“She be bold”: Sarah Palin at the Freedom Summit in Iowa

January 28, 2015 • 12:12 pm

The Iowa “Freedom Summit,” a conclave of Republicans who aspire to either the party’s Presidential nomination in 2016 or simply the limelight, turned out to be a Confederacy of Dunces. Even for Republicans, they were markedly insane. And the craziest of them all was, of course, Sarah Palin, who talked for 35 minutes and said nothing beyond “Love the Flag,” “Hate Obama” and “Make Change!”

Here’s a video of her speech, which got a standing ovation (that tells you something about Republicans, too). If you can’t stand watching the whole thing (I did, but I was also reading and drinking a nice Pinot), just watch after 29:00, for she really goes off the rails at 29:30.  That means you’ll only have to watch about six minutes.

But I urge you to watch the whole thing—for same reason that you sniff the milk when you know it’s gone bad. But really, it will make you realize how batshit insane Republicans are. They love this woman!

The highlights for me were her counterfactual claims that Republicans are the ones who really care about the middle class, while Obama and the Democrats don’t. Add to that the assertion (at 19:47) that Republicans also care deeply about women, while Democrats oppress them. She sprinkles her breathy lucubrations with sarcastic references to “The Media,” clearly ticked off that they told the truth about her lack of neurons. But the best reason to listen is simply that it’s so entertaining.  If you can ignore her odious politics, it sounds like an extended skit on Saturday Night Live. Just listen to the first two minutes and see if you don’t get hooked.

On behalf of my country, I apologize to all foreigners for the popularity of Sarah Palin.

Finally, click on the screenshot below to get Jon Stewart’s rib-tickling take on the whole Freedom Summit.

Screen Shot 2015-01-27 at 3.22.26 PM

 

123 thoughts on ““She be bold”: Sarah Palin at the Freedom Summit in Iowa”

    1. Yes, I mentioned this film as all the rage at Sundance the other day. It will be on HBO later and release as a film.

    3. I’m reading “Going Clear” right now and it’s jaw dropping. What’s depressing, though, is that the human behavior involved isn’t categorically different from what happened in Christianity and Islam. It just happened a lot faster and more in the public eye. And it’s documented.

  3. Never trust a Republican “leader” to make change: based on the past 14 years, you can expect to get four quarters for a $10 bill. and then insulted for being duped.

      1. Thanks! 10¢ on the dollar could be high or very low – but I do know a particular stock index mutual fund my wife owns is now 10x what it was when it hit bottom (2x from where she bought it right before the crash), and our house was “underwater” for close to five years, so, it felt like 10¢ on the dollar for sure!

  4. Most of the time she sounds like someone who is on medication (or off of it??).

    I realize that Palin is famous for her stream-of-consciousness word salad, but this stuff is really the ravings of a deluded mind. Perhaps she is loved so much because she keeps pushing the same Republican red meat buttons, but this ‘speech’ is more like a surveillance camera trained on a schizophrenia sufferer.

    2. I read somewhere that the teleprompter was unexpectedly not working. That may be true — it certainly sounds like she’s winging it.

      I’ve listened to very little Sarah Palin. My impression is that in about 20 years she can ditch the hair dye and makeup and be wheeled out as the amusing and irascible Granny Clampett of the GOP, a silly, fussy old dear we can all love because she’s been around forever, nobody can quite remember who she is, and she reminds us of someone’s elderly relative.

  6. Just think, a little old man from Arizona who ran for president a few years ago selected this as his vice president. It’s almost like a non fiction horror movie.

  7. I think it’s unfair to paint all Republicans with the Palin brush. The Tea Party-types who love Palin and her ilk are one wing of a very divided Republican Party. You may not agree with the others, but there are plenty of reasonable Republicans who have actual substance behind their views, not just mindless flag-waving and Obama-hating. The Tea Partiers are just the most vocal.

      1. I doubt it. Reasonableness doesn’t get you elected. Inanity does. It’s a scary situation.

        1. Insanity gets you past the primaries. Mitt Romney and John McCain found out what happens after that.

          Hence the lip-service to non-male, non-white, non-wealthy people.

          Ever since “Reaganomics” came along (1981), the economy has been trickle-up. If you are in the top 20%, you’re doing fine. Top 1%: Spectacularly well. Bottom 80%: Worse off now than you were in 1980. But the GOP has continued to convince people (many that I know well) to vote against their own economic interests. It’s an amazing thing.

          1. I think Steinbeck nailed it when he said no one in this country is poor, we are simply inconvenienced millionaires. We don’t want to give up that money when we inevitably become the next Zuckerberg, Buffet or Gates.

