...is not well informed, to say the least; is very ideologically, almost religiously, driven; has a fanastic gift for rhetoric; and then on top of all this tends to see things in a way that reinforces a very simplistic, and often highly erroneous view of things. This is greatly enabled by the fact that Palin is so good at it, in terms of convincing herself, and many others.Almost all of these qualities is on display in this article in Politico, as Palin plays the Obama doesn't like or respect our troops card. It almost completely misstates Obama's positions and communications, and is otherwise also complete horsesh*t.
(Note that the phrase "obviously," was not put in front of the phrase "complete horsesh*t," because if it was that obvious, the media and others would not continue to pay attention to this person who is so caught up in her strangely twisted view of the world that she probably wouldn't recognize an objective fact if it jumped up and bit her in the nose.)
But it is a view that has a lot of appeal. The sort of high rhetoric appeal that extreme authoritarian states tend to take, where the lack of constant national chauvenistic sentiment is taken as a sign of weakness or insult. (See Fox news, for example, where "apparently they think the art of diplomacy is to get other countries to hate us for no good reason, and to pass up sensible opportunities to build rapore and communication with no attendant loss to our own interests or goals.")
Here, Palin madly spins the latter, very likely without ever even realizing she is doing so:
Former Alaska GOP Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday accused President Barack Obama of not acknowledging the sacrifices made by the men and women in the U.S. military.
“There’s been a lack of acknowledgment by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country,” Palin said during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “I want him to acknowledge the sacrifices that these individual men and women — our sons, our daughters, our moms, our dads, our brothers and sisters — are providing this country to keep us safe.”
“They’re making sacrifices,” said Palin, who visited the Army base at Fort Bragg on Monday as part of her ongoing book tour. “They’re putting so much on hold right now so that the homeland can be safe and they can fight for democratic ideals around our world. I want to see more acknowledgment and more respect given to them.”
Last year, Republican columnist Kathleeen Parker wrote that "If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
And Palin just added a bunch more dollars to the till with her typical, ill informed and wildly misleading exploitation of troop politics.
The Politico article also notes that Palin "urged Obama to adopt the recommendation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal by adding 40,000 U.S. troops to the conflict in Afghanistan."
Which is good. Because Palin is such an expert on Afghanistan:
During the Vice Presidential Debate last Autumn, Palin claimed that “Barack Obama had said that all we’re doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians. And such a reckless, reckless comment and untrue comment, again, hurts our cause.“ Later, because of this, she called him “unfit to lead."
Here Palin lied to the American people about what Obama had stated, and was either outright pathological about what was going on in Afghanistan;, or, more likely, had nary a clue. Obama’s point wasn't, what Palin told the American people it was — that we were essentially in Afghanistan to kill civilians, but that our over reliance upon air raids was resulting in too many collateral casualties. This was not morally acceptable, nor strategically sound.
Back in mid August, 2007, when Obama had made the point that Palin looked straight into the eyes of America, and called “reckless, reckless, and untrue,” not only were too many civilians being killed by collateral damage, but more civilians were being killed unintentionally by U.S. forces collaterally, than were being killed by insurgents.
Nor was this a big secret (except, of course, perhaps to ex-Alaskan Governors who despite having a glib and adept rhetorical tongue, could not name a single source (see minute 3:30) of news and information that they read).
Eight days prior to Obama’s statement, Foreign Service Correspondent Pamela Constable had even reported on the Washington Post's Sunday front page that “a mounting toll of civilian casualties, mostly in bombing raids… have inflamed public opinion, turned many Afghans against the foreign forces, and further strained [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai’s credibility.”
Just not in Palin's world, where this reality does not exist, and all those innocent civilians dying must be like a fairy tale that we tell children; like the abominable snowman or something.
What makes Palin's profoundly ignorant assessment on Afghanistan even more mind blowing -- and mindblowing that Politico is giving Palin's "opinion" on what we should do with respect to the vexing Afghanistan challenge right now to the American people as if she is some sort of expert -- is that a month before the vice presidential debate "reckless, reckless,and untrue" Defense Secretary Robert Gates apologized for the numerous civilian casualties in Afghanistan — the same casualties that according to Afghanistan expert Sarah Palin, were not occurring. And the day before that, Senior Afghanistan Commander David McKiernan (whom Palin identified in the debate as "McClellan") noted that an over reliance upon air power, due to a shortage in troop levels, was responsible for the rise in civilian casualties — the same civilian casualties that according to “Wasilla main street reality” Palin, were not occurring.
But now today America should listen to Palin's opinion on Afghanistan, because she is "popular;" and while she gratuitously and manipulatively proselytizes on America's troops, at that -- using them as pawns in her carefully crafted, seemingly subtle, yet wildly misleading, highly charged and emotionally manipulative attacks upon our current Commander in Chief.
Vintage Palin (for more on the blogger in the clip shown, see the recent post referred to at the outset). If BS were currency, she could bail out Wall Street herself. And our media just keeps putting her in the spotlight. And she just keeps getting away with it.
