More Bloggers on the Bus – Chapter 13a, Alaska Blogs and the End of a Very Short Era.
There’s no doubt it’s been an unbelievably bizarre ten months on the Last Frontier. I don’t know if there will ever be as much political drama again. Our sleepy little state, content to grouse over our own brand of colorful local political corruption, was completely unprepared for what happened on August 29. The woman who many considered barely, if at all qualified to be the governor of our sparsely populated state was now going to potentially be a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States. And bloggers who had been following Palin’s unlikely career were horrified as much by John McCain’s reckless and uninformed political gamble as by Palin’s reckless and uninformed acceptance of his offer.
The only thing as startling as how she rose to power, was how she extricated herself from the governorship. Eric Boehlert of Media Matters tried to capture the phenomenon of the Alaska blogosphere in Chapter 13 of his excellent new book Bloggers on the Bus. Unfortunately, the book came out before the end of Palin’s political career in Alaska. But the strange circumstances surrounding her hurried departure from state government demanded another chapter.
Palin will go on, and so will the bloggers. What direction she and we will take is uncertain, as are all things in the future. But, for now, we still live in speculation, in that murky grey three weeks of lameduckitude to which Sarah Palin has resigned herself.
AKM- How about a button that says �I quit but I twit..SP�?
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Smarry
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AKM- How about a button that says “I quit but I twit..SP”?
#18, July 14th, 2009 at 3:43 PM, Writing from Alaska Says: ” “Unkind twitter tweet from SP – referring, I assume, to Andrea McLeod; “Are these constant, wasteful thumped-up ethics charges result of not caving when the filer begged for job?”
Yes, thumped up – but we all have trouble spelling on our key pads. Andrea may have applied for a job, did she BEG?? ” ”
I don’t believe $Quitter’s Snark about McLeod re: a state job, because I remember Andrea as a very intense and vocal community activist more than 20 years ago – that was before the first ‘job’ $arah quit, as a sports-caster intern.
I’ll still stop by to check on news of Brian!
zyggy-is that $200,000 off the top of the reported $750,000 raised since January. If so and it comes to campaigning for a national office, $500,000 seems like a pittance!
AKM- How about a button that says “I quit but I twit..SP”?
When are they going to write a book about conservative bloggers, specifically about the ones supporting our soon to be ex-governor “Bloggers on the Short Bus” And the thing I appreciate most about our Alaska bloggers is that if they make accusations against Sarah or whomever, they have the facts to back it up, not anecdotal evidence.
@ Nan #52 Re: polls
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The wording of the actual questions in polls is important in understanding the polling differences.
The USA Today poll from last week showed that 2/3’s of Republicans would like to see Palin as “a major national figure.” The vague term, “major national figure,” can range all the way from the position of POTUS…. to dear Sarah standing in the middle of the reflecting pool on the National Mall with pigeons perched on her head. (I’m personally leaning toward the pigeon gig for her).
USA Today poll link:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-07-07-palin-poll_N.htm
In contrast, the CBS poll this week actually asked the respondents if Palin had the ability to effectively serve as President. Only 33% of Republicans would say that she has the ability to serve as President.
CBS poll link:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/14/poll-majority-of-republicans-dont-think-palins-qualified-to-be-president/
I suspect that a good deal of credit can again go to our outstanding Alaskan bloggers with respect to the latest polling results. Even though there was a “sympathy bump” for Ms. Victimized Palin amongst GOP voters after her foaming-at-the-mouth-heart-palpitations-ragged-breathing resignation speech, the bloggers were immediately busy exposing the lies behind her spreadsheet farce and the alleged zillions of dollars that ethics complaints were costing the state…….not to mention raising questions about the REAL reasons she quit.
Yep, Americans reeeeally don’t admire quitters, especially ones that lie about their reasons.
On the other hand, it’s patently clear that the Alaskan bloggers are no quitters. Cheers.
…and here we thought she was the lesser of two evils with “Uncle Frank”. Thank GOD she resigned (quit). I’m thinking that weird language she speaks is as convoluted as her motives. …and we thought it was crazy when Hickel joined the dept. of the Interior just as the (oil) pipe line was being pushed. “crazy” like a fox? I’m hoping “spoiled celebrity” is the end of her.
I’m in the chatroom if anyone cares to join with me!
After the Alaska polls, I no longer have any faith whatsoever in polls.
Lee323 (35)
BTW…..CBS poll out last night which found only 33% of Republicans believe Palin has the ability to be POTUS. Let’s keep it that way, eh?
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It seems odd that a whopping 33% of Republicans feel she “has the ability to be POTUS,” another poll states that 70% of Republicans would vote for her as POTUS.
I understand that was two different polls, possibly making this an apples vs oranges point, it still makes me wonder.
