Keep on digging that there hole:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.rttnews.com/Content/PoliticalNews.aspx?Node=B1&Id=1529539

So, the quitter from Oop North has said that she won't shut up. Instead she's not doing the sensible thing and waiting for the masses here in the USA to be distracted by the latest celebrity shenanigans the way David Vitter did. Oh, no, she's just pouring fuel on the fire:

The use of the term drew fire from groups such as the Anti-Defamation League due to the fact that it has historically been used to accuse Jews of using the blood of Christian children in religious rituals.

Palin on Monday acknowledged the historical use of the term but argued that she was using it to refer to being falsely accused of having blood on your hands.

She suggested that the criticism is part of a diversion to prevent Congress from getting to work on addressing the growing national debt, developing domestic energy resources, and changing national security policies like the recently ratified START treaty with Russia.

_________________

So in other words, she's comparing her botching a simple task that might have actually given her some grudging respect to one of the oldest Jew-hating libels in the book. A classic example of the martyrdom complex that appears over and over again on the Right. Too, she sees a conspiracy *while* using a classic Jew-hating smear. Next thing you know she'll be ranting about the evils of Hollywood and New York bankers trying to keep the good white woman down.

But this is Sarah Palin, whose list of failures by this point has well overshadowed whatever motivated John McCain to pick her as his Veep.

Comments

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

*yawn* Palin-bashing is so 2010.

(I used to drum for Palin Bashing)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Well, she thinks she's running for 2012, so I daresay that what was old will be new again.....

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

Palin Bashing is the fourth form in Henan Xinyiquan.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

She's got to stay in the limelight, and the scorn of liberals and the mainstream media is her badge of honor. Her truth is marching on, as any true patriot can see.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Sound & fury, signifying nothing.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Oh my, this ain't gonna end well.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Palin's that kind of politician. She's like the bastard lovechild of Rutherford B. Hayes and Stephen Douglas.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

"And that is what this map represented that we used on my PAC. And the graphic that we used was crosshairs targeting the different districts," she added. "And, again, that's not original. In fact, Democrats have been using it for years."

I'd be interested in seeing some evidence for this. That's not scepticism, because I think the crosshairs (but wait, Sarah, you're not going with the "surveyor site" explanation any more for the crosshairs, that one didn't test well with your focus groups?) map wasn't such a terrible thing. But in general I haven't seen too much and can't recall too much about Democrats invoking violence even metaphorically, in recent years, other than some examples from relatively obscure politicians. But maybe I haven't been paying sufficiently close attention or there's some media bias.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

DCCC, 2004:



DLC, 2010:



Details (http://www.verumserum.com/?p=13647).

[anosognosia.livejournal.com]

Q: Doesn't the phrase "blood libel" refer to these horrifying anti-semitic myths being false, horrifying anti-semitic myths rather to an assertion of the myths?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Yes, it does. That doesn't excuse using the term by a political figure to compare her own fuck-ups self-inflicted on herself to something that helped motivate Pogroms.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Yes, much like the false accusations that she was somehow responsible in any form.

She used the term properly. People need to accept this.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

The folks at Fox certainly aren't doing Sarah any favors by allowing herself to dig that hole deeper. She just will not shut up and leave the issue alone; and always turns a tragic event into something about her. You know when Republican strategists tell you to be quiet Sarah, you should listen. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/#41137370)

Mike Huckabee has in spades everything Sarah Palin lacks.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You forget that Karl Rove has made multiple statements to the effect that Palin is more of a hindrance than a help to the GOP. The only thing that's done thus far is make more and more likely the collapse of the Buckley coalition.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

and always turns a tragic event into something about her

says the genious who included Palin in his post 10 minutes after the shooting. irony alert. here's an idea lefties, if you don't want to hear about Palin, don't manufacture controversies about her.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, it seemed to me the left made it about Palin, as much as she irritates the heck out of me I don't blame her at all for using it.

