Sarah Palin’s Hypocrisy Is Bad For Your Health

(Cross-posted from The Corner Tavern.)

Oh, sure. I know it’s just politics. I know former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is purposefully divisive, using the stage she’s been given not to edify the public or to advocate for the good of the country but to whip her base into an anti-Obama frenzy – maybe to increase her chances to win the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, maybe just to line her own pockets. But either way, it’s nothing personal. Right?

But is that really the way we want our political leaders to behave? Or perhaps I should ask, is that the way we want our media phenomena to behave, since that’s an apter description of the woman who quit her one term as Alaska governor half-way through to sell books and do reality television. Because sometimes the way political creatures like Sarah Palin behave can be harmful to your health.

To-wit:

(CNN) – Sarah Palin is again taking aim at Michelle Obama over her anti-obesity campaign, taking the opportunity in Sunday’s “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” to land a diss against the first lady’s efforts to improve nutrition.

While making s’mores at one point during Sunday’s episode, the former Alaska governor proclaims the marshmallow and chocolate treat is “in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert.”



It’s not the first time Palin has taken a job at Mrs. Obama over her campaign to discourage fattening foods, especially from public schools. The former vice presidential nominee told conservative talk radio host Laura Ingraham last month that “the first lady cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat.”

Palin also hand-delivered cookies to a Pennsylvania school last month before delivering a speech there, saying: “Who should be deciding what I eat? Should it be government or should it be parents? It should be the parents.”

Of course, one might ask when, exactly, did Ms. Obama suggest that the government should tell parents what to feed their children – because she hasn’t. Ever, so far as I can tell. She’s tried toeducate kids and their parents about nutrition and exercise so that they can make better individual choices about what they eat and how they live. And she lobbied for the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, the purpose of which is to require school districts to provide healthier food for kids so that if parents choose to have their kids eat school lunches, or if parents can’t afford to provide lunches to their kids and have to rely on the meals provided by their local schools, their kids have healthier options. So, in fact, all Michelle Obama’s ever done is to give parents information so that they can make informed decisions about diet and exercise, and to give them healthy options for school lunches so that they can choose to have their kids eat healthier meals in school. All of which is about choice – the very thing Sarah Palin claims to believe in.

It’s odd, really, that Sarah Palin and her fellow conservatives attack Michelle Obama over her childhood obesity and healthy eating initiatives, given that it was Republican Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower who created the President’s Council on Physical Fitness way back in 1956. That’s right, it was a Republican who first thought to use the bully pulpit of the White House for thepurpose of “encouraging American children to be healthy and active,” creating what was originally known as the President’s Council on Youth Fitness (imagine how it would’ve made Sarah Palin’s head throb if it’d been Pres. Obama who came up with a name like that!). Oh – and guess who was the first Chairman of the President’s Council on Youth Fitness. Why it was none other than conservative Republican icon Richard Milhous Nixon. And later, Pres. George W. Bush – you remember him, the conservative Republican who was president from Jan. 2001 to Jan. 2009 – created the President’s Challenge website and introduced the President’s Active Lifestyle Award.

Yet I’ve never – never – heard anyone on the right (or the left, for that matter) complain about the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, or the President’s Challenge, or the President’s Active Lifestyle Award. Ever. All those years when I was a kid in the 1960s and ’70s, when we had to take those President’s Physical Fitness tests, counting how many sit ups and push ups and pull ups we could do, no one ever suggested Pres. Nixon or Ford or Carter was trying to dictate anything to our parents, or trying to deprive them of their right to make decisions for their kids. Because they weren’t; Pres. Nixon and Ford and Carter weren’t doing anything nefarious at all – they were doing the one thing Americans once uniformly agreed the presidentought to do: Encouraging, not dictating, good personal habits.

But now that a moderately liberal (and African American) President and First Lady occupy the White House, all of the sudden, out of the clear blue sky, the idea that the First Lady would use her public position to encourage kids to eat healthy and to exercise – now it’s a reason for Sarah Palin and other conservatives to cry foul. When nobody ever complained about any previous administration doing essentially the same thing through the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. For more than fifty years.