This paragraph gave me nice chills. Wow, our hero Alaska Bloggers! Thank you all.
And the phenomenon can all be traced back to that morning in late August when word first broke about Palin’s ascension to the national stage. That morning, liberal bloggers at sites like Alaska Progressive, Mudflats, Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, Just a Girl From Homer, Kodiak Konfidential, Own The Sidewalk, What Do I Know?, Alaska Real, AndrewHalcro.com, and Immoral Minority began tapping away at their keyboards…. They didn’t realize it right then, but within just a matter of days, Alaska bloggers would emerge as one of the most important local newsgathering sources of the entire election season.
Boy are on their death bed. Should be Boy they are on their death bed.
Thank You for your piece and the link to Eric’s 13a.
NO she did NOT write that WaPo piece. Boy are on their death bed.
@I See Villages from my House
Unfortunately, she’ll still be laughing all the way to the bank.
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Neither the bank nor the fame will make her happy.
Back to blogs and books, this is sort of OT but in the same vein – AKM discussions went around the theory that Sarah’s memoir would be bought up by neo-con and religious groups en mass to pump up her sales numbers.
I read this last month and it stuck – read (v) of what was in Sklar’s SWAG bag.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rachel-sklar/my-life-in-swag-from-a-z_b_220437.html
It’s a testament to our capitalist free-market system that the likes of Joe the Plumber and Sarah Palin are paid to write about themselves, and I certainly hate that she’ll continue to profit off of McCain’s mistake – but I am certain we’ll see the day when her books are in the deep discount bins across the country.
Unfortunately, she’ll still be laughing all the way to the bank.
How is Boehlert’s book doing btw?
This seems on topic. Hoping that Sarah will just stop.
And if your brother sins, go and reprove him in private; if he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you, so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every fact may be confirmed. And if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax-gatherer. Matthew 18:15-17
Do you believe that God hates you when He disciplines you? No one who is familiar in any way with the scriptures will allow that statement to stand for even a moment before protesting with passages such as Revelation 3:19 “Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; be zealous therefore, and repent.” or Hebrews 12:4-11.
Why then when another brother or sister in Christ offers to correct our doctrine or a misbehavior of ours do we immediately take offense? If God’s motive is love, why would we assume that His children’s motives would be something less?
Hebrews 12 is most fascinating. Even though we are children of God, saved from the fear of eternal punishment, God requires us to be “trained” through discipline during our time on Earth. Is the discipline light? No. The passage says that one may be tempted to “faint” dead-away from the severity of the scourging by the God who is love.
Precisely what method of discipline will God subject us to? It is not for us to choose or to know. Just as our own fathers chose for us the disciplinary method that “seemed best to them”, God will do the same. It is rare that the children are permitted to select this for themselves. God selects the discipline that will not only train, but will also protect His glory; even to the point of bringing death to some (1Cor.11:28-34) if necessary.
Why would a God who is love purposely subject us to discipline so violent that it is called “scourging” and may even cause us to faint under the weight of its severity? Verse 11 of Hebrews 12 says that the result of discipline is sorrow. Sorrow can lead to genuine repentance. Repentance leads to the “peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
“I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, in order that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the world produces death.” 2 Cor.7:9-10
Get it, Sarah?
As so many of us have said a big Thank You to Alaska’s Progressive bloggers for welcoming us to their sites and sharing your palinoscopy so that we could better undersand.
Also sharing Alaska with us lower 48’ers.
$arah is very transparent. She mentions “the Obama White House” as the source of all her problems.
1. Obama is currently visiting with world leaders and working on world problems with them. When he returns home, he will be faced with enough Republican caused problems- her worthless being is not on his radar.
2. It is obvious that she uses his name so folks will put her in the same category as he.
@ #18 Wrinting from Alaska~
“It seems – Sarah will continue to be a pooh, in office or not…”
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Speaking of which, have any of those little “palin pix on a stick” mementos started showing up on heaping piles of poo yet?
‘Tis only fitting,
😉
Hi
First I love your blog and all the comments and truth that is written here. I have been a long time lurker. Sorry if off topic.
I was flipping channels and landed on the hannity show. Tom Aronld was on and said palin would do worse on “are you smarter than a fifth grader” show than he did. He also talked how she was crazy,especially her op-ed on cap and trade.
Questions for AKM.
Do you really think things will settle down, and
Will you feel free to post under your name ?
Just curious.
CRFlats Says:
July 14th, 2009 at 3:50 PM
We need new buttons to add to the “Where’s Sarah?” that say “Who Cares?”
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Where’s what’s
her name ?
Now we know (we knew it didn’t we mudpups?) that Sarah isn’t going away. Long live Blogs in many shapes and sizes to continue its ankle biting of our voracious dear reader, Sarah Palin.
