England for Obama

Somehow, today seems the most appropriate day to show Keith Olbermann’s reaction to That Sarah Palin Turkey Video:

Sarah Palin is the political equivalent of Tourette Syndrome. You don’t want to talk about her. You really don’t want to talk about her. And yet she keeps popping up, bursting out of your mouth (or more precisely: blog post) like some sort of unwanted yet uncontrollable expletive. Try as I might, I can’t stop writing about her. Because she keeps, y’know, doin’ stuff.

Mind you, I do think it’s legitimate to raise this new Sarah Palin attack. Because it’s an attack on me. Oh, and you. For reading me.

That’s right: Sarah Palin has attacked blogging. As surely as night follows day (except in Alaska, where night follows night), Palin is now criticising not just the “filter” of the mainstream media but the filter of the blogosphere, too.

According to Sarah, bloggers sit in their parents’ basements (or presumably just the one basement, if their parents aren’t divorced), “wearing their pyjamas and blogging some kind of gossip or lie”:

Well, I’ve got news for you, Sarah: I don’t live with my parents any more. And they never owned a basement in the first place. I will, however, admit to the “pyjamas” part. I regard it as one of the perks of the job (who wouldn’t work in their pyjamas if they could?) - and guess what, Sarah? Sometimes I blog in my pyjamas from my bed. Put that in your moose chilli and smoke it!

Ahem.

But on that point about blogs versus the “real” media: as Rachel Maddow jokingly notes, who’s to say that those who write in their pyjamas are to be taken less seriously than those who write in suits? (And what if you sit at home writing your blog in a suit?) Unsurprisingly for a blogger, I think that while the blogosphere is clearly not exactly equivalent to the mainstream media (any Tom, Dick or Harry can set up a blog. Not any Tom, Dick or Harry can get a job on the New York Times), it should absolutely be considered alongside such media as an important news source.

Indeed, if this year’s election proved anything, it’s how valuable blogging has become in the provision of news and information for an electorate which has previously been forced to rely on the corporate-owned, politically motivated likes of Fox News. The internet and its resulting independent news websites and blogs have shown that the public no longer has to depend on the old media - and the government - for information. Bush and co. only giving you their version of the Iraq war? Don’t worry - you can watch Al Jazeera online. Sarah Palin denying something? No matter - someone, somewhere will have posted the footage proving she said it. Busy British person who hasn’t got the time to sift through all the current news stories about the American election? No problem - England For Obama has done the work for you.

Like I say: if Sarah Palin attacks you, you must be doing something right. And if politicians are begging for mercy, you must be doing something really right. Here’s to Arianna Huffington, Markos Moulitsas, Jed Lewison, AKMuckraker, Andrew Sullivan, Bob Cesca, the blogosphere and all who sail in her. Huzzah!

And now I’m off to get dressed.

Now, I know I said I wasn’t going to give this woman the oxygen of publicity any longer. But somehow, I think I should make an exception for this story. Because I want Sarah Palin to have the oxygen of publicity about this story. Oh, yes.

“The Secret Service warned the Obama family in mid October that they had seen a dramatic increase in the number of threats against the Democratic candidate, coinciding with Mrs Palin’s attacks.”

This revelation came out of the recently released, seven-part Newsweek report (I haven’t made it to that part yet) and has been picked up by a few news outlets, including our own Daily Telegraph above.

Somehow, I think it should have been picked up by a few more.

Sod John McCain’s gracious concession speech. Sod Sarah tryin’ to be all cute, bein’ filmed bakin’ and talkin’ about huntin’ back in her kitchen’ at home in’ Alaska. She and that campaign tried to instill blatent hatred and fear about Barack Obama - and, not suprisingly, The Angry Mob took up that baton and ran with it… to its logical conclusion. To mix my metaphors somewhat.

Oh, and one more thing? Sarah Palin is still giving her stump speech. Still.

I knew when she said she “didn’t blink” that this woman had no self-awareness - because she was just about the only person in the country to think that her lack of experience, intellectual curiosity and gravitas were not a problem when deciding to run for the second highest office in the land (well, her and John McCain and his advisors).

And in that sense, Palin is absolutely a product of the Right (a lack of self-awareness and truth about a situation being their MO).

But her continuation as if she did nothing wrong; the talk among Republicans of her being a candidate in 2012… Both of these things are signs that the GOP just doesn’t get it - still - and continues to be filled with people who think that it’s perfectly acceptable to campaign and talk this way.

