McCain’s vicious attack on Palin after his defeat undermines everything he stood for
Dear John McCain,
During the numerous post-election conversations I’ve had with colleagues, friends and family, it has been mentioned on several occasions that your concession speech in the early hours of Wednesday morning (UK time) was received very well. It was humble in tone yet positive in outlook. Uou resisted any temptation to distract viewers from Obama’s achievement. Sadly, this maturity and integrity has evaporated and I am writing you this letter to express my absolute fury at your behaviour yesterday. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but for the first time in my life I am going to defend Sarah Palin.
I think Sarah Palin is a joke, always has been a joke and probably always will be. I have shared this view with my blog readers on several occasions such as THIS and have always believed that she was the wrong choice for VP. After your defeat, I expected both you and her to slip into the background and lick your wounds privately. On the evidence of yesterday, this couldn’t be further from the truth. In a childish and purile manner, you have set your advisers the task of destroying Palin now that you’ve lost the election:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPsV6ZhL15c]
My first reaction on watching this video was to congratulate myself on identifying that Sarah Palin was a moron from day one. However, this self-congratulatory stance almost immediately morphed into seething disgust at what you’ve done. Instead of admitting and analysing your own mistakes (terrible performances in the Presidential debates, having no grasp of basic economics, not being able to inspire a crowd, not communicating your messages properly, having no charisma, producing inadequate or inappropriate policies, having no message or theme to your campaign etc) you have decided that Sarah Palin was entirely to blame for your defeat. To this end, you are going to do everything you can to destroy her reputation and career. To leak this kind of information to Fox News shows how much I misjudged you, as anyone with a shred of decency would be appearing on the programme themselves and talking about their defeat in an honest and grown-up manner without feeling a need to blame everyone but themselves.
I think you need to be reminded of a few things. In case you’ve forgotten, your presidential campaign was supposed to be built on integrity. You went on and on about your military service to show Americans that you were a true American hero, someone who had the best interests of his country at heart. In part, you were successful in doing so. To watch you set your advisers on Palin like a pack of hounds, intent on tearing Palin into small pieces, undermines everything that you stood for. If you think that it’s respectable, decent and brave of you to launch this type of attack on Palin after you chose her to be your VP, your integrity was obviously a myth all along. If you have a problem with Palin, fine, settle it in private, but to hold hands with Fox News while kicking her performance as a VP is unforgivable. Palin may have been a terrible choice, but she was your choice – and every time you take a verbal shot at her, it makes you look all the more incompetent and duplicitous. Any respect that I had for you has been wiped out by this petty act and I sincerely hope that I don’t ever have to see your spiteful face on TV again.
Yours contemptfully,
Witanagemot Blogs
Its the opening shot in the Republican civil war. Fiscal conservatives, what we over here consider mainstream conservatives, against the Theocratic Christian right for whom Palin is a totem…
Its going to be like what happened in the Tory party over Europe – one side will brutalise then purge the other and/or the party will split.
“In a childish and purile manner, you have set your advisers the task of destroying Palin now that you’ve lost the election…”
I can’t see the video – does he directly attack her himself?
Or is this just the campaign staff going rogue now they are all out of jobs?
Video seems to be working ok?….
McCain’s advisers have clearly been briefed to spread nasty information about Palin’s stupidity (she didn’t know that Africa was a continent, she thought it was a country etc). I very much doubt these advisers were acting without express permission.
Oh, I’m sure it’s working. I’m just not at a PC that can get embedded video…
“I very much doubt these advisers were acting without express permission.”
Hmm, I’m not so sure. I’d like to see some evidence of that before I condemn McCain.
The other possibility is that her profound ignorance was common knowledge among Fox journos (who would’ve been in a relatively privileged position during the campaign) and they sat on the info while it could affect the race and turned back into ‘journalists’ once it could do no harm..
I’m sure Fox knew about it, but Fox would surely not attack the Republicans unless they were explicitly let off the leash. It may be impossible to prove that McCain and his team were behind this, but if he wasn’t then surely he should be speaking highly of Palin in his post-election analysis in front of the cameras to silence the doubters?
“The other possibility is that her profound ignorance was common knowledge among Fox journos…”
Or there’s the other possibility. That the ‘profound ignorance’ is an invention of those staffers…
“Fox would surely not attack the Republicans unless they were explicitly let off the leash”
Heh. I see what you did there…
Except that the staffers are allowed to say whatever they like after the election. They tend to sign non-disclosure agreements that expire after the results.
I have been following this with great interest over the last day or so and it really is deplorable behaviour.
However, I sort of expected something like this happening anyway. To be honest, I simply think it was scapegoat time … its all part of the blame game. Palins the fall guy, and the Republicans move on without her …
Well you say that, but the support for Palin from the hardcore Republican base is very strong, which makes this attack on her by McCain and/or his advisers seem totally counter-productive. What if (god forbid) she wins the Republican nomination for the 2012 presidency due to her grassroots support?
The Democrats now have even more ammunition to use against her, as if they didn’t have enough already.
I guess I expected something like this happening really because have how things were going in the last few weeks between McCain and Palin, he seemed to distance himself (IMHO) from her.
But I certainly hear what you’re saying.
That’s interesting, because I saw McCain and Palin becoming increasingly strained but thought that the Republicans would be desperate to show a united front as they beginning the slow rebuilding process for 2010/2012.