That’s some world class hypocrisy, my friends.

And don’t kid yourself. It’s hypocrisy that’s not without serious consequences.

Earlier today I mentioned Sarah Palin’s attacks on Michelle Obama to my wife, who’s a food blogger, and she quickly referred me to the Trust for America’s Health, an organization that gathers health statistics from around the country. The Trust for America’s Health reports that 30% of kids in 30 U.S. states are obese, and 75% of kids who are overweight as kids will also be overweight as adults – which will cost something like $145 billion a year in healthcare costs for people who are overweight. But that doesn’t stop Sarah Palin from attacking Michelle Obama’s efforts to reverse that trend. And she – Palin – does it for base political purposes. Or self-aggrandizement.

My wife’s conclusion? “Sarah Palin is insane.”

Yeah. That’s kind of what I thought.

© 2010 David P. von Ebers. All rights reserved.

@SarahPalinUSA: Closet Socialist!

Today’s pearls of wisdom from the Half-Term Governor Extraordinaire, on the occasion of Pres. Obama’s Oval Office Address announcing the end of combat operations in Iraq:

As always, I’m here to provide the Sarah-to-English translation for the uninitiated. Quoth Gov. McQuitter:

Obama’s speech tonight may make you dig out your old Orwell books so rewritten history can be deciphered, depending on who is given credit for the Iraq surge.

Now, I may be giving Sarah a bit too much credit here, but I believe she’s preemptively accusing Pres. Obama of rewriting history in tonight’s speech, and, therefore, literate Palinites (ahem!) will want to refer to their favorite George Orwell books – 1984, perhaps, or maybe Animal Farm or Homage to Catalonia (nah, that last one’s probably a bit too obscure for them) – so as to familiarize themselves with common Orwell themes. Like, for instance, doublethink:

To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself -- that was the ultimate subtlety; consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word 'doublethink' involved the use of doublethink.

Or newspeak:

Its vocabulary was so constructed as to give exact and often very subtle expression to every meaning that a Party member could properly wish to express, while excluding all other meanings and also the possibility of arriving at them by indirect methods. This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings, and so far as possible of all secondary meanings whatever. To give a single example. The word free still existed in Newspeak, but it could only be used in such statements as ‘This dog is free from lice’ or ‘This field is free from weeds’. It could not be used in its old sense of ‘politically free’ or ‘intellectually free’ since political and intellectual freedom no longer existed even as concepts, and were therefore of necessity nameless. Quite apart from the suppression of definitely heretical words, reduction of vocabulary was regarded as an end in itself, and no word that could be dispensed with was allowed to survive. Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought, and this purpose was indirectly assisted by cutting the choice of words down to a minimum.

Okay, so, anyway, this, apparently, is what she’s suggesting Pres. Obama will do in tonight’s speech – if, that is, he fails to give proper credit for the “surge” in Iraq. Credit for the “surge,” presumably, is supposed to go to George W. Bush (you know, they guy who said Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction and had operational links to al Qaeda – that George W. Bush). Never mind the fact that there is sharp disagreement over whether the “surge” itself – that is, the significant escalation of U.S. troops in Iraq beginning in early January 2007 – actually had a positive effect there; the real question is whether the Ex-Governor really wants to go around citing George Orwell in the first place.

Because Orwell was, or became later in life, the very thing that Sister Sarah so vehemently abhors: A socialist.

But you don’t have to take my word for it; Matt Yglesias has done the work for us:

[H]ere’s Orwell on socialism from “Why I Joined the Independent Labour Party”:

I have got to struggle against that, just as I have got to struggle against castor oil, rubber truncheons and concentration camps. And the only regime which, in the long run, will dare to permit freedom of speech is a Socialist regime. If Fascism triumphs I am finished as a writer — that is to say, finished in my only effective capacity. That of itself would be a sufficient reason for joining a Socialist party.