            For some truly inexplicable reason, the cult of Ayn Rand has been happily incorporated into fundamentalist minds and the synergistic effect is awe inspiring, in a horrifying way.

      2. Maybe Jeb Bush or Chris Christie could collect some respect. They might have a chance, I suppose, if enough republicans get fed up with that heard of goats.

      3. Or even calling out the ones running for President for being bat-guano crazy?

        It seems to me that the “reasonable” conservatives would generally prefer to reassure us that no, Mr. Crazy Conservative didn’t really mean what he said about how gays should be locked up or that the word-that-starts-with-n in office should be lynched from a tree in the back yard of the White House, it’s just a joke, you liberals are too sensitive instead of actually taking any sort of moral stand against the racist, homophobic, and xenophobic elements of their own party.

    2. There are Republicans with substance, just they aren’t the ones who have any kind of success in the national primaries. Or maybe they just have to mask the substance in order to win.

      1. Well, there are a couple of guys running the Congress at the present time – Mitch McConnell and John Boehner. This would be the normal folks in the republican tribe. I’m not sure which one if either last had a good idea.

      2. And I would wager they are among the “independents” Palin claims to be proud of: people who are fiscally conservative and socially progressive are, almost to a person, Democrats or “independent” – what we used to call “Barry Manilow Republicans” who are embarrassed by what their musical taste implies about them in sophisticated circles.

          1. Because who’s going to run as “fiscally liberal and socially regressive?”

            (Though in fact that holds true for many R’s: fiscally liberal to the 1% & the military/industrial complex.)

          2. Precisely.

            There’s this myth that Democrats are the spending party and Republicans are the saving party. Nonsense. I think we’d’ve spent a lot less and saved a lot more if we hadn’t gone to war in Iraq.

            Democrats just want to spend on things that are worth the investment.

          3. The fact that the mythology is still believed by so-called “conservatives” is amazing.

            Anualized growth in Federal spending: http://i713.photobucket.com/albums/ww133/Sane_Person/Obama-slowest_spender_zpssfpbavqo.jpg

            Deficits as a percentage of GDP since Carter:

            http://i713.photobucket.com/albums/ww133/Sane_Person/Budgets_presidents_zps6lmpda1l.jpg

            Cumulative private and public sector job growth (Obama is the only president under which US public sector job numbers have declined since the demobilization after WW 2):

            http://i713.photobucket.com/albums/ww133/Sane_Person/Public_vs_Private-Jobs_Dec2014_zpsgwkvwrjf.png

    3. And not a one of them is in the House or Senate, or running for POTUS anytime soon. There may be a mayor or governor here and there, but when push comes to shove they all throw their lot in with people who are degrading the nation’s social success and economic security for personal gain (via carrying water for the 1%ers and polluting industries). Everyone of them knows austerity is counter-productive, tax cuts weaken the nation and the entire policy regime is directed at squeezing working people so they will blame government for their ills – and even the most “rational” GOP public official ultimately enables the fraud to continue.

      The Democratic Party is not immune to scandal and corruption, and certainly fails to deliver on many promises – primarily these days because of GOP intransigence. Still, I cannot think of a single Post-Dixiecrat Democratic politician who has taken a policy stand I find half as offensive as “killing pigs.”

      1. I haven’t seen Huckabee’s entire speech. Does he ever get specific about what the legislative analogue for “killing pigs” is?

        I don’t see why enacting a law should necessarily entail anything detrimental. Why can’t it be exclusively beneficial?

        1. Because TEH GUMMINT IS TO DANM BIG! My read is: Americans (the 47% who are freeloaders) want the sausage (free stuff like food and medicine) but don’t want to kill the pigs (work for their living, or let corporations despoil the environment). But, no, I couldn’t find a translation – and my dog whistle detection is not equipped for the new level of abstraction the racists have evolved: this could well be an inside reference to police killings of unarmed black men! Who knows! They have their own little wink-wink language.

          Huckabee makes me sick. The worst kind of devil is the one who shows up as the avuncular Southern preacher. He also claims in his speech he became governor in the “bluest” state, and implies he gets the credit for turning Arkansas “red.” I guess the state was formerly, technically “blue” by party affiliation, and has had mostly moderate-to-progressive governors from 1971 on, but I’m pretty sure the move from blue to red in that state was largely a matter of segregationists moving to their logical home. I would argue Bumpers, Pryor and Clinton get more credit for driving the racist conservatives away than Hucksterbee should get for attracting or inspiring them.