GOP: don’t you dare, dare choose this woman to be your candidate in 2012. Keep her in Alaska. And far away from all of us*.

*Except Russians, who she can see from her house

Bob Cesca talks about the sheltered place that the Right inhabits -

“So the far-right needs to remain insulated from unfriendlies, which is why talk radio is a more comfortable format - calls can be screened and reality can be obfuscated. In other words, it’s a lot easier to suggest that the president-elect is a terrorist on a talk radio show where, you know, a tidal wave of facts won’t get in the way of the lies.”

- and he’s right. And this is one of the reasons why, as I told my friend Nick on election night, the Republicans’ choice of Sarah Palin pick went so horribly wrong for them. Why it was such a horrendously, massively, wrong choice.

And I’m not talking about favourability ratings here. Or about one’s own personal take on Palin.

I’m talking about the fact that, throughout the campaign, John McCain and his peeps were trying to attack Barack Obama on, well, anything that came to hand. He’s an elitist! He’s scary! His name sounds funny! He doesn’t know what he’s doing! He’s naive! He’s not like you and me!

And the thing is: all of these attacks simply didn’t marry up with the objective truth. The McCain camp spouted their ‘truths’, endlessly, and yet the American people saw something quite different. They saw a man who wasn’t scary. Who did appear to be just like them. Who was capable and who did seem to know what he was doing.

That’s why the attacks didn’t stick.

And yet: there was one line of attack that, in actual fact, was reasonable. That did have its basis in objective reality and not simply in the narrative that the Republicans wanted to carve out.

That line of attack was that Barack Obama was inexperienced.

And then they went and blew it all on choosing Sarah Palin.

‘Inexperience’ was the one line that McCain et al could have stuck to - and which could have worked withe public. Because it was the only line of attack against Obama that was reasonable and possibly valid.

People have been commenting on how Fox News and the right-wing shock jocks have contributed to the Republicans’ eventual demise because they have, in fact, been a massive sticking plaster over a gaping sore. A gaping sore that the Right have refused to acknowledge… partly because they’ve had the undying devotion of, yes, Fox News and the right-wing shock jocks.

The Right haven’t been living in our world. They’ve been living in theirs. And I don’t even mean that in a partisan way. They’ve been living in the bubble that they created, and not the real world, with all its changes, all its flaws, all its liberalism and all its, erm, reality.

One would like to think that the bubble will, now, finally burst. I’m sure that Fox will do its best to maintain it - and as Bob Cesca points out, post-election day, it doesn’t seem to be showing any signs of bursting - but it really isn’t in the GOP’s interest to remain in their parallel universe, no matter how cosy and safe it feels to them.

Like the Conservatives over here in 1997, they’re back in their cave, defeated, in-fighting, letting blood and licking their wounds (and it’s no mean feat to do all those things at once). But the Republicans will have to emerge from that cave/bubble/insert metaphor here in order to work out where they went wrong, and what they need to do to to regain ground with the average American voter.

And hopefully, like the Conservatives over here, it will take them at least 10 years to do so.

But she can plough through doors:

(Note: I promise not to give this woman any more oxygen of publicity. Sarah: it’s over. I’m sorry. It’s not me. It’s you.)

Here’s your reading for the next seven days, folks.

Newsweek magazine had reporters inside the Obama and McCain camps for a year in the run-up to the election - but they were only allowed to be there on condition that their stories would be published after the election was over.

So now you can read these behind-the-scenes reports - and boy, are they fascinating. No, really. From tantrums to tactics, they’re an amazing insight into what the candidates (and those around them) are really like, and what really happened on the campaign trails. And I’ve only read the first three chapters…

Ch. 1: Barack Obama: How He Did It

Ch. 2: John McCain: Back From the Dead?

Ch. 3: The Long Clinton-Obama Siege

Ch. 4: McCain Camp Retools, Targets Obama

Ch. 5: Obama Sweats the Clintons, McCain Gambles on Palin

Ch. 6: Battling it Out in the Great Debates

Ch. 7: The Final Days

Enjoy. It’s like The West Wing - only real.

Ah, yes - Sarah Palin is the gift that just keeps on giving:

Mind you, the man that’s reporting it also thinks that ‘knowledgeability’ is a word.