I have put the personal aspect first, but obviously it is not the only one.

It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it. For perhaps ten years past I have had some grasp of the real nature of capitalist society. I have seen British imperialism at work in Burma, and I have seen something of the effects of poverty and unemployment in Britain. In so far as I have struggle against the system, it has been mainly by writing books which I hoped would influence the reading public. I shall continue to do that, of course, but at a moment like the present writing books is not enough. The tempo of events is quickening; the dangers which once seemed a generation distant are staring us in the face. One has got to be actively a Socialist, not merely sympathetic to Socialism, or one plays into the hands of our always-active enemies.

In “Toward European Unity”, written after the war, he explained that “a Socialist United States of Europe seems to me the only worth-while political objective today.”

(Note that the emphasis is in the original post by Matt.)

Heh. Socialism is “the only worth-while political objective today.” So said George Orwell, Sarah Palin’s go-to guy on politics.

Sarah Palin, pallin’ around with socialists!

Well, anyways, thanks for the tip Gov. McQuitter!

The Political Carnival: Sarah Palin’s pants are on fire

Via partner The Political Carnival: Sarah Palin’s pants are on fire

Friday, August 6, 2010 at 5:19 PM by GottaLaff

Pants on Fire!

Via Ben Smith, it seems Former Half-Gov Fabricata McFibLips is blahblahblahing that “Democrats are poised to allow [the] largest tax increase in U.S. history” by letting the Bush tax cuts expire. Wrong:

Palin’s main defense was the absence of any clear proposal from President Barack Obama or congressional Democrats stating an intention to limit the increase to wealthy taxpayers. But PolitiFact noted in a rebuttal posted today, “Obama has indeed published his proposals in some detail — at least twice, in the annual budget documents that the White House releases.”
-snip-

Visit The Political Carnival for the rest of the story

The Dangerous Nature Of Sarah Palin’s Lies & Hateful Rhetoric: NY City “Mosque” Controversy

At this moment there are 2,884 comments and a majority of them are like the ones shown in the screenshot.

Our good friends over at Palinsgate has shared a post with us. I'll give you some rather than cross-post the whole thing, and request that you pop over to their site for the rest:

This is the post Sarah Palin made:

An Intolerable Mistake on Hallowed Ground

Earlier today, Mayor Bloomberg responded to my comments about the planned mosque at Ground Zero by suggesting that a decision not to allow the building of a mosque at that sacred place would somehow violate American principles of tolerance and openness.

No one is disputing that America stands for – and should stand for – religious tolerance. It is a foundation of our republic. This is not an issue of religious tolerance but of common moral sense. To build a mosque at Ground Zero is a stab in the heart of the families of the innocent victims of those horrific attacks. Just days after 9/11, the spiritual leader of the organization that wants to build the mosque, Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, suggested that blame be placed on the innocents when he stated that the “United States’ policies were an accessory to the crime that happened” and that “in the most direct sense, Osama bin Laden is made in the USA.” Rauf refuses to recognize that Hamas is a terrorist organization dedicated to the destruction of our ally, Israel, and refuses to provide information about the sources of funding for the $100 million mosque. Rauf also plays a key role in a group behind the flotilla designed to provoke Israel in its justifiable blockade of Gaza. These are just a few of the points Americans are realizing as New York considers the proposed mosque just a stone’s throw away from 9/11’s sacred ground.

I agree with the sister of one of the 9/11 victims (and a New York resident) who said: “This is a place which is 600 feet from where almost 3,000 people were torn to pieces by Islamic extremists. I think that it is incredibly insensitive and audacious really for them to build a mosque, not only on that site, but to do it specifically so that they could be in proximity to where that atrocity happened.”

Many Americans, myself included, feel it would be an intolerable and tragic mistake to allow such a project sponsored by such an individual to go forward on such hallowed ground. This is nothing close to “religious intolerance,” it’s just common decency.

- Sarah Palin

First of all, lets dispel some of the misinformation. Cordoba House is NOT, I repeat NOT "at Ground Zero" as Sarah and her ghostwriter would have you believe. [...]

