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I Know You By The Wink Of Your Eye

Were I one to accuse others of racism, I would surely point out how racist it is that a person doesn’t “know” Barack Obama after two years of being at the apex of the national spotlight, but can look into Sarah Palin’s eyes through the TV and know that this is a good, decent woman who’s been treated unfairly.

Granted, this is Camille Paglia, so Sarah Palin could also theoretically be talking to her through her minestrone, but presuming that she’s not food-talking (again), how is it that anybody knows who the tightly managed, wink-and-an-Ayers Sarah Palin actually is, particularly in light of the fact that the version of her presented in the campaign only had her doing three things in life.  The first was having babies, the second was hunting large mammals, the third was facing down corrupt Republicans except for Ted Stevens and the other ones.  Sure, that’s a full day for anyone, but we must also presume that there’s something else going on behind those fancy rimless glasses besides that. 

There’s no way in the world that we don’t “know” Barack Obama as well as we know virtually any other politician of his prominence - unless, of course, you don’t “know” him because he doesn’t look like you or come from the same place you come from.  That, my friend, is your stupid problem. 

 

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Posted by Jesse Taylor on 09:12 AM • (46) Comments

I did not know that Paglia had alphabet noodles in her minestrone. Explains a lot.

Comment #1: idlemind  on  11/13  at  09:56 AM

And Door Matt Lauer was still getting his Palin love on this morning…

My god hes such a tool now… I imagine that Katie is glad that she left that show and I think that Door Matt is too. I imagine that she’d probably bitch slap his ass on tv for being such a simpering obsequious idiot…

Comment #2: PinkyLeftBrain  on  11/13  at  10:06 AM

umm…still slaming Sarah Palin..8 days after she lost the election?  why do thye find her so threatening?

The MSM layed out the red carpet for Obama, they didn’t want to be accused of being racists, plus they’re liberals as well. A double strike against the Repubs.

That’s the one thing that frightens white (self-loathing) liberals more than anything, being called a racist. Amanda is one of those self-loathing whites. Jesse/Pam are the type of blacks who use racism as an excuse for everything, it’s there favorite weapon for bullying white liberals.

Comment #3: Larry  on  11/13  at  10:23 AM

Oh man.  This guy seriously isn’t banned yet?

[Palin] uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist.

And Camille Paglia calls other people “delusional”.  Whoa.

Comment #4: killjoy  on  11/13  at  10:35 AM

“why do thye find her so threatening?”

Palin isn’t threatening to me in an way at all.  In fact she’s one of the most (unintentionally) amusing politicians in decades.

Mindless Republican worship of a small town/small state nobody who you’d like to <strike>have a beer with</strike> shoot a moose with is theatening…but only to the extent that you truly believe she’s qualified to be president…and that isn’t just threatening to me, it’s threatening to most of the other 7-Billion humans on Earth…

“That’s the one thing that frightens white (self-loathing) liberals more than anything, being called a racist.”...um, project much?

“Amanda is one of those self-loathing whites.”...I suppose you’ve looked deeply into her eyes and seen her soul?  Or did you just run into a bad batch of meth?...

“Jesse/Pam are the type of blacks who use racism as an excuse for everything, it’s there favorite weapon for bullying white liberals.”

...actually it’s their favorite weapon for “bullying” White Republicans (sorry for the redundency), if by “bullying” you mean pointing out the all too frequently ugly truth.

Larry, aren’t there some embryos somewhere that need your protection or something?  Isn’t there a soldier’s funeral you need to use as a backdrop for hating gays?  Isn’t there a bunker you need to be digging in your backyard with a spoon so you can protect yourself from the rampaging negroes who threaten your precious bodily fluids?...

Comment #5: MikeEss  on  11/13  at  10:49 AM

I don’t know about looking into her eyes, but for a long time now when I read or (thankfully, rarely) hear her speak, I always think of the motor-mouthed gum-chewer Violet Beauregard from the original Willy Wonka movie.

