David Cho: Sarah Palin and Destructive Internet Browsing
Last night, Sarah Palin was on The O'Reilly Factor with Bill O'Reilly to promote her book Going Rogue, telling the story—if you hadn't heard—of how she was forced to often "go rogue" (do you see what she did there?) while on the McCain ticket in the 2008 Presidential election. Unfortunately I didn't get to see the interview on TV (Don't worry Bill! I'm not a Nielsen household), but caught the whole thing on YouTube. Unfortunately, when you see one Sarah Palin interview on YouTube, they give you the option to watch many, many, many more related Sarah Palin interviews and then, two hours later, you pull yourself away from your computer more scared and confused than when you had started.
Actually, after discussing with some friends, there's a pretty clear and consistent pattern for this sort of destructive Internet browsing. First, you watch the initial interview and clip, next you watch a series of other related interviews, then a string of videos with pundits weighing in, and finally you end up binging on all sorts of random videos of "regular people" reacting to all of the stuff you've just watched. If you aren't careful or don't have a higher tolerance for pain, you can end up going down tangential, darker path filled with Michele Bachmann and Sean Hannity clips.
The thing is, once you've see one Sarah Palin interview, you've actually seen them all. It's all the same soundbites and halftruths (yeah, she kind of makes stuff up and lies a lot) that are delivered with slightly different cadences (sometimes with more, sometimes with less, gusto), with the stray interviewer-specific bit thrown in there. For example, in last night's O'Reilly interview, there was a whole bit about how Sarah Palin had called Bill O'Reilly at his home ("I don't even know how you got my number! [LOL]") during the campaign to apologize that McCain's advisors, and more specifically Steve Schmidt, would not let her appear on his program ("The most watched cable show in the country!"), thus, forcing her to go rogue and contact O'Reilly on her own. Other than these sorts of few and far between anecdotes, it's all pretty much the same things: she loves her kids, Alaska is the best, the media is the worst (especially Katie Couric), and while she respects John McCain, still, if they had only let her go as rogue as she had wanted, Barack Obama might not be president. And oh, also, America is great, and the REAL America (like Alaska) is NOT happy with politics as usual and the whole system needs to be shaken up.
Seriously, don't watch any more interviews, I just summarized them all for you, you're welcome, go outside, it's nice out.
While at first this elicits just a normal level of annoyance, the whole thing begins to turn into fear as you see the interviewers seem to, through the course of the interview, sort of, warm up to Palin. A few days ago, Palin sat down with Barbara Walters, and as Walters discusses the interview in studio with the Good Morning America crew or whoever, it seems like Walters doesn't completely hate Sarah Palin. Now, here's the thing, you just saw the same Sarah Palin interview and, if you're like me, you can't stand Palin! She is the absolute worst! But Barbara Walters is being nice, and a LOT nicer than just the "Oh, I'm being polite now so that I can get another interview in 2011-12 and don't Couric myself" level of politeness. So now you're both confused and kind of paranoid.
Then, you watch clips like the ones of people waiting in long-ass lines throughout America for Going Rogue book signings and it throws you into this real WTF-tailspin. The thing is, these people all seem kind of normal. They're just standing in a mall and they all seem nice enough, not like the super-crazy racist people who were at the anti-Obama rallies last fall, but just good and polite folks who happen to be wearing Sarah Palin t-shirts, hate big government and just love this crazy-ass woman who uses words that kind of sound correct, but also aren't really the correct words to articulate what she's trying to say. Like, OMG, she's just like me and doesn't understand that the expression is actually "For all intents and purposes" and not "For all intensive purposes!" OH, THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I'M LOOKING FOR IN MY 2012 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE.
If you're thinking, "Hey, why not just go watch Maddow or Olbermann unload on Palin to feel some sense of reprieve from all of this Going Rogue nonsense?"—it really doesn't help. When you watch the MSNBC-ers go at Palin, it's always too much, like they're also so over the top with their mockery or that you start to think you're entering a distorted, left-y bubble (the liberal media elite—Sarah Palin warned us about them!), and really, you're not any better than someone who likes hanging out in the No Spin Zone—granted, yes, this whole thing you're reading now is kind of going to that sort of extreme place too.
Now, people smarter than me have assured me that Sarah Palin isn't going to get on the ticket for 2012 (Like, people keep saying that, because of the economy, the Republicans are going to want someone more "business-y", like Romney or whomever), but when my Facebook News Feed is filled with kids I went to high school with (from Tennessee) all being like, "Yay, Sarah Palin, so bad ass," it kind of scares me. A lot.