Now lets address this "building a mosque" claim.

This is not a building being erected, but a renovation of a building that is already in place. This building will be named "Cordoba House" and will include many many more things than just a prayer center, which by the way is already in place and being used regularly [...]

Now just for a bit of a refresher, lets revisit the 1st Amendment to the Constitution shall we? You know that pesky document that Sarah Palin keeps demanding we stick to when she feels she has another rant coming on?

The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits the making of any law "respecting an establishment of religion", impeding the free exercise of religion, infringing on the freedom of speech, infringing on the freedom of the press, interfering with the right to peaceably assemble or prohibiting the petitioning for a governmental redress of grievances.

Seems to me that Sarah Palin and those opposed to this Community Center are trying to impede the free exercise of religion by demanding that this place not be allowed to go forward, and they are also interfering with the right to peaceably assemble by demanding that this community center be moved to a different location simply because they dislike the specific religious beliefs of those who are going to be using the prayer center. [...]

There is so much involved in this subject that we could go on for days discussing it, but the main thrust of this post is supposed to be about getting the facts out there, and showing the dangerous attitude of the people who are supporting the misinformation that Sarah Palin and those like her are distributing in the name of politics or personal bigotry.

How are people reacting to her facebook note? Good question, and I have some answers. It isn't pretty. Not pretty at all and it shows how she stirs anger and is quite happy to do it as we've seen from the many incidents where she has sought to divide people in this country. [...]

So as is obvious there is a lot of hate, misinformation and dangerous attitudes among Sarah's followers. The anger displayed toward individuals who have a different belief system than they do is plainly evident and exceptionally frightening. To believe that Muslims are all bad, or that this Community center is some kind of dangerous place or disrespectful slap in the face to those who died is a joke, but sadly one that is becoming more and more popular with a select group of citizens.

How sad that this is what so many feel, when they themselves are likely to cry foul if someone tried to trample on their right to free religious expression.

"What better place to teach tolerance than near the site where hate tried to kill it?"

That comment stands out for me.

Sarah Palin could have taken this opportunity and used it to show herself to be a true Christian, and instead she went down the opposite path. She could have shown herself to be supportive of the Constitution like she professes herself to be, but again that is not the path she wanted to take.

I am not surprised by the behavior she displays and encourages in people, but I am saddened by it. I have been paying close attention to her for what feels like an eternity but in reality is has only been a few years. In those few years, I have watched her lash out, encourage rage and anger in her supporters, lie, deliberately misrepresent, and bilk people out of money, and all of it to feed her own ego, and to become a celebutaunt on the national stage.

She is a dangerous person and one who should not be ignored, as she will do everything in her power to continue to encourage dangerous behavior from as many people as she can. That is what she does and it is who she is. Sadly she has conned a lot of good decent people into believing her, but I am always hopeful that people will finally remove the blinders from their eyes and simply look at the facts which show how shallow, egotistical, and narcissistic her behavior is. [...]

If they are going to continue to claim that this "Mosque is being built at Ground Zero", which we have now proven to be two separate and distinct lies, (it is a building that is being renovated & it is not at Ground Zero) then you have to ask yourself, what else are they willing to lie about? The answer to that is ..whatever they want to lie about in order to scare people and use that fear to bring in support both emotional and financial.
They certainly aren't going to tell people that this center is housing much more than a prayer room (which is already being used) because that would seem much more reasonable and not so frightening to people who are already leery of those who are "different".

What is so frightening and damaging to the community about restaurants, bookstores, swimming pools, art exhibitions and worship groups? Nothing about those things are frightening at all to reasonable people so that is why they aren't mentioned, and that is why this is being labeled a Mosque instead of a Community Center.

I had been trying to write a conclusion to this piece and had rewritten it several times when I noticed someone had linked to this article by Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic who wrote a wonderful piece titled "Why Sarah Palin Endangers American National Security (and Israel's, as Well)" [...]