Her Op-Ed today in the elite gotcha media king – NYTimes, her desperate effort to come off as studied and boning up on policy reeks of ghost writing, but for those searching for signs that Sarah at least gave a list of words to keep it ‘mavericky.’
“Ironic” check
“progressing” check
“thirsty markets” check
“God” check
Given that, look at your own backyard and our excruciating dependency on shipping fuel all the way up from the Lower 48 where we annually get “clobbered with higher prices” before you try and solve this country’s energy problems.
Oh, I forgot, you quit Alaska.
Bystander, there is nothing to forgive John McCain for. He did Alaska a favor when he picked our Sarah as his running mate. The local media never challenged her, the legislature was afraid to challenge her because of her astronomical approval rating. The democrats didn’t have a problem with her because she was willing to work with them. In fact if the Demos didn’t support her, most of her policies wouldn’t have gotten passed. Then all that changed at the end of August. The open and transparent governor who was going to cooperate with the legislature on troopergate suddenly became Red Sonja battling the hated democrats out to get her. If it wasn’t for McCain, then our beloved bloggers would never have had the opportunity to get the truth out, and would never have made it into the above book. So we should thank John McCain for helping to reveal the real Sarah, but now get mad for the constitutional crisis we are now in.
Oh my – somehow I stumbled upon a website entitled “Right Wing News”….why, oh why did I click on it?
I need therapy, decontamination…..something! QUICK!
I still think the State of AK the bill to $arah pac. They seem to be oozing with money. Oh, that’s after 200,000.00 for admin costs.
I’m just SO impressed by all the Alaskan bloggers’ work in helping expose the ridiculous fraud that is SP over the last year.
Keep the pressure on, bloggers and pups. It’s not over until the megalomaniac is wearing orange or yelling “uncle.”
BTW…..CBS poll out last night which found only 33% of Republicans believe Palin has the ability to be POTUS. Let’s keep it that way, eh?
Kerry has a good reply on Huffington about Palin’s article at WaPo it smart and makes her look like the dum-dum she is…
Hegde – you need to see the video from the VP debate – Sarah was for cap & trade before she was against it.
Before Sarah Palin, I had never seen or heard “progress” used as a transitive verb, as in “we have been progressing Alaska.” If this is a trend, which I hope it isn’t, in the future we will be grateful to AKM and other progressive bloggers for egressing Governor Palin.
Sarah has shown her true colors with the WP article. We know who is exactly behind her; or who she hopes is behind her. Her comment about the oil pipeline made me want to gag. The paper dream of her pipeline will haunt Alaska for years – long after Transcanada and Exxon use up that 500 mill.
I want to ignore her, but unfortunately, she’s still dangerous. I just hope more to herself than anyone else – most especially cause she’s really pissing me off and I’d love to see her get a smack down that she’ll never recover from!
Congratulations and thank you, AK progressive bloggers, from the bottom of my heart. And thanks, Eric Boehlert, for saying it infinitely better than I ever could.
It does seem that sarah’s throne has gotten bigger with each of her repositionings. Please AKM, Shannyn, Gryphen, Linda, Phil and Dennis, keep leading this pack of ankle biters. sarah and her people really scare me.
As Hunter Thompson would say…What a long strange trip its been. Great article.
Yes, Phoebe, Hunter would. But I remember that as a line from a Grateful Dead song?
As John noted above, this is an essential wardrobe item for the parties on the 26th……
http://www.cafepress.com/Palin_Error
Inspired!!!
This about the Soon2bee XGINO’s Op Ed piece in the WaPo:
“It’s not simply that no one who saw her last two press conferences about her quitting Alaska for the bright lights of the Lower 48 believes she actually wrote the piece.”
“It’s quite another to believe that she actually knows or cares sufficiently about cap-and-trade and environmental legislation to care enough to write about it for a major newspaper.”
Find the full article here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/art-brodsky/how-much-more-pathetic-ca_b_231365.html
As long as people play politics like a game from the sidelines (our team against them) instead of seeing us all as one team, one country together,
picking the right people to run our country, we will always be divided.
As long as we continue to let the politicians not be accountable for their
actions (Palin, Sanford, etc), they will keep on doing what they do.
I really think you in Alaska fighting for honesty in your govt. will spill down
here to wake up the news media people to do their jobs (or we could very
well end up with a Palin Pres. and everyone wondering how that happened).
When I hear Sarah Palin discuss bloggers, I can’t help but feel she classifies them as ‘not real Americans’, so somehow their opinions and factual accounts don’t count. Yet, I tend to think of modern bloggers as simply the natural evolution from whence this country began, when colonists like Ben Franklin and John Adams wrote articles and editorials under pseudonyms. These pseudonyms ranged from ‘Polly Baker’, Benvolus, Silence Dogood,Novanglus, and many more. They were designed and created to cause dialogue, or poke fun at smug people and concepts, perhaps bring about a deeper understanding of certain issues, and even question the status quo. In their own way these founding bloggers with quill and printing press helped strengthen the ideal that all men were created equal…even the ones dressed in pajamas, hunched over a key board in their mom’s basement.