    4. My problem is that the supposedly ‘sane’ wing of the Republican party still seems to be in the thrall of Ronald Reagan’s view that the best thing to do at any time is shrink government. The only proposals that one hears are to cut taxes, cut regulation, and limit the effects of the Healthcare Reform Act (Obamacare). There is nothing about small business investment, investing in infrastructure (which used to be a bipartisan desirable thing), fiscal policy, or even immigration (aside from don’t do anything except build bigger walls).

      So you have one group that is a bunch of angry uneducated people who are uncomfortable with the shifting demographics of the country who vote based on sound bytes like those offered up by Palin and Cruz, and the other, a group of businessmen intent on keeping their status quo stable and other than that, as little change as possible (except the aforementioned lower taxes and less regulation).

      Or is this characterization inaccurate? Are there any ‘progressive’ Republicans or is that kind of thinking only within the Libertarian wing (best represented by Rand Paul)?

      1. Sounds right to me.
        If there are ‘progressive’ Republicans, where are they hiding, and why?

    5. but there are plenty of reasonable Republicans who have actual substance behind their views

      I disagree.

      1) If you are riding in a car, and notice that everyone else present has oversized footwear and a red rubber nose, you just might be riding in the clown car. If, having discovered that, you continue to ride in the clown car, I think the rest of us are entitled to question whether you are “reasonable.”

      2) Even “traditional” Republicanism is not reasonable. For example, the GOP has been stuck on “trickle-down economics” since the 1980s, even though it continues to bear no semblance to reality.

      2. Yes, (2). Trickle down has been conclusively proved to not work (the way they said it would “a rising tide lifts all boats” cue the Barry Manilow ballad; but it has worked spectacularly well in its real purpose: Giving more of the wealth of the US to the top slice of the people (income wise): You know, the ones who deserve it!

        It’s trickle-up, not trickle down. Pass it on.

        1. As a comedian once put it: “a rising tide lifts all boats. Now, for those of us who don’t have boats…”

      3. Then there is “Trickle-down” economics’ evil twin, “supply-side” economics. It has been amply demonstrated by year-after-year of Reagan-Bush-Bush deficits to be pure bullshit. The tipping point when the GOP decided to abandon any claim to being reasonable with their election of Ronal Reagasn. (GHW Bush called “supply-side” economics voodoo economics before he was beaten saint Ronnie for the GOP nomination. No, government revenues do not recover after massive tax cuts when almost all the cuts go to people at the top – Arthur Laffer was full of crap.

    7. I think it is unfair, not to mention dreadfully boring, of you to bring out this tired old cliche accusation of stereotyping when there is no reasonable expectation that the OP was “paint(ing) all Republicans with the Palin brush.”

      Your implication that Tea Partiers are the only Republicans who deserve to be mocked is also wrong by any reasonably ethical standard. You can’t blame the Tea party for the current Republican party.

      1. “You can’t blame the Tea party for the current Republican party.”

        The situation is somewhat complex. The Tea Party is driving the “traditional” Republicans further to the right. In the last cycle, even when the old schoolers beat off a Tea Party challenge, it was by running very conservative candidates.

        The GOP appears to be in a positive feedback loop, accelerating ever further to the right. This has been going on for over a decade.

        Then there is the question of supply and demand. GOP voters, and the collective voting public in general, must be moving to the right; or else these extreme candidates would not be taken seriously. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Joni Ernst actually got elected to the U.S. Senate. What’s up with that? “Epistemic closure” from watching FauxNews? A reaction to 9/11?

        1. As you said, it is complicated. A large part of it is carnies preying on the ignorant. And I don’t kid myself about those ignorant people. A significant number of them are decent people with ethics closely matching my own. And though the raw data is clear, they can’t see it, can’t make sense of it, can’t be bothered to make the effort to find it and understand it. They are like marks to a con-man.

          History seems to show that as time goes on political/socio/economic entities tend to move towards a state of affairs in which the liars, cheaters and stealers game the system to a degree that becomes dangerously detrimental to the system as a whole. The US seems to be going down that same well worn path despite the attempts of our “founding fathers” to set things up to avoid, specifically, that very thing.

          There will always be liars, cheaters and stealers working at gaming the system. The key struggle between what currently, in the US, is called conservative politics and liberal politics is a struggle between those who think the liars, cheaters and stealers should be enabled and those who think it is imperative to organize and regulate the system to limit the impact of the liars, cheaters and stealers so that the system as a whole is fair and accessible to everyone.

