Palin’s “Seat of the Pants Gusto” has Camille Paglia Seeing Starbursts

I was planning to write a snarky piece about Camille Paglia’s response to a reader query about Sarah Palin’s political future over at Salon. But TBogg did it better than I could have. Suffice it to say that Camille paints the usual picture of Sarah as sad victim of the cruel media and its vicious double standard and stuff which only says bad things about conservative Alaskan governors and their kids and gives all the rest of the politicians and their brats a complete pass. But Sarah’s maverickiness is totally cool and she just needs some book larnin’ to be a major player on the national stage. Know what, guys? I sense a little crush!

Somewhat related: Greg Sargent notes that one of the primary reasons Palin gave for stepping down, i.e. that the massive legal bills the state was racking up to fight all those pesky ethics complaints, not having a Department of Law and such to toss them out for her, appears not to be true! Quelle surprise.

UPDATE: One of the commenters at The Plum Line linked to the Alaskan blog Henkimaa where writer Mel Green has up a very well researched piece completely de-bunking the $2.0 million legal costs claim by Palin and Company. Actual cost to the state of Alaska for all the ethics complaints, excepting the one Sarah filed on herself (to get the “troopergate” issue moved from the legislature to the Personnel Board): About $108,300. Cost of Sarah Palin initiated Troopergate investigation totalled about $190,000 so the final tally to the State of Alaska was less than $300,000, most of that budgeted for. Other commenters on that thread have pointed out that most of the Palins’ personal legal costs are being covered by her Legal Defense Fund.

I really didn’t want to bring this piece by Andrew Sullivan in (mainly because he rehashes the tired old thing about “who is Trig’s real mother ?”again) but he does have a pretty exhaustive list of the rather casual lies that Sarah Palin has told since entering the national spotlight. (And you may not be convinced they’re all lies). If you’re interested here’s the link.

Posted by marindenver on 07/08/09 at 04:07 PM • Permalink

Categories: Politics • Election '08 • St. McSame • Polisnark • Sarah Palin •

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Shorter Paglia: “Excuse me, stewardess! I speak redneck!”

Paglia has been playing that tired old “I’m down with the real culture, not like these tired old feminazi crones!” card for about 20 years now. I remember a fabulous take-down on her that Mim Udovitch wrote in the Village Voice when Sex, Art, and American Culture came out. Udovitch wrote something like “She tells us she watches a lot of television, but never gets around to telling us what she watches. Which is disappointing for those of us who want to know if ‘Coach’ is primarily Apollonian or Dionysian in its appeal. (I’m guessing Apollonian because of the athletic angle.)”

Seriously, I want Florence King to come back from the not-dead and just kick Paglia’s ass to the curb. King is actually funnier than hell, even though I disagree with some of her politics. Florence, we need you!

Comment by Oblomova on 07/08/09 at 04:51 PM

Thanks for posting that, marin. Didn’t see that Plumline post. If this story gets legs, I think Greg Sargent owes me a drink (or twelve).

Comment by Kevin K. on 07/08/09 at 04:55 PM

I’m glad you posted about it the Paglia piece also, marin. I saw it on Memeorandum but had to back away quickly. If you’d ever seen me go off on one about Paglia, you’d know why.

Comment by YAFB on 07/08/09 at 05:05 PM

Seriously, I want Florence King to come back from the not-dead and just kick Paglia’s ass to the curb.

The late and totally great Molly Ivins did a great piece on Paglia too. Betty referenced it in a piece she did here a few months back. I’ll have to see if I can find it and pull a link.

Comment by marindenver on 07/08/09 at 05:14 PM

Yeah, Palin, like Gingrich, Sanford, Bush, Cheney, Craig et al are just regular run-of-the-mill regular Murkans who have been unfairly savaged by the evil media.

Uh-huh, and I was just signed to a multi-million dollar contract for my latest book.

As for the Iquiterod, interesting analysis here, although it’s to be expected by those of us who are not REAL murkans and who just hate Palin because she’s so much smarter, stronger and ummm down to earth than the rest of us East Coast liberal elites. (I live on the West Coast, drink cheap beer and the closest I got to the Ivy League was the mass of green crap called ivy I had to cut back in front on my childhood home, but hey, I grind my own coffee, read a lot of books and do crossword puzzles FOR FUN!!!! so I guess I am just an elitist).

http://www.pollster.com/blogs/palins_problem_outside_th e_bas.php

Comment by HumboldtBlue on 07/08/09 at 05:14 PM

And here it is.

Comment by marindenver on 07/08/09 at 05:19 PM

BTW, Paglia’s trumpeting of Palin’s trumpeting of the Precious Pipeline being finalized turns out to be, as one expert put it, “much ado about not much.”

Every so often, (or, as we in the wimmen-bashing biz say, “periodically”)she puts out another triumphant statement to herald the finalization of the last phase, and then nothing happens. And so we have the latest phase in the pipeline’s continued non-existence; there’s no indication of a spade of earth being turned for years to come.

Obviously the announcement was made to give her something to point to as an accomplishment before her ~~goofball dereliction of duty~~ ~~abdication~~ resignation.

Comment by Mrs. Polly on 07/08/09 at 05:44 PM

Palin/Paglia 2012!

Comment by Hunger Tallest Palin on 07/08/09 at 05:52 PM

Mar, that is great.

King goes on the rampage against feminists and liberals as often as Paglia, but she does it with gusto and wit and real smarts—not the “academy meets demimondaine” tortured prose that is Paglia’s stock in trade. (Though to be fair, I have heard that Paglia’s book on poetry is actually pretty good—won’t waste money on it, but I’ll look for it at the liberry one of these days if I can ever get the old Ford pickup out of the mud in front of the goat-pen where Emmy Lou got it stuck after our last shivaree!)

Comment by Oblomova on 07/08/09 at 05:58 PM

Oh, and that link should be hat-tipped to DougJ at BJ.

Comment by HumboldtBlue on 07/08/09 at 06:05 PM

It looks like that Alaskan blogger who did the research on Palin was widely read today. If you saw Hardball earlier, you saw Joan Walsh (with whom I’ve had many issues with over the election period, but not today) wipe-up with that cross-eyed emmeffer with the same data.

If you didn’t see it, here it is. The Alaska stats as stated above come in at about the 5:00 minute mark, but the whole 10 minutes is worth the watch.