What, like the Tories did in 1997? When the Eurosceptic ‘bastards’ took over the party and lead it into 3 elections of unelectibility while chanting ‘24 hours to save the pound!’?
Both the Theocratic right and the small-government conservatives believe that ONLY THEY have the correct way ahead, they seem to view those inside the party who don’t fanatically subscribe to all their shibboleths as mortal enemies. With that kind of existential battle to conduct, ‘rebuilding’ will take a backseat until one side is victorious and the other vanquished.
To me, the question is whether the losers will start their own party…
I’m inclined to think that is not so much McCain himself behind the attacks, but rather his various advisors who want to get on with their careers. It will obviously be a lot easier for them to get future employment by other Republicans if the mistakes of this campaign are laid at the door of a scape-Palin.
It wouldn’t make sense for McCain to order the smearing because if the allegations were true, which I doubt, it would be pretty damning about him.
“It wouldn’t make sense for McCain to order the smearing because if the allegations were true, which I doubt, it would be pretty damning about him.”
Except its widely acknowledged that his actual choice was Joe Lieberman but as a pro-choice guy, he was unacceptable to the Theocrats who basically forced him into choosing one of them… Palin. So, and while I don’t think this is from McCain as its not really his style to date (unless the Hitchens is right and he’s senile now!), you could view this as old-fashioned score settling…
The Daily Show showed a similar clip (might even be the same as I can’t make that one work) where the reporter said he’d known for a while but it had been “off the record” until after the election. (I always thought “off the record” meant you could report it but not name the source, maybe it’s different over there).
Secondly, maybe McCain has realised he made a mistake with Palin but realised he was going to lose so it didn’t matter. Now she’s one of the front-runners to be the republican nominee maybe he decided that for the good of the party and the country then people should know that she’s incapable.
Comment deleted for breaking the rules of this blog.
McCain had nothing to do with it. The aide just wants a job in the future and are acting in disgusting self interest. Two other aides say the charges are not at all true.
Gosh, I’m surprised Al-Beeba haven’t run this. It’s the sort of thing they’d be wetting their kbickers over.
I think you were a bit quick on that one.
And watching her reaction on her return to Alaska, she sounds very good and make some good points on her treatment by the media because she is a woman.
You might disagree with her views, but a moron, I think not. Actually, the UK would be a lot better it there were more people like her willing and capable to make a difference.
“Actually, the UK would be a lot better it there were more people like her willing and capable to make a difference.”
Yes because what we need right now is more biblically inspired anti-intellectualism to try and pray us through the fix we’re in, confusing continents and countries, unable to name a newspaper, proud of marrying her teenage uneducated daughter off to an equally uneducated teen. Yes. We need much more of that here because Bliar, his daughter’s alleged suicide attempt, his son drunk in Trafalgar square and his Roman Catholic wife taking (as Private Eye put it) ‘Mexican Shit Baths’ under the advice of fraudster-shagger Carole Caplin really didn’t do enough to destroy the last shreds of dignity of public office…
What I meant, S Pilkington, is that if more people were willing to get up from their collective a***s and actually did something because they are not happy with whatever their particular political situation is, things would not be as dire.
I’m willing to bet that your chair has been creaking for a while.
But criticizing and sneering without actually doing something is that much easier, isn’t it?
“What I meant, S Pilkington, is that if more people were willing to get up from their collective a***s and actually did something because they are not happy with whatever their particular political situation is, things would not be as dire.
I’m willing to bet that your chair has been creaking for a while.”
The fact that I agree with your first statement really just lines you up for your fall with the second.
I feel no need to say what I do or do not do either politically or in terms of the community as it makes no difference at all to the point I made. Still, it doesn’t surprise me that an apparent Palin supporter should play the man and not the ball…
As opposed to you playing the woman, that you obviously know so well.
Someone is in need of a mirror.
I see that last night it has come to light that the post-election slating of Sarah Palin in everything that she did and does has found a small hole …
The NY Times reports that the ‘GOP source’ for Palins ‘Africa’ comment … has been faked. Large numbers of the MSM and blogoshere ran with the story, without checking any of the facts …
I guess McCain isnt the only one to have treated Palin badly …
(Im not sure if I can embed .html here, so theres link on my blog to the story and the associated blog)
“…confusing continents and countries, unable to name a newspaper..”
And we now know that neither of those rumours were true…
“..proud of marrying her teenage uneducated daughter off to an equally uneducated teen. “
Better to be unwed and pregnant? And you know, somehow I suspect their education would stack up quite favourably against a teenager raised in NuLab’s ‘education’ system…
“As opposed to you playing the woman, that you obviously know so well.”
Lets explain this for the hard of thinking.
Sarah Palin stood for Veep of the most powerful nation on the planet. I did not.
Palin then made a virtue of her ‘down home’ style which when taken together with her attitude to science and overt appeal to Joe Six Pack spoke of (and to) an anti-intellectualism that permeates American culture. I did not.
She also touted her teenage daughter’s wedding as an example of her pro-life family values in an attempt to appeal to the Theocratic right which disingenuously goes by the tag ‘the Republican base’. I did not.
In doing these things, she put them in the public domain and invited comment upon them. I did not.
That you, Monoi, choose to try and attack me for engaging with the very things your beloved Palin put out there shows that your understanding of politics and debating ideas is as weak as her Geography. The idea is that if you disagree with what I say (or, in public life, do) then you get to attack those things but not my right to say them. Freedom, remember?