          1. Well said. I would note also the role of the so-called “liberal media” (SCLM in lefty blog speak) in enabling that system by failing to accurately represent how the political process works (as if it were possible for Obama to negotiate any kind of a spending bargain with a Congress bent on his destruction at all costs), by continually presenting false on-the-other-hand similes (Republicans are intransigent on increasing the deficit, but OTOH Obama is intransigent on cutting taxes for the wealthy), and by generally avoiding presenting a truly balanced picture of policy options (ie, Republicans want to gut the safety net, Obama is only willing to cut it a little, and hardly a peep allowed from the substantial majority of economists and liberal thinkers who would expand the programs, especially Social Security and Medicaid). There are all kinds of reasons a certain narrative about “centrist” policy has been frozen in place since the Reagan administration, and none of them are good. It’s a back-slapping boys club making good money playing it the way they do. Fiddling while Rome burns.

        3. I do like Bill Maher’s explanation for the success of the republican party: Americans are stupid.

          1. No, the majority are just uneducated. Seriously uneducated; and seemingly incurious about everything except who won the latest entertainment awards, or the super bowl.

          3. Maybe, but they are also intentionally misinformed and, even more so, distracted by a mass media that is now 90% concentrated in the hands of 6 corporations.

    8. You may not agree with the others, but there are plenty of reasonable Republicans who have actual substance behind their views…

      This hasn’t been true for a long time. Conservative ideology is completely bankrupt.

      1. That’s what I’ve been thinking. When pressed for a ‘platform’, I always hear the same things over and over again.

        Idea for a Saturday Night Live Skit:
        —Welcome to Joe Jones, Republican Doctor–
        “Doctor, Doctor, I’ve got a broken arm”
        “Well, I got just the thing for that. A nice tax cut. That’ll solve your problem”
        “Doctor, Doctor, my daughter is running a fever and has a sore throat!”
        “Don’t worry, this tax cut will fix her up. Now we’ll just apply it and let it take effect.”
        “Doctor, I seem to be having trouble catching my breath.”
        “Oh, that’s serious. Maybe we’ll skip the tax cut and go straight to…Regulations removal!”
        “But Doctor, will that fix my problem?”
        “According to my calculations it will!”
        …

        —
        You get the idea…

  8. Not only the funniest Palin on the planet, but also the funniest woman on earth: proof that inability to string a sentence together is not an impediment to public speaking.

    The most thrilling wordsmith in the English language: no member of the audience can possibly know what word will come next.

    Socrates, Cicero, Ingersoll, Hitchens. At last a woman joins the Pantheon. x

  10. Interesting she asserts that “a woman” is the answer to America’s being ready to “get stuff done” in light of the likely Democratic candidate and next POTUS. If nothing else she’s setting herself up to be able to say “I told you so” to the folks who doubt her infinite wisdom! She DO be bold to suggest something SO FAR OUT from the conventional wisdom! So maverick-y!

    Also to note, re “kill some pigs” and “beholden to the people”: very interesting doublespeak which is made true by substituting-in the group the GOP considers pigs (working class people and seniors) and the one they consider “people” (the super wealthy and the extraction industry).

    I’m so old I can remember when conservatism was, while still loathesome to me personally, supported by some kind of intellectual scaffolding. I suppose we have Clinton and Obama to thank for coopting the rational positions of conservatism and leaving the GOP with nothing to serve up but lies, fear and populist-sounding nothingburgers.

    It is distressing to the Left that Democratic presidents now govern like old-school Republicans, but it’s a far better alternative to the fools and grifters the GOP elevates to the national spotlight.

    Pass the popcorn!

    1. A truly moderate, centrist republican candidate definitely could win the presidential election. But they would not get through the twit olympics that is their primaries. I worry that one day they will realize that.

      1. A wolf in centrist/moderate’s clothing one took office despite losing (but only technically! If one were to count, you know, “all the votes”) twice, not that long ago. So I have no doubt you are correct and I share your well-founded concern.

        1. He is centrist in many of his actions, but his positions on gays, abortion, health care, gun control, military entanglements signal him to be with the D and not R base.

          1. The current Republican party, very much so – but that is the point; the GOP has gone to crazy town. Since they went there, the Ds have moved right – and both Bruce Bartlett and I assume that the most important issues are about who get’s the money.

            The framework of the ACA came from a conservative think tank, and it is better than Romneycare only in some details, its basic structure is pretty much the same. If Bob Dole had been elected and pushed a plan through, it would likely look like Obamacare and Republicans would be bragging about it.

            Abortion and gun control – granted, but his positions have had no effect on policy. Frankly, I doubt that the kingmakers of the GOP give a damn about these issues and only harp on them so the Christian rednecks will vote R.

            As for gays, Obama has jumped in front of the parade after observing which way the wind was blowing – all electable Republicans will be where he is in ten years, maybe sooner than that. Gays are winning because they won it themselves – it is an object lesson in how win at the grass roots.

