Palin and #WTF Foreign Policy
by Jeanne Devon and Zach Roberts
Half-term Governor Sarah Palin has once again decided to demonstrate the flexibility of her intellectual consistency, and take a firm stand on two sides of a controversial issue. Last week she claimed that President Obama “blew it again,” with a deal that traded five members of the Taliban for the return of captive U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
Bergdahl stated that he had been tortured and kept in a cage during his nearly five years as a prisoner of the Taliban. That didn’t seem to be reason enough for the President to work for the release of Bergdahl. After all he’s an American who had said some ‘disparaging’ things about his country.
It was mother/daughter outrage all over Sarah Palin’s Facebook page (a place from which one of the authors of this piece has been banned). Back in the day, the elder Palin understood that perhaps as an ex-Vice Presidential nominee, there are some rules of decorum, and things one does not say if one wishes to maintain even the pretense of relevancy. Once upon a time, she said “WTF,” and then after the blowback, feigned ignorance by saying the acronym stood for “Win the future!”
Why I do declayuh… Whatevah did you think I meant? *blink blink blink*
But now, she’s added a hashtag, and the WTF’s are flying again, loud and proud.
Yeah! Like just get him a Rosetta stone for unlearning five years of living in a cage and being tortured. Like, is that so hard? WTF?
Palin has been prolific on the issue. Freeing a broken and tortured American soldier is unacceptable. (But has she posted anything about the military sexual assault cases ignored by her successor, Governor Sean Parnell? No.) In another screed she expanded her befuddlement of the Presidents actions.
Praise the soldiers who fought with everything they had to defeat Islamic terrorists, those whom you just freed from prison. Our men gave all. Our surviving combat vets will forever live with the effects of the missions they willingly engaged in to protect you, our country, and certainly their brothers and sisters who are proud to wear the uniform.
You blew it again, Barack Obama, by negotiating away any leverage against the bad guys as these bad guys – Osama Bin Laden’s partners in evil crime – joyfully celebrate their “win” in the deal you sealed.
Palin seems to forget that one of her idols – the Gipper himself – helped to fund said Taliban, and even got to sit in on a meeting! Luckily cameras were there to capture the moment for posterity.
Sarah hasn’t always had it in for this particular soldier, though. We went through the archives of the Palin administration and found this glowing plea for, then PFC Bergdahl. She was praying for his freedom, before she was waggling a bony finger at the man who let him out of his cage.
Press Archive
spacerState of Alaska > Governor > News
> News Archive
Palin Offers Support to Family of Captive
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 09-181
Governor Offers Support to Family of Captive Soldier
July 19, 2009, Anchorage, Alaska – Governor Sarah Palin offered her support and encouragement to the family of a Ft. Richardson soldier captured in Afghanistan.
“Todd and I are praying for Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, his family, and all of his fellow soldiers who are putting their lives on the line to defend our freedom and protect democracy abroad,” Governor Palin said. “The capture of Private Bergdahl and the bombings in Jakarta prove that we have not defeated terrorism, and that radical extremists will stop at nothing to attack Westerners and our ideals.”
More than 7,000 soldiers and airmen stationed in Alaska are currently deployed overseas.
“Our men and women who volunteer to wear the uniform have the best training and experience of any military in the world,” said Lt. Gen. (AK) Craig E. Campbell, Adjutant General of the Alaska National Guard. “We know that when we deploy that anything can happen, and we pray that PFC Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers can find him quickly and reunite him with his family.”
Palin is not the only flip-flopper on supporting/unsupporting this troop. Several other members of the Republican Party and Fox News – including her 2008 running mate and former POW John McCain have backed away from their previous statements. Luckily for us here in Alaska we have the public records act – at least for the time being.
Rand Paul, who back in 2009 was a failed eye doctor, was quoted in Politico saying, “Mr. President, you love to trade people… Why don’t we set up a trade? But this time, instead of five Taliban, how about five Democrats?” he joked. “I’m thinking John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi …”
Oh, Rand.
And they say United States Senators don’t have a sense of humor. Well, as long as we’re all yukkin’ it up about sending politicos to the Taliban, maybe we can propose a better deal.
This took me a few days. I think I have whatzername fatigue…
And now I’m pretty sure I have Bristol blahs.
What a joke- ole whatzername is stuck in the same old rut. President (yup, WGE- PRESIDENT) -Obama -blew-it-blah-blah-blah.
that is the only consistent thing about her.
The pure poetry here”
“Half-term Governor Sarah Palin has once again decided to demonstrate the flexibility of her intellectual consistency, and take a firm stand on two sides of a controversial issue”
describes so very well how she manages that feat .
Bravo AKM and Zach.
Pfffffttt! on whatzername and her lost child.
Thank you Mudflats for posting your archive find. I like knowing about the quitter’s contradictory word salad
statements. My 5 year old demonstrates higher-skilled talking and sentence structure skills than she does.
That photo of her and Bristol is odd. The quitter’s head looks so huge.
And I don’t think The quitter is aware of how clueless she really is.
I noticed that too and either she’s incredibly thin to the point that her head looks disproportionate to her body, or it’s due to the limitations of a cell phone camera. I can’t imagine anyone in her family hitting photoshop to deliberately make her look so strange.
Well, let me correct myself. I can’t imagine anyone in MY family deliberately posting such an unflattering shot, or disfiguring my photograph for spiteful kicks. I haven’t noticed that her family is particularly warm or even polite to one another.
She certainly does have a conveniently short-term memory. I guess she forgot to write it on the palm of her hand.
t… what’s disturbing about Bristol is her statement, “hire him a translator”. What a poor choice of words!!
She applied the term “leverage” to describe the detainees (er, POW’s). When you have “leverage” you use it. We did. We leveraged those guys for our guy. We would have had to give them back to somebody someday, if international law has anything to say about ending hostilities and what to do with POW’s.
Obie put a good one over on Snookie. Instead of trading Taliban he substituted five fauxknee hillbillies,the Robertson clan-Willie,Sillie,Dillie,Nillie and Beano. They no habla ingles,either. Snookie is gonna be pissed when she discovers the switch.
Palin seems to live in an oddly simple world, lacking nuance, complexity, or shades of gray.
Sarah who?
🙂
forgot to re-mention the years and years of business relationships Bush and bin-Ladin families have had. Not that I’d actually believe the Bush family would profit from wars of convenience or anything like that.
mfi , thank you for re-mentioning about all the years the bush and bin-ladin families have had business relationships . Just so no one forgets how much profit they made.
Please don’t forget our bestest ever Potus,dumbass dubya,had Taliban members at his Crawfish,Texas brush farm handing them 40 million tax payer dollars to fight poppy crops,which actually was spent to wage war against……..wait for it………’murrican infidels. in Afghanistan.