[qnetter]

Trying to separate the connotative, anti-Semitic nature of the "blood libel" from the denotative meaning would be like Palin talking about a fire at an Aryan Nations compound as a "holocaust" -- the denotative meaning cannot be separated from the connotation, and anyone who believes it can is at least naive, if not brutishly evil.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I'd prefer naive for the Tea Party, at least in this case. If they mean this sincerely (and would be thus brutally evil) that raises a whole different can of worms.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

The problem is that the usage outside of the original context is quite common these days (http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/256955/term-blood-libel-more-common-you-might-think). Perhaps you feel that the historical usage cannot be separated, but no one seemed to care until Palin used it.

[drcruel.livejournal.com]

+1

Then again, didn't Karl Rove make some comment about how Obama needed to get on the back of the bus? Pretty sure it was him-it one of those old fat white guys Fox News constantly interviews, at least.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

So in other words, she's comparing her botching a simple task that might have actually given her some grudging respect to one of the oldest Jew-hating libels in the book.

No, she's comparing what people were saying about her to that. You can call that botching a simple task. If you're going to complain, at least be accurate. If you can be.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, she's comparing people's statements about her cross-hair (or were they surveyor symbols) map and the backlash from her "Poor widdle me I'm being so horribly oppressed" whining to one of the statements responsible for such things as the Cologne and 1890s Pogroms in Europe. One of those is very much unlike the other.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Lets face it, Palin is Barak Obama's best friend.

It is just possible that she might have enough tea party support as an "outsider" (which she really is as the Republican establishment doesn't particularly like her) to claim the Republicrat nomination at which point Obama is all but guaranteed a 2nd term.

Virtually any other candidate that the Republicrats could name would have Obama having to run on his own record and his odds of reelection are REALLY bad if he has to do that.

As far as her use of the phrase "Blood Libel", well I suspect that in her case it was something that she came across at some point, didn't really understand but knew it was "bad" so claimed to be the victim of it.

It is typical for her and those like her (on both sides of the political isle), that is those who are not terribly intelligent (tales of her being a moron are greatly exaggerated but no one is gonna confuse her for a great thinker any time soon) and not very educated but possess a modicum of both and have an interest in politics. The difference of course is that people like her rarely rise to any level of political consequence beyond city councilman or maybe the State Senate.

There have of course been Democan/liberal/progressive versions of Palin over the years the thing is they rarely get this level of attention and I suspect that once Palin flames out it will be a LONG time before any either party allows anyone like that near a microphone again.

[mijopo.livejournal.com]

The difference of course is that people like her rarely rise to any level of political consequence beyond city councilman or maybe the State Senate.

Never underestimate the power of being attractive in America.

This isn't about one frackin' map making an idiot shoot people.

[squidb0i.livejournal.com]

Those claiming otherwise, whether they're defending it or reviling it, are, quite simply, morons.

The issue is that there is in fact a constant stream of elminationist rhetoric across multiple forms of mainstream media, originating from a single party's ideology, and directed against the political foes of same.

I could cut and paste in videos til three in the morning and not run out of material.
And that's just TV that's been put on youtube.

But then many of us have done exactly that, and yet here we are, still discussing.
Pitiful.

A literally constant drum beat of ad hominem and false claims that, if one took even a fraction of it seriously, any moral person would be forced to take immediate and violent action - as so many have attempted. Day after day after day. 24/7.

So please, those of you pretending otherwise, just give it up.
No one buys your schtick.

Re: This isn't about one frackin' map making an idiot shoot people.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

No one buys your schtick.

this is pretty ironic, coming from someone who tried to portray the shooter as a right winger.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

to prove your point, an editorial in the WSJ (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703667904576071913818696964.html) used the term a day or so before Palin, and shockingly, there wasn't a peep about it.

[qnetter]

I realized last night (ironically, while listening to "The Old Red Hills of Home" from Jason Robert Brown's PARADE, a story that comes far closer to having the right to use the term) that the key fact that everyone is missing is that the "blood" of the blood libel is not a reference to the false claim of someone having "blood on their hands" -- that is, doing or inspiring violence. It is specifically the claim that Jews use the blood of Christian children ritualistically -- THAT is the libel, and the killing itself is only the mechanics. Thus, it is impossible to separate the "blood libel" from anti-Semitism, because the libel is about a specific anti-Semitic claim, not about violence per se.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

exactly.