  11. So by Ms. Palin’s own admission, she participated in an organized run as a bandit (someone who does not pay entry fees to event organizers). Grifting appears to come easily to Senator McCain’s soul mate.

    1. I thought that too.

      And her idea that government should be scared of the people? ‘Cause that’s working so well in Libya (and a dozen other countries).

  13. Sarah Palin’s speech was so bad, even Fox admitted it. They said something like, “rambling and lacking in substance,” while looking like they’d been sucking lemons. As Jerry said, it’s like an extended SNL skit. I did notice more and more people sitting there with their arms crossed as it progressed, but unfortunately I doubt that means the GOP will nominate a candidate worthy of the presidency. A child could point out the constant errors, illogic, inanities and contradictions in her speech.

    As usual CC is impossible to access.

  14. “Oh, mahn!”

    Very statesmanlike…

    “… clinging to your guns, your God, your Constitution.”

    Well, I guess the order tells you a lot about this crowd.

    I’m going to cook dinner now… six mins in.

    /@

  16. It would be pretty hard to top the freak show that was the 2012 Republican presidential primary. Every week it seemed some other crank was jumping out of the clown car. Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain. You’d be scared with anyone one of them running a small town, and Republicans were considering them for leader of the most powerful nation on Earth.

    Palin in the running would be enough to top 2012. I doubt it though; she’s probably just doing this for the attention.

  17. No need to apologise Jerry, here in the UK we have UKIP, the United Kingdom Independence Party, its full of lunatics. Palin would fit in with them very nicely, they want to turn the world back to 1930.

  18. My home state. Which is a red state, but actually pretty sensible in most things, I still say.
    May Sarah Palin continue to speak up at republican events with lots of media attention. The more, the better.

  20. I’m comforted by my belief that Sarah P is just a grifter, that’s she’s not really interested in running for office. Like a lot of these hacks–Ben Carson, Donald Trump–they are in it for ego and money. I think they will all hurt GOP chances in 2016. They make the party look crazy.

  21. For someone who is so keen to admonish his readers for even the slightest personal attack, it’s remarkably hypocritical of you to describe Republicans as ‘batshit insane’.

    3. George, I don’t read Jerry’s post as a personal attack, but rather, as an appropriate characterization (and dismissal) of the ideology of the modern GOP. As an institutional platform, it really does seem wholly removed from how the world works. If one must quibble, then we should acknowledge that batshit (i.e. guano) is a rather useful and beneficial source of nutrients for farmers.

    1. It’s actually a reference to an M.L. King speech: “And whenever men and women straighten their backs up, they are going somewhere, because a man can’t ride your back unless it is bent.”

      Of course, she mangles the meaning of King’s metaphor.

  23. I think that speech sounds somewhat incoherent, cannot really make head or tail of it. What is she actually saying? Maybe my ‘American’ is not really good enough. [A maze in the rye (or was it maize)? What is that supposed to mean?]. I guess there are a lot of allusions I’m missing as an outsider, I’m puzzled, it feels like listening to a speech machine-translated from Chinese.

    1. No, it’s not your lack of native American English, Nicky. Sarah Pee IS incoherent!

      She was talking about a maze in a cornfield, I believe. One of the few coherent parts.

    1. She Be BOLD!
      Yes, boldly misinformed, boldly out of touch, boldly under-qualified, boldly unafraid to display her failure to grasp basic grammar in public . . .

  25. She Be BOLD!
    Yes, boldly misinformed, boldly out of touch, boldly under-qualified, boldly unafraid to display her failure to grasp basic grammar in public . . .

  27. For a gimmick, she sure is hard to get rid of. Unfortunately for the rest of us, Republicans confuse idiocy with veracity.

    Great fodder for people like Jon Stewart though. That was a hysterical clip.

  28. She is a joke ,but don’t think she knows that.May watch but already mad today paying 4.99 for a dozen eggs.Just looking aT HER MAKES ME MAD.

  29. Recently there was a Facebook post with a pic of Sarah Palin and some rather enigmatic word salad from a recent speech. Underneath was a photo of Benedict Cumberbatch playing Alan TUring looking at his computing machine for decrypting Enigma messages with BC saying “I cannot decipher this message”

  30. I haven’t heard anything so meaningless for a long time…either she’s a complete air head or she is so brilliant that she makes James Joyce seem straightforward.

  31. I have never heard Sarah Pee without thinking of the adage often attributed to Mark Twain: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

  33. Just got back from a long flight – part of my reading?

    “don’t think oa an elephant!” by George Lakoff – a must read before the next election.

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