Great comments on the article at mediamatters – esp the first one, which details exactly my thoughts during the 08 election.
In regards to the lameduckitude – she needs to LEAVE OFFICE NOW.
She cannot be the Gov. and twit that attack against a constituent.
We need new buttons to add to the “Where’s Sarah?” that say “Who Cares?”
I am working on a few new things for the shop! Will let you know when they’re ready to go! 🙂 AKM
Someone should take that twitter thingy away from her. The last thing anyone wants to be exposed to is her stream of consciousness.
We are planning a “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass” party on the 26th at a local watering hole in Cordova. Will live blog the event. Costumes are encouraged. Care to make this a nation phenom?
Jinx!
Unkind twitter tweet from SP – referring, I assume, to Andrea McLeod
“Are these constant, wasteful thumped-up ethics charges result of not caving when the filer begged for job? More frivolous chrgs filed today:”
Yes, thumped up – but we all have trouble spelling on our key pads. Andrea may have applied for a job, did she BEG??
It seems – Sarah will continue to be a pooh, in office or not…
Read SP’s last few twits, what a moron.
Placate: “On Peninsula to hook up w/AK Dpt Fish & Game;outstanding work managing wildlife resources for abundance;look forward to spending time w them”
How growed-up: “Are these constant, wasteful thumped-up ethics charges result of not caving when the filer begged for job? More frivolous chrgs filed today:”
July 27, I do believe I will unfollow her as she will have no power over my state anymore. Unless she is planning a coup with the National Guard. In which case I’ll keep following her twits.
Speaking of the end of an era, I just found this End of an Error
http://www.cafepress.com/Palin_Error
Gotta luv C.M….Best laugh of the day…Just don’t want to be a gov. anymore…LMBO Comparing her to Sonjia Sotomayer..Not even close in brains here..
As Hunter Thompson would say…What a long strange trip its been. Great article.
Although Palin has submitted her resignation, the chapter is not over: Alaska has a constitutional crisis to solve. Looks like her reason for quitting-the costs of ethics complaints- have morphed into the costs for a special session. That’s Governor Twitter for ya, why worry about pesky little things like who will be in charge…
Keep in mind that while McCain called himself a war hero, other versions of his time at the Saigon Hilton (hit all the high & low notes), could easily have labeled him as a traitor. He recklessly crashed many expensive airplanes, left his first wife to find his fortune, finished at the bottom of his class at west point, refused to even meet with MIA families. In short, McCain was just like W and that’s probably why he still has a soft spot (no pun intended) for Sarah. Like Sarah, McCain is/was an opportunist.
You’re still in my Favs and Palin isn’t going anywhere. Remember, Alaska is where her meth dealer lives.
My favorite entry about the Washington Post piece in the Chapter 13a comments:
by snoopy (4 hours and 33 minutes ago)
An editorial? I didn’t know that you could make an editorial into a pop-up…
LOL
lameduckitude – Love it!!!
Huge props to you AKM and all the bloggers who pay attention!
Won’t be long and she’ll be looking for shelter. Like rats on a sinking ship, everybody overboard.
No doubt the AK bloggers presented a compelling case against Palin that the MSM did not have the resources or desire to explore. Since she will continue to try to force her brand of crazy religious far-right narcissism on the country, keep up the good work!
I personally will NEVER forgive John McCain for foisting this nut on the country
There are alot of fans from the lower 48. Don’t forget us. Since you guys are the most informed we look to you for getting the truth out. I will continue to read this blog as well as Shannyn Moore’s and a few others.
I have to hand it to you Alaskans, you sure know your politics and do an awesome job. Believe me, alot of the commentors had me laughing out loud.
That is one very interesting article. Fortunately for Alaska the Palin era was aborted. But will what comes next be any better for Alaska or the country as a whole?
The good news is that there is always another book waiting to written. It is going to be hard to imagine that $arah will create a firestorm running for President or progressing her agenda or whatever she is going to do without the use of the internet. And, the way to keep her honest, fact check that coming “autobiography”, OK ghostwritten biography, again I see bloggers as a necessary service. If any one phenomenon will pick up the slack left behind as the MSM continues to drop the ball, it is the internet community which can trade information at a moment’s notice. Congratulations, AKM, you are at the forefront of the next great movement!
Nice article, I read it when MO posted on other article, I hate to think what would have happened if AK Bloggers hadn’t started blogging about quitter.
And we’ll be bloggin’ right behind sarah’s ass……..relentlessly pursuing the truth……..
Well, there is still plenty of work to be done- and now we have connections everywhere!