Perhaps it’s Grampa Joe’s description of the character when asked why she won’t listen to reason: “Because, Charlie, she’s a nitwit.”

Paglia is very fortunate she helped launch Salon—otherwise what non-academic outlet would publish her natterings?

Comment #6: Gracchus  on  11/13  at  11:02 AM

Poor Larry. As his winking political crush vanishes back into the obscurity of the long Alaska night, all he’ll be left with to remember her by is the copy of Larry Flynt’s “Nailin’ Palin” he had sent to his “special” P.O. box. If anyone can wear out a DVD, I suspect it’ll be Larry.

Comment #7: Gracchus  on  11/13  at  11:05 AM

..frightens white (self-loathing) liberals more than..

This concept always seems so strange to me, that of the “white self-loathing liberal”. As if to be liberal and white was some kind of contradiction in terms. In reality, I’m a white male leftist exactly because I want policy to reflect my best white male interests. I’m selfish & want what’s best for me. And in my view, what’s best for me is a society with a decent welfare state, where certain key industries are nationalized, and relations between “races” are pretty good, and government intervenes to solve social problems rather than attempting to blame them on scapegoats or ignoring them.

The statement makes more sense as a smear than anything. It can be successfully used to damage the left-wing “brand” in the media. That’s about all it can do. Right wingers who use it directly at liberals or leftists will only get blank stares in response, or perhaps chuckles.

Comment #8: atheist  on  11/13  at  11:34 AM

Well, wow, to that article.  It was actually focused, well more so than the usual Paglia mess.

Luckily it shows the bones of the animal that some Republicans will use to push Palin in 2012.

“...powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes”

Now THAT is going to be my new catch phrase for everything and everyone.

Comment #9: melponeme_k  on  11/13  at  11:38 AM

from the article:

No one knows whether Obama will move to the center or veer hard left.

Someone needs to fire Paglia and hire a chimpanzee.

Comment #10: atheist  on  11/13  at  11:39 AM

Paglia is very fortunate she helped launch Salon—otherwise what non-academic outlet would publish her natterings?

What respectable academic publication would, either?  I mean I suppose that if she didn’t have the Salon gig, some university famous for its conservatism, like George Mason or something, would be happy to have her on staff as their “token liberal” who wasn’t really a liberal*.  But as far as I’m aware , she’s not exactly a respected member of any particular academic discipline.  I took my fair share of Women’s Studies, cultural studies, art history, social sciences, and the like, and she literally NEVER came up.  Not even once.  Even in courses where Sexual Personae would have been pertinent.  She is, as far as I can tell, absolutely irrelevant to everyone, ever.

*Actually, I looked it up, and Paglia currently teaches at the University of the Arts, in Philadelphia.  Wikipedia is not clear on whether she is a tenured faculty member, or what, exactly, she teaches.

Comment #11: The Opoponax  on  11/13  at  11:43 AM

Melpomene, that was my thought exactly! I’m going to use it as a euphemism for “stupid.”

Comment #12: MissPrism  on  11/13  at  11:43 AM

I popped Paglia yesterday when I read that piece. There’s a whole crapload of bad there, but I took particular offense to the Palin as jazz saxophonist bit. Palin’s speech patters aren’t bebop jazz—they’re Ferris Bueller squealing on the clarinet and then saying into the camera “never had one lesson.”

Comment #13: Incertus, Nacho Daddy  on  11/13  at  11:51 AM

As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is—and quite frankly, I think the people who don’t see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn’t speak the King’s English—big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist.

What do I write about this? All I can come up with is a lot of fragments of expletives.

Comment #14: tb  on  11/13  at  11:54 AM

Obama’s ability to stay on his feet and outrun the most menacing waves that threaten to engulf him seems to embody the breezy, sunny spirit of the American surfer.

Paglia’s ability to mix metaphors seems to embody the breezy, stupid spirit of the American nincompoop.

Comment #15: Sarcastro  on  11/13  at  11:55 AM

She might as well, at this point, title her articles, “Hey liberal assholes, look at me!”