I agree with his conclusion as it was what I was trying to put into word. She is more than just simple-minded, she is willing to take on any cause if she thinks it will keep her in the news, and she doesn't care about what the issue is, nor does she care to understand the issue. For Sarah it has always been about making noise and riling up her supporters in whatever way she can.

There is no doubt that there are people in the world who want to do harm to others and they will always find a reason to do so in their own warped minds, but we should not be playing into their hands and into their deliberately misinformed viewpoints by ensuring that their supporters are seeing us act out in the ways that these terrorists claim we will and do. Sarah Palin and those who blindly follow her are dangerous to this country for the simple reason that they seek to divide us, which weakens us in many different ways, on many different fronts.

We will never completely eradicate terrorism. There will always be those who seek power through intimidation and fear, but we can fight it, and we only lose to them if we allow ourselves to change who we are and what we do out of fear and intimidation.

There is much more. Patrick is very thorough. He has video, photos, quotes I left out. Please go take a look.

Much Ado About Nothing, Or, Elena Kagan Is a Secret Islamo-Facist Manchurian Supreme Court Nominee …

… It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act V, scene v.

Now that ex-Gov. Sarah Palin, the Patron Saint of Cashing In, imagines herself to be a regular Shakespeare with the English language, maybe she can take a moment to pen a verse “refudiating” the Washington Times latest example of religious intolerance and race-bating. Via ThinkProgress:

Less than a month ago, the Washington Times ran a bizarre op-ed by Frank Gaffney, claiming that Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan is caught up in a conspiracy with the Muslim Brotherhood and the TARP program to impose oppressive tenants of Islamic Shariah law on America. The highlight of that op-ed was a doctored photo of Kagan in a turban.

The Washington Times’ editors must think that their readers have a very short attention span, because yesterday’s Washington Times also featured an op-ed by Frank Gaffney which touts the same tired conspiracy theory…and features yet another graphic of General Kagan in a turban.

Um, what?

Yeah, that’s right, Elena Kagan – who, for what it’s worth, happens to be Jewish – is part of a secret Islamist cabal hell-bent on transforming the American financial sector into a Caliphate on the Hudson. Or maybe the Charles. Or something.

Anyway, take it away, Frank:

That is where Elena Kagan’s enabling of the penetration of Shariah into our capital markets through the Harvard Law School’s Islamic Finance Project comes in. The purpose of that project is, according to an excellent essay by Mr. McCarthy, “Elena Kagan’s ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ Shariah Policy,” published last week in National Review Online “to promote Shariah compliance in the U.S. financial sector.”

This is accomplished via legal support to an industry known as Shariah-compliant finance (SCF). It was invented in the mid-20th century by Brotherhood operatives as a means of facilitating and underwriting the penetration of Shariah into Western societies by mainlining it into their capitalist bloodstreams. . . .

As a new ad by the Center for Security Policy asks, “If Kagan tolerates promoting the injustice of Shariah law on the campus of Harvard, what kind of injustice will she tolerate in America during a lifetime on the Supreme Court?”

(Emphasis in original ThinkProgress post.)

What kind of injustices, indeed?! Get me my smelling salts.

Of course, as ThinkProgress explains, neither Kagan nor Harvard’s Islamic Finance Project made any effort to promote an “Islamist” agenda here or elsewhere – only to work with Islamic countries and financial institutions to modernize the their financial sector while still respecting the Islamic tradition that forbids charging interest on loans. No burqas, no beheadings, no stonings. Just some creative finance in the Middle East. But, hey, who cares about the facts when you can tie a liberal Jewish Supreme Court nominee to every right-winger’s favorite monster-in-the-closet: Shariah law!

So, ex-Gov. Palin, what do you think? You’re all about the religious freedom and the worship-y thing and the gettin’ down on yer knees and thankin’ the Good Lord the Framers read their Bibles and loved Baby Jesus and Israel and such. So, do you think it’s okay to insinuate – without, as those pesky lawyers say, a shred of evidence – that Elena Kagan is some sort of covert agent who, despite her Jewish faith, is secretly working to convert America to Islam? Or would you refudiate that sort of dog-whistle smear campaign?