Like, what if the economy and unemployment don't get better (not too much of a stretch) and all of a sudden it's 2012, people aren't as thrilled with Barack Obama, and Sarah Palin has all sorts of momentum from her grand turn on the Republican talking circuit? What then? All there will be on the YouTube is videos of Sarah Palin. And she'll be on Barbara Walters every weekend. Sarah Palin's Facebook page will be WhiteHouse.gov. What then?
David Cho is the publisher of The Awl, and also the Associate Editor for Getting Freaked Out on the Internet.
I have a dark, secret hope that Track Palin, war hero, embarrassed son of FormerAKGOVSarahPalin will save us from his mom, should she be elected.
Online video has the ability to thwart any productivity but Palin videos not only have that ability, they terrify you in the process. the idea of informed policy becomes even more ridiculous when you throw her into the equation.
Nice job, Secret Weapon.
What these people really need is an escape goat.
Foreal
In Barbara Walters related news, the first minute of this Walters/Castro interview is the greatest start to any interview ever. Also, the voice of Castro's dub is UNREAL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRkLnA0seA8
In the immortal words of my Dad, when I asked him why he was voting for Palin: "Well, she's hot."
There's something about all this that reminds me of the Two Girls One Cup phenomenon.
My high school crush, the one who was my first "one that got away," today posted on Facebook about how she was worried for this country in light of the new medical recommendations. The comments that follow (from people I used to think were normal, maybe even left-leaning folks whom I grep up with in progressive suburbia) range from welcoming her to socialism to outright racism.
I have that same fear David Cho. I think what really scares me is that it's the normals now. In the words of January Jones, "What the hell is going on?"
Sally, go to your room. ::Faints::
I share these same fears.
I am also afraid.
This is like the Paris Hilton thing, isn't it? Where insecure people sit around at home and see everyone making a fuss over some dumb-ass, and they go, "OMG, she's stupid and worthless but everyone loves her anyway! There's still hope for meeeeeeeeee!"
I try to imagine an America where Sarah Palin actually *is* president, but it's hard to do. At some point, she would have a complete breakdown when she realized how much politics are involved in being the president, and how you can't just "go rogue" and "be a maverick" all the time, on account of checks and balances and two-party systems and all that shit, and then she'd either quit or start, you know, going on O'Reilly and Glen Beck to spout bitter screeds about how "special interest groups" within the government (ie: the Legislative and Judicial branches) are trying to muzzle her and destroy the country by pallin' around with voters. Meanwhile, most of the country would be out of work and dwindling as she tried to slash their unemployment benefits, and teen pregnancy would skyrocket while social programs to help teen mothers were eradicated, and eventually the country would either become Balkanized OR we'd all die from the Rage Virus. Hard to say which would be the happier ending.
That's how she pretty much governed Alaska. With the added bonus of not actually putting any programs in place to help out all us gee-golly-great Alaskans she trots out (when convenient) just like lil Trigger/misc Palinbaby.
The legislative session of 2009 was especially fraught with mavericky foot-stomps when she didn't get her way (because of the law) and people called her on it.
Christ she's whorish looking.
Politically, I'd say that the way the Republican primaries are stacked, Sarah Palin probably has a better chance at the Republican nomination than Romney, but I also believe that there will be others in the race.
Still, as a progressive Dem, I honestly believe that Palin with the Repub nom could be the most desirable scenario for Obama. I mean, he'd really have to mess-up good and everyone would have to become deeply apathetic before she could come close to him.
Not to discount the historic nature of Obama's presidency, but that's kind of how I felt about the 2008 election. If the Democrats couldn't beat Gramps and the snowbilly, then they should have disbanded.
She's like Bush in that she wants all the glory of being President but none of the responsibility. I doubt if she'll even run, Bush at least had his dry drunk aggression to get him through a race, she just has perky fumes.
The thing is, she scares me a lot more than Bush because she doesn't really have a braintrust of smart people behind her. SHE LITERALLY GOES ROGUE.
Even though you may not have agreed with them, you at least knew that the GOP and Cheney and whoever had reasons behind their actions. With Palin it feels like she really would just do whatever she wanted and I have no idea what that looks like or if it involves any sort of deep thought.
I am horrified to point this out, but the stupid Sarah Palin mall line-stander supporter guy — notwithstanding his inability to think of Henry Paulson's name — had a kind of coherent answer to Nora O'Donnell's gotcha question. The so-called bailout *was* originally supposed to be used to establish a market-based mechanism for buying mortgage-backed CDOs and other toxic assets from the banks. Instead, the federal government did an end-run around this scheme an purchased direct equity stakes in the banks.