking, she will NOT be elected PRESIDENT. I don't care what shape the economy will be in by 2011, but it still will not be bad enough for us to elect THE CRAZY LADY(thanks Phil @ Progressive Alaska for that apt title).

She or maybe her handlers(Cheney, Rove, Murdoch??) thinks they are going to try and pull the ole "Murkowski" on us. You know what I mean..."We voted for her because she can't be worse than Obama (meaning Murkowski) right?"

regina said...

Virginia Voter,

My dad was an extremely intelligent person and understood his illness, managing it the best way he could.

Fortunately, his manic episodes were very upbeat, he would grow a beard, wear lemon neon trousers, go everywhere barefoot and buy a lot of stuff. He bought at least five typewriters in one week. My mum had to return them all.

When he was depressed it was bad, he was not in any way affectionate as when he was manic. He was quite aggressive in a subtle way, it's hard to explain.

Mostly he managed to keep it even and had a very good career on TV. He was a gifted writer, producer and director.

I miss him.

Anonymous said...

Regina,

That was so sweet what you said about your Dad. My father suffered from what I now know as NPD. My mother was his enabler. He was physically and emotionally abusive to me and my 5 brothers and sisters. We were like The Jackson Family without the (alleged) sexual abuse.

My father was in the military and back in those day's late 60's/70's Black men in the Air Force were treated real bad. So he would bring that stuff home and take it out physically on his kids.

Regina you should do a post on dsyfunctional families. My parents are still alive but out of their six kids only 2 stay in contact with them. I cut them out of my life 5 years ago.

Now I have been coming to the slow realization that my husband has NPD too. I've been doing a lot of research on this on the Internet...because I couldn't figure how I could be treated this way AGAIN. SIGH

Karen said...

Regina, Please keep up the good work. It might be to your advantage not living here, not having to worry about what the neighbors etc. Every tidbit of info helps, thanks again.

Karen said...

Gosh, I just made a typo myself, meant to say what the neighbors think.

Anonymous said...

When Scarah's bio hits the shelves..anyone who's read Pres. Obama's Audacity of Hope? think that is it
Should do a comparison
Something tells me she is sitting with it on her lap typing verbatim.. putting her name, families names', Wasilla, ect... instead of his

Probably why she is in hiding.. she is reading and plagiarizing his book.. I'm sure it is high level reading.. she can't do anything else but focus .. put it down .. check the dictionary.. google a phrase.. then rewrite it with her personal information

LisanTX said...

Another example of the "Idea of reference" is when she misunderstood Katie Couric's question: "What do you read?" Katie wanted to know how she formed her worldview and what publications influenced her.

Sarah interpreted the question as: "what do you read up there in backwards Alaska?" And, therefore, took offense at the question. In fact, Katie Couric did not say "Alaska" in the question. So SP misinterpreted the question as an insult, just like the "Who's Your Daddy?" matter.

Very interesting. Boy, we're getting an education in mental health issues, aren't we?

Anonymous said...

I too beleive that there something very strange in the Heath family.

Mr Heath makes my hair on the back of my neck stand up on end.

But for all of that do I feel sorry for sister $arah? I don't think so, it is very hard to be sorry for her,then, we have the question of what is now happening in the family regarding her children.

jo said...

I read President Obama's books, before the election. I was very impressed with how intelligent he is. He was also very sensitive to what the people were going through, listening carefully to others problems and ideas. He also presented very good ideas of his own for solutions to most every problem facing America and the world today. I was like wow this guy should be President, it was very inspiring. I am not clear on some of the things he is doing now like Afghanistan, and keeping some of Bush's horrible policies. The thing is I do trust him for now, we can't nor should we know the reason for every decision made. I'm sure he is doing the best he can to deal with all the mess Republicans have made of this country. The big corps have been in charge for so long, you can't just pull the plug on them all, they must be negotiated with and some concessions must be made to deal with them.

All the talk from Republicans and Conservatives that he must be stopped is so wrong. In truth it's them that need to stop. It seems the only purpose they have is greed, control, hate, and resistance to change of any kind, and will use any means possible to get what they want. Any time I hear a quote from them or story from any of Rupert Murdoch papers, networks, or books I know it is a distortion or outright lie.

If sinister $P is trying to fashion her book after President Obama she won't be able to. She has no ideas for solutions to real problems. She only wants to control others and force her ideas that only relate to social issues she deems immoral. I'm not even sure if she has any of the morals she is trying to impose on others. If she is covering for someone in her family that is guilty of insect that should be unforgivable to protect the abuser and not the child. Is her ghost writer Lynn Vincent the same one who wrote the book Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party with that horrible Stacy McCain?

My wv: pestenal

A funny one I had when I wrote to Huckabee was 4.5 million unholy, and I had told him he and the others at Fox are laughing all the way to the bank with their precious gold.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Regina, for the insightful post on your father!

Apparently, his daughter inherited some of his talented writing skill.

Thanks for all you do...

Ginger

Anonymous said...

alaskastraightalker wrote:

".... Alaska will be back to secret meetings and limited access to public documents as quickly as you could say...Fuhs."

The "Fuhs" he is referring to is Paul Fuhs.

Elena said...

I know I'm lat, but Id like a platter of typos, wit a giant word salad on the side please.

Is the kichen stil serving?

Patrick said...

jo:

You asked:

"Is her ghost writer Lynn Vincent the same one who wrote the book Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party with that horrible Stacy McCain?"

The answer is yes.

+++

Helen: LOL :-)

Laurie-Ann said...

Thankyou Regina. I read all of the attachments, and I am speechless!

The writing was on the wall regarding Palin years ago it seems. People, (according to ADN comments) were aware that she was lacking in knowledge, substance as well as having a vindictive aspect to her personality.

I am stunned that she became the Governor, but then again, I did not know Frank M.

This woman is a plague.

xango_xango said...

I expect a reality show to come out called "The Hoax" built on Palin's ability to apply all divisive techniques in order to bully her way through life. We just thought folks "were makin' things up about her" back then. You get the picture?

Unknown said...

The unhinged photo in red with gold chain isn't her, correct? Post a mention that is isn't if so.
So the first timer to this article and lurker folks know that it was artistic license using photo of a look-a-like. I want folks to understand that the bloggers, posters and fans that believe Sarah did not give birth to Trig are sincere and honest in the reporting of facts, photos and sincere efforts made with speculation as this hoax is ignored by MSM, ignorant American citizenry.Thanks, it depicts her emerging inner Sarah.