Oh…..surprise, surprise.

Not surprising at all that Palin would eventually do this…kinda surprised she didn’t get to it earlier…

It’s interesting to watch them eat their own like this.

An Insider’s Look at the Art of “Rugged in Montana”

By Desmond St. Giles-Mobry,  7th Earl of Sopwith

The Players:

“Rugged in Montana” is presented as an individual internet participant, but he’s actually a composite of 18 prominent scholars and a half-dozen administrative staff members, not including myself (although I carry the title of “Chairman”, my own function is more in keeping with Public Relations rather than directing the output of the “Rugged Institute”, as we playfully call it).  Our scholars are mostly retired people, who, having concluded long careers at Oxford and Cambridge, are yet seeking to stay intellectually active.  Their areas of experience include cultural and social anthropology, ethnography, cross-cultural studies, human behavioral ecology, linguistics, constructed languages, metacommunicative competence and a host of relevant sub-grouped interests.

The Character:

“Rugged in Montana” was carefully constructed from the results of a decade-long study of American internet forums, Usenet and even small “bulletin board” groups.  After a number of “hit-or-miss” attempts at creating forum “trolls”, it was decided that an attempt would be made to assemble a recombinant version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and the Colonial pamphleteer in the guise of a Conservative American rooted in “The Heartland”.  A randomizing process gave us a character of considerable complexity, roiling in religious and psychosexual inner-dramas that leave him paranoiac, clinging to cultural bias and political symbolism, which is allowed expression via modeled Socionics.

Linguistics:

“Rugged’s” attempts to articulate that which he does not understand is the dominant paradigm of our project.  A major development occurred when we were able to program software to construct flawed syntactic structures that would virtually mimic regional America averages with regards to malformed spelling, algorithms of stochastic and generative grammar, calculated reversions to Head-driven phrase structure grammar and even interpretations of bad typing errors.  What gives the superficial appearance of carelessness and/or ignorance is in fact a profoundly sophisticated AI approach to “humanizing” the presentation of “Rugged” and is the product of a daunting number of man-hours. 

The Play:

The scripts that the “Rugged” program runs must analyze the subject of a given post, correlate that with collected data from fringe-Right websites (which is streamed, real-time) and respond with hyperbolics that are carefully balanced to be quite subtle to some, yet eminently visible to others.  As long as this is not over-played, one or two participants in a forum will be “snagged” into believing that they are being confronted (this is just a function of Optimality Theory) by a human with a deeply opposing ideology or Weltanschauung. Interactions between “Rugged” and these individuals is usually short-lived, but the result is ideally a synthesis of humor and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) in order to better observe the perceptual psychology of the exchange.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this quick lifting of the veil on “Rugged’s” persona, it’s a rare treat for my colleagues and I to be able to briefly step into the spotlight and we appreciate it.  And now, as your American traditions demand, “We return you now to the program already in progress”.

mccain deserves less than palin.  He picked her.  He made her and now she is twisting a political knife into his back.

Here is my guess: the good people of “Fantasy of Flight” did not want to jinx their organization by putting up the name of a man who crashed so many airplanes.

It would be like shouting the title of the Scottish Play in a theatre.

It just isn’t done, thank you.

“It’s <strike>interesting</strike> delightful to watch them eat their own like this.”

Fixed that for you.

Erasing McCain is the only way they can keep the myth going. If only the party had nominated a real conservative and run a real conservative campaign, they’ll tell themselves, they would have won. It’s like the old red-diaper argument that what happened in the eastbloc wasn’t really communism, and so doesn’t count in weighing the relative values of ideologies, only with even less basis in reality.

I’d say the GOP is the Addison DeWitt of this scenario.  And they’ll wind up screwed in the end just as he was.

I have read that Sarah Palin is well known for stabbing people in the back who are her political mentors. So this would be standard Palin playbook, and YES, exactly like Eve Farrington.

Fairly predictable. Palin out for Palin. Desperate campaign people trying to think of a way to ensure future employment. A party that worships success ignoring the pending failure as best they can.

Palin is just being her usual grasping self, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least to see the GOP as a whole acting as an accomplice here; McStain is notoriously unpopular with his Republican “colleagues”.

If he really does lose as expected - and loses *BIG* - the ensuing recriminations are going to be hugely entertaining to witness. McShame isn’t exactly going down with any grace or class right now. Once it’s official that Obama’s the new President, I expect Maverick will completely flip his lid.

“I’d say the GOP is the Addison DeWitt of this scenario.  And they’ll wind up screwed in the end just as he was.”

Addison DeWitt didn’t get screwed in the end.  Eve tried to manipulate him, but he had all of the dirty secrets of who she screwed so he ended up owning her.

What I want to know is who is Phoebe - the president of the Eve Harrington club who ends up as her suck-up assistant - spawn of Eve?

Pam, this is quite a clever comparison.

Seriously though, this is no surprise. If anyone here has ever participated in a beauty pageant (or anything similar), you know how batshit the competitors get. Palin has always been out for Palin and you best believe that she’s got her eyes on the prize - that beautiful white house (well, it’s not beautiful yet… she has to remodel you know!).

Poor Eve.

“Nice speech, Sarah. But I wouldn’t worry too much about your heart. You can always put that nomination where your heart should be.”