More on this story here. Read it - it’s a doozie. And imagine what America has just been spared. *Shudders*.

*UPDATE* Palin has attacked the report about Africa, but get this: she didn’t actually deny it! She said: “…I perhaps didn’t know an answer to a question”. She didn’t know that Africa is a continent. Watch for yourself:

I didn’t think it was possible for me to think that Sarah Palin was any stupider. I’ve just been proved wrong.

So, one thing I’m reeeeeeallly happy about is that hopefully, after next Tuesday, we’re not going to see very much of this any more:

Or at least: British people won’t be. Because even if Sarah Palin never runs for office again, you can be sure, dagnammit, that she’ll make it in the world of American television. Doh!

Indeed, it’s impossible not to speculate what Sarah will do next. Here are the thoughts of my close personal journalist chum Jane Murphy:

“Now I’ve never been one to tempt fate, but assuming the Democrats do romp to victory next week, what’s to become of the second biggest celebrity in the world, Sarah Palin?

Andrea and I were discussing this last night - and came up with a few ideas. I’ve got a feeling she’ll ditch full-time politics in favour of a daytime chat-show on Fox, possibly alongside her great mate Elisabeth Hasselbeck. I can see Sarah becoming a kind of ‘anti-Oprah’ - with her whooping audiences shedding tears of joy as she hands out free guns to each of them. (Well, you never know when a pesky moose is gonna come a-knocking do you?)

Alternatively, Sarah could always provide a valuable public service by becoming the world’s top Tina Fey impersonator. Just a thought…”

I think Jane’s onto something with the anti-Oprah thing. In fact, here’s a full list of real - no, really, real - possibilities for Sarah’s next move:

- The GOP throw her under the Straight Talk Express, and she returns to Alaska. Is reduced to being a footnote in history and spends the rest of her days in the wilderness. Literally.

- The GOP throw her under the Straight Talk Express, and she returns to Alaska - where she starts plotting her campaign to run for president in 2012.

- The GOP throw John McCain under the Straight Talk Express, and rally behind Sarah Palin as their presumptive presidential nominee for 2012.

- Sarah quits politics and gets her own daytime TV talk show/reality TV show/talking heads show on Fox. Possibly with the First Dude, Todd. The Palins never leave the limelight. Ever.

The latter option is in many ways the most likely, I think - because while Sarah clearly wants as much power as possible, I don’t think she’s actually that interested in politics (crazy, huh?!) and would much rather have the fame and trappings of vacuous celebdom.

Personally, I’m hoping she runs for president in 2012.

Partly because I don’t want the poor American people to suffer this woman screeching out of their television sets and grinning on the cover of their magazines, day in day out, for the forseeable future.

But mainly because I want the GOP to not get it. I want them to choose Palin and her ilk, because if they do, they will be left in the political wilderness for at least eight years - or as long as it takes for them to realise that the world has become more liberal, goddamit, and that the American people just don’t want nasty, divisive, fearful, hateful, self-serving, right wing governance any more. The Republicans didn’t get it during this election, and you know what? They probably won’t get it in four years’ time, either. And possibly not in eight years…

I’ve written before about the parallels between Obama’s likely victory and Tony Blair’s victory in 1997 - when, overnight, not just an old administration but an old way of thinking, of seeing the world, was swept away. Much blame and pain and bloodletting ensued in the Conservative party as a result, of course - and the Tories had to move to the centre to gain any political force, and real chance of governing, again.

The Republican party in America will have to do the same - plain and simple. But the good news, of course, is that the Republican party’s starting point is far to the right of the Tory’s. Its base - Sarah’s Army, the gun totin’, god lovin’, evangelical conservatives - simply will not move to the centre under any circumstance. Not even to gain power.

The result? Like Sarah herself, that base will have to be left in the wilderness in order for the GOP to win again (barring an all-mighty Obama screw-up). And quite how many years it will take for the Republican party to rip itself apart like this before being able to make itself electable… well, your guess is a good as mine.

But here’s the other piece of good news: it isn’t going to happen any time soon, folks. So in the meantime: just kick back and enjoy The Barack Obama And Joe Biden Show (’So real, it’s like they’re running the country!’) - and spare a thought for our poor American cousins. Because even if she doesn’t get elected Vice President, they’re probably going to have to put up with Sarah Palin on TV every day. If they watch Fox News, at least.

Enjoy: