Requiem for a Maverick
Which is the name of this tour de force piece by Matt Taibbi in the latest Rolling Stone. A bit:
John McCain and Sarah Palin, after all, represented two completely different approaches to Republican conservatism. McCain comes from the school of politicking that goes after as many votes as possible by waving a flag and saying as little as possible, which is to say he was basically a third-way Democrat with a Goldwater fetish. His basic plan heading into the general election seemed strikingly similar to that of the dipshit vice president character from the uninspiring but weirdly prescient Chris Rock movie Head of State, who ran on a platform of “I’ve been vice president for the last eight years, I’m a war hero and I’m Sharon Stone’s cousin.”
McCain’s shtick wasn’t exactly that, but it was close. He was a war hero who married an heiress to a beer distributorship and had been in the Senate since the Mesozoic Era. His greatest strength as a politician had up until this year been his ability to “reach across the aisle,” a quality that in the modern Republican Party was normally about as popular as open bisexuality. His presence atop the ticket this year was evidence of profound anxiety within the party about its chances in the general election. After eight disastrous years of Bush, they thought they had lost the middle — so they picked a middling guy to get it back.
Which made sense, right up until the moment when they stuck him with Pinochet in heels for a running mate. Sarah Palin would have been a brilliant choice as a presidential nominee — and she will be, in 2012, when she leads the inevitable Republican counter-revolution against Obama’s presidency. She’s a classic divide-and-conquer politician, an unapologetic Witch Hunter and True Believer with a gift for whipping up the mob against the infidel. In a way that even George W. Bush never was, she is Karl Rove’s wet dream, the Osama bin Laden of soccer moms, crusading against germs, communism, atheism and other such unclean elements strictly banned by American law.
Read the whole thing — it is killer writing that I imagine Hunter S. Thompson might admire.
Tags: 2008 Presidential, John McCain
Well, I was holding out some hope that Palin would go away. I guess that is not going to happen.
As entertianing as she is, with time to practice her reponses to basic questions she could get good enough to do some damage to the country with what Talibi points out is a gift for whipping up the brainless GOP mob.
Thanks for posting this, Cassandra. Matt Taibbi is a great writer. I love reading his work.
And he really sums everything up in this article. I still haven’t gotten over the unexplainable pairing of McCain and Palin. What were they thinking? I also think this pairing was the final nail in the Republican Party coffin. Palin validated the religious right, made them believe they could reach for and attain higher office without watering down their message.
It’s this undiluted message that ultimately scares people away. Watching what happens next with the GOP is my new favorite pastime. It has all the makings of a Greek Tragedy. It’s incestuous in nature with no room for compromise. The only question left is which side will prevail.
I love his writing style.
texas chili and forest cake…yum!
I think Palin got what she wanted out of the McCain run, which is exposure to all of America. Amazingly being a drag on a losing ticket doesn’t seem to be hurting her so far.
I think we should be careful what we wish for in 2012. Sarah Palin who has spent 4 yrs. in the spotlight is going to be a more formidable candidate than Sarah Palin from Alaska. She’ll have years of consultants to make her sound less stupid and Americans have pretty short memories. 4 yrs. is a long time in politics.
That was a great article. I may have to renew my subscription to Rolling Stone. I discontinued it when HST got lead poisoning.
I knew Taibbi was at the top of his game during the campaign went he described an October Palin rally as “Gidget addressing the Reichstag”.
I read this essay last week. It is quite brilliant.
Agreed, UI. But she’ll have to change her message to win over anyone not in the social conservative choir. So I’m not going to worry until the message starts to change.
But… will she change the message? I still think the only “winner” of this election was the far right – which probably will equal continued loss. Honestly, I don’t think she can change her message – even with a wink and a nod – and hold her rabid (yes, rabid!) base.
Her empty-headed base in 20% of the electorate but they make 80% of the noise.
And Palin is still a source of immense fascination by the so-called liberal media. There are ratings to be had following this woman around, and how long before all of those sentences that can’t find their way home become the Common Wisdom?
Also for LG — Taibbi has a couple of published collections of his writing up at amazon (and perhaps at your library). I haven’t read them, but after this article, I am tempted to add to the neverending To Read pile.
cassandra–you only have a pile? I have a shrine.