Some “Fish-y” Palin and Sanford Fodder

I was honestly going to leave former “Governor Hottie” and Mark Sanford alone, which is particularly tough in Sanford’s case since, as noted here, he voted to impeach President Clinton over the business with Monica Whatsername, and he also excoriated fellow Repugs Rob Livingston and Larry Craig over their infidelities.

I was going to grumble and merely accept the rank hypocrisy of the fact that, as noted here, Sanford was censured by his own party in South Carolina, enduring the fate that Clinton should have endured for approximately the same offense (to say nothing of the fact Dem governors Jim McGreevey and Eliot Spitzer resigned and candidates John Edwards and Gary Hart saw their aspirations end as a result, while Sanford, John Ensign and “Diaper Dave” Vitter continue merrily on).

I really thought I would get past all of this, until I read Stanley Fish’s column in the New York Times today, in which he tells us…

I did not vote for Sarah Palin in the November election, and had I been a resident of South Carolina, I wouldn’t have supported Mark Sanford. But I find their failings and, in the case of Sanford, sins more palatable than the behavior of the pundits who are having so much fun at their expense.

Please note that Fish considers himself a columnist only and not necessarily a pundit, as if that actually makes a difference.

In the matter of Just Plain Folks Sarah in particular, Fish tells us as follows…

Palin had barely finished speaking when MSNBC paraded analysts from both sides of the aisle (Matt Lewis and Chris Kofinis) who agreed that (1) it was a disastrous performance and (2) they couldn’t for the life of them figure out why she had delivered it. Kofinis: “It’s hard to understand why she’s resigning.” Lewis: “What she’s essentially done is guarantee that no pundit could make any intellectual defense of her.”

Later, Joe Scarborough pronounced in the same vein: “It’s hard to find a compelling reason.” The former majority leader of her own party, Ralph Samuels, chimed in, “I’ve had a million calls today from friends, all political junkies, and everyone is asking the same questions. Is it national ambition, or does she want time to write the book, or is she just tired of it. Don’t have a clue.”

Maybe he should look at the video and pay attention this time to the reasons she gives. It is true that her statement was not constructed in a straightforward, logical manner, but the main theme was sounded often and plainly: This is not what I signed up for. I’m spending all my time and the state’s money responding to attack after attack and they aren’t going to let up because, “It doesn’t cost the people who make these silly accusations a dime.”

“Silly accusations,” huh? And Palin’s statement “was not constructed in a straightforward, logical manner”? Shocking!

I’ll tell you what, my fellow prisoners. Let’s review some recent history concerning Our Gal Sarah, Dontcha Know, and you can decide who is “silly” here and who isn’t.

This tells us that Palin lobbied against the stimulus before she saw a drop in oil-related revenue impacting her state.

This tells us about the wingnut Alaska cruise that first brought Palin to the attention of usual conservative media suspects such as Rich Lowry (ugh) and V.D. Hanson before she ended up as the VP nominee last year.

This tells us that, prior to her debate with fellow VP candidate Joe Biden last year, Palin couldn’t recall a single newspaper or magazine she’d ever read.

Among the wealth of information here, we learn that Palin said that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were “publicly owned” (they started out that way before they were privatized).

We also learned the following (here, from the once-credible Dana Milbank)…

Barack Obama, (Palin) told 8,000 fans at a (Florida) rally here Monday afternoon, "launched his political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist!" This followed her earlier accusation that the Democrat pals around with terrorists. "This is not a man who sees America the way you and I see America," she told the Clearwater crowd. "I'm afraid this is someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country." The crowd replied with boos.

…

Palin's routine attacks on the media have begun to spill into ugliness. In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy."

Here is a tour de force Palin post by georgia10 of The Daily Kos, in which we’re reminded that Palin claimed to oppose the “Bridge to Nowhere” she once supported, managed to insert earmarks on behalf of her state with the help of a lobbyist to former Senator Ted “Tubes” Stevens, never issued a single order as the head of Alaska’s National Guard, managed to fire a longtime local police chief who ran afoul of her, etc.

And finally, this “Political Punch” post from Jake Tapper tells us of Palin’s encounter with the “Reverend” Thomas Muthee of Kenya, who “laid hands” on Palin in a church service to protect her from “witchcraft” (or as Bill Maher said on “Real Time” last year, “if Barack Obama were in this video instead of Palin, this election would be over”).

And it’s not as if Palin didn’t have her own defenders in the media, including Michael Barone, who claimed that “journalists” were attacking Palin because “She did not abort her Down’s syndrome baby” (nice).

Also, I’m not going to waste more space on Sanford than that which is absolutely necessary, since I already devoted a lot of space documenting what an awful governor he is here (and please, Governor, no more apologies, particularly for using state funds for your trips to Argentina – I’d prefer that you go, but if you stay, at least you’ll serve as a bad example...and how funny is it that, when Sanford served in the U.S. Congress in 1997, he "pointed to the U.S. embassy in Argentina as an example of wasteful State Department spending when he was trying to cut the department’s budget," as Politico tells us?).

The rest of Fish’s column is a bunch of navel-gazing about what Palin and Sanford’s true intentions supposedly are, as if anyone can divine that (I would say it’s merely survival for Sanford).

In Palin’s case, though, if this really is a case where she has had enough and that’s all there is, then she should also realize that, for reasons not entirely of her own choosing, she has exceeded any reasonable person’s wildest expectations of what she could have ever hoped to accomplish (oh, and by the way, here’s still more proof of how overmatched she was).

And by the way, if somehow she really is done (though I don’t think so), let this be her postscript.