Just askin’! Also.

UPDATE: I wonder if the ex-Gov. can answer this question: Why do you suppose the Washington Times chose to picture Elena Kaga in a turban? After all, if she’s a Shariah-lovin’ woman, shouldn’t she be wearing a burqa? I mean, a turban’s what a man would wear, right? Waitaminute! You don’t think the Washington Times is trying to say something about Kagan’s sexuality, do you? C’mon, Sarah. You’ve got a lot of refudiatin’ to do.

Will @sarapalinusa "refudiate" AZ for creating hostile environment for Hispanics?

Sarah Palin supports this law, but if she cares at all about human rights and tolerance she would "refudiate" the draconian immigration law in Arizona which is having a negative impact on everyone. Refudiate this Sarah!

From ABC NEWS:

Hating Hispanics: Has Arizona Ignited Firestorm After Decade of Simmering Tension?
Activists Say Immigation Law Has Given Rest of Country Free License to Discriminate Against Hispanics

By SARAH NETTER
July 19, 2010

Jumped by three men wielding chains and bats, Adolfo pleaded with his attackers to consider his family.

Hating Hispanics: Has Arizona Ignited Firestorm After Decade of Simmering Tension?
Activists say Arizona's controversial immigration law has given the rest of country free license to discriminate against Hispanics.

"They started calling me a stupid Mexican and threatening me," the 25-year-old Staten Island, N.Y., resident said. "I tried to ignore them but they kept saying, 'You stupid Mexican, we're going to kill you.'"

It was an attack, he said, that changed everything about his life in America.

"I always felt safe in this country," he said in Spanish. "I feel very alone now."

Adolfo, whose last name is being withheld by ABC News.com at his request, is not alone.

The country's changing demographics and ongoing struggle with immigration policy have stirred anti-Hispanic sentiment, said activists who reported anecdotal evidence that Arizona's controversial immigration law has contributed to a fresh round of discrimination.
-snip-

Sarah Palin mangles the facts... again

Seems Former Half-GovMangles McFactless doesn't know much 'bout geography-- or anything else-- but for now, geography:

Sarah Palin incorrectly calls Alaska's Kodiak Island the largest island in America in a Facebook post endorsing a Senate candidate in New Hampshire.

The Big Island of Hawaii is bigger. By 440 square miles. Seems Mangles forgot to use her hand notes.

She also deviated from reality when she said Republican candidate Kelly Ayotte "won" a Supreme Court case. Not so much. SCOTUS sent the case back to lower court.

The law that Ayotte defended was repealed.

I'm sure McFactless will "refudiate" all of this.

"Refudiating" Sarah Palin

Cross-posted at The Political Carnival. To see my entire post, please go here.


Palingates has a series of tweets you absolutely must read, but I'll give you a few samples

It all started with the Refudiator herself, Former Half-Gov Illiterata McLackBrain. She decided today would be a swell day to get on the Twitter Machine and confirm her utter stupidity.

Let's take a peek at her first in a run of doltish tweets:

Interestingly, even Illiterata realized how Bush-like she sounded and deleted the original tweet. But not before Little Green Footballs grabbed that screen shot.

And we thought Boy Georgie was a moron.

Nonetheless, McLackBrain couldn't suppress her urge to come up with what she must have thought was the ultimate comeback:



"Got to" drop my jaw upon reading how Illiterata just compared herself to one of the most mindless men alive, one of the most intelligent, and ... ... Shakespeare forgodsake!

And finally, one more excerpt, but again, you'll miss out on all the fun if you don't follow the Palingates link to the whole run.

To see the rest of this post, including Twitter responses from Keith Olbermann, go here.

According to @mudflats @sarapalinusa has now sent a racist tweet, she needs to "refudiate" herself . . .

. . .we knew that would happen.

From The Mudflats: “Refudiating” Palin’s Racist Tweet