right wing

Right Wing Rallies Round “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin”

Pen a fantasy about how Sarah Palin could have been Barack Obama if only she weren’t so:

a) selfish

b) filled with anger, resentment and hate

c) greedy

d) stupid and uneducated

e) all of the above

and you tap into a deep vein of right-wing nostalgia for the Sarah-Who-Never-Was, which will prove of immense benefit to your personal brand and career.

I’m not impugning Joshua Green’s motives for writing his “Sarah-We-Hardly-Knew-Ye”  paean of praise in the June issue of The Atlantic.

I’m sure he felt he had a legitimate, counter-intuitive, against the flow argument to make. He’s proven himself to be an excellent and fair-minded reporter in the past.  And nobody should knock him just because his first job in “journalism” was at The Onion.

It may be that with “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin,” Green is returning to his satirical roots.  Although if you read some of the comments in response to my earlier post, “If Only Sarah Weren’t Sarah, She Coulda Been a Contender,” you’ll find some strong fact-based arguments against Green’s hypothesis.

In any case,  I’m sure Green was perspicacious enough to sense the likely windfall that would result from a “St. Sarah, The Fallen Star” story.

And he’s knee-deep in peaches and apples already, as the huzzahs arrive from all the obvious right-wing shills:

John Podhoretz in Commentary

Jennifer Rubin in the Washington Post

Ross Douthat in The New York Times

This chorus sings in only one key: the key of sorrow, for the loss of a Sarah Palin who never existed outside the realm of their collective yearning, and who ever existed only as a figment of their collective imagination.

Andrew Sullivan wrote a bracing response yesterday and today added:

Josh’s piece will serve as balm to the right. And it will allow them to believe that their choice of veep in 2008 was not an indictment of them or the media – but just an unfortunate decision by Palin to change her colors. The only problem with this argument is that it is manifestly untrue. But we know that Palin lovers, like Palin herself, must perforce be wedded to mountains of untruth.

Amen.

That Amazing Robert Hunt Illustration atop The Atlantic’s Palin Story//UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan on the illustration and the story

Robert Hunt is one of the most extraordinary illustrators of our time.

In fact, let’s skip the qualifiers and just call the man a great artist.

The Atlantic commissioned him to do the illustration that accompanied “The Tragedy of Sarah Palin” in their June issue (about which I blogged earlier today.)

Whatever one might think of Joshua Green’s article, there is no denying the power of the portrait.   It’s Sarah Palin as she sees herself,  and as her worshippers see her:  in the Oval Office.

It turns out that The New Republic was also aware of Robert Hunt’s artistic brilliance.

They commissioned him to do a portrait of Barack Obama for the cover of their December 2, 2009 edition, which contained a number of articles highly critical of the president.

Hunt has a fascinating account of his interactions with the magazine as he worked on the illustration.

As he describes (and shows), he offered them several possibilities:


Which one did they choose?

Did they choose the one that showed President Obama looking the difficulties of his job straight in the eye?

Or even one that portrayed him in profile, pensive and deliberative, possibly humbled by his responsibilities?

No, The New Republic wanted an illustration that showed him cowed, defeated, turning his back and walking away.

And so of all the choices Robert Hunt offered them, this was the illustration they used:


 

 

I hope Robert Hunt will share on his blog his alternatives to the Sarah Palin illustration The Atlantic chose.

Whether he does or not, isn’t Robert Hunt amazing?

As for the editors of the mainstream New Republic and Atlantic, what subliminal message do you think they are trying to convey?

Take a look, side by side:


And Sarah complains about “lamestream” media?

 

 

 

 

 

 

MSM continues to roll out the red carpet for her, because MSM wants her to run against Obama next year.

He’ll be reelected, no matter who his opponent is. But MSM is increasingly desperate for readers and viewers.

MSM is sinking fast, and as a former psychiatrist of mine once told me, “A drowning man has no morals.”

MSM wants Obama v. Palin, because the alternatives are so dull. Without her, nobody will bother to read or watch and MSM numbers and dollars will continue their flight to alternative sources of news, opinion and entertainment.

Only Sarah can juice up the campaign:  with Tea Party moronics, blatant racism and Christian Dominionist hate.

So MSM is trying to seduce her now in order to betray her later, after they’ve used her to improve their bottom lines, just as she’s used them to improve hers.

Frankly, they deserve each other, and may the worse whore lose.

But before the whole orgy really heats up, take one more look at Robert Hunt’s vision of President Obama that The New Republic didn’t want you to see:

That’s Mr. President.

Sarah is Ms. Pretender.

UPDATE:

Andrew Sullivan tells it like it is.

VF’s James Wolcott Takes Note of Sarah’s Next Crusade


 

Wolcott seems amused by Sarah’s choice of Peter Schweizer as her new “foreign policy advisor.” But don’t take this appointment lightly. Clearly, it signals a new direction for Sarah: an all-out Christian militant war against the Evil Empire of Disney.

Let “Pussyfoot” Obama fight the war on terror. Sarah will lead the ethnic cleansing of Disney theme parks around the world to assure that no traces of dreaded homosexuality remain.

Breitbart Blogger Says MSM Smearing Sarah

Here I was, foolishly thinking mainstream media bears responsibility for the degree to which Sarah Palin has been able to inflict herself on American society, when a Breitbart blogger set me straight. “Big Hollywood” editor in chief John Nolte explains that, in fact, MSM, “in their desperate efforts to undermine and destroy” Sarah, have “weaponized” her own children (gasp!) as “political bludgeons against her.”

It’s a leftist conspiracy, all right, led by well known, arch-radical militants Barbara Walters and Whoopi Goldberg.

Someday, I’d like to see Breitbart, Glenn Beck and Greta Van Susteren all on stage somewhere with a physician who could tap each of their knees with a rubber mallet, just to see whose jerks fastest.