Comment #16: Amanda Marcotte  on  11/13  at  12:10 PM

That’s really what she’s after, isn’t it Amanda? The adoring approval of wingers who can point to her and claim “see, liberals secretly agree with us and only people like Paglia have the honesty to say so openly!” Drives me up the wall.

Comment #17: Incertus, Nacho Daddy  on  11/13  at  12:15 PM

Curse you for tricking me into reading something by Camile Paglia!  Unless that was some sort of level, and she was going for every single cliche ever brought up throughout the campaign crammed into one article, I am stunned at the painful vapidity.

Comment #18: Filth  on  11/13  at  12:25 PM

There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes.

It’s the return of the clear-eyed gaze!

Comment #19: jfpbookworm  on  11/13  at  12:29 PM

This concept always seems so strange to me, that of the “white self-loathing liberal”

It doesn’t seem strange to me: it’s language straight out of the White Power movement. Combined with his Xtian fantasism, Larry’s probably a natural recruit for Christian Identity.

Comment #20: Gracchus  on  11/13  at  12:49 PM

it’s language straight out of the White Power movement.

Interesting. I’ll have to check that out Gracchus. Thanks.

Comment #21: atheist  on  11/13  at  12:54 PM

“A shocking level of irrational emotionalism and at times infantile rage was exposed at the heart of current Democratic ideology—contradicting Democratic core principles of compassion, tolerance and independent thought. “ -Paglia

This infantile rage has spread like kudzu through the Democratic Party. I have a short list of liberal feminists who are capable of putting aside their prejudices when evaluating Sarah Palin.

So far that list is:

1)Camille Paglia

2) Wendy Button

3) Elaine Lafferty

4) Campbell Brown

5) Cynthia Gorney

I am disappointed that popular leftist blogs have proven incapable for discussing Palin without resorting to schoolyard insults. Pro life feminism is a highly flammable topic for discussion, one that sends most liberal feminists into a hysterical tizzy. I am not pro life, but I have made a life changing effort to better understand the arguments for life. I have found them well reasoned, realistic, and intelligent. My experience with the right wing women of the blogosphere has been eye opening! They are the funniest, sweetest, brightest women! (Not to mention far more glam then the typical women’s lib set.) As a lifetime lover and celebrator of all things womanly I welcome these pro life feminists into the sandbox of feminism with open arms and hugs. They will change the face of feminism and force it into the Christian mainstream. I hope leftist shrews like Amanda Marcotte get used to it and show these pretty ladies the respect they deserve, or else the left won’t have a leg to stand on.

Comment #22: Christina Stroz  on  11/13  at  01:04 PM

Larry don’t know jazz.

Comment #23: gwangung  on  11/13  at  01:05 PM

“white guilt”, like “political correctness” is one of those notions that seemed fresh, insightful, and and to describe reality on a few elite college campuses—about 18 frickin’ years ago. It’s way past its sell-by date.

It’s a disease “conservatives” have, this tendency to pretend that the facile half-truths of generations past are winning propositions.

Comment #24: wapsie  on  11/13  at  01:22 PM

“I am not pro life, but I have made a life changing effort to better understand the arguments for life. I have found them well reasoned, realistic, and intelligent. My experience with the right wing women of the blogosphere has been eye opening! They are the funniest, sweetest, brightest women!”

You are so full of shit.

Comment #25: wapsie  on  11/13  at  01:23 PM

Paglia misses the point, and so do you Christina: No one is saying Palin is not a feminist because she’s pro-life, we’re saying she’s not a feminist because she’s *not a feminist*. Just because you’re a woman running for higher office, you don’t get the feminist stamp of approval. You actually have to, you know, espouse something other than mindless, counter-factual shit about energy policy in Alaska and your opponent’s supposed terrorist ties. No one I’ve read begrudges her marrying and having five kids. She doesn’t inspire angst because she’s had this charmed Christian life; she inspires angst because she was part of a major presidential ticket and didn’t appear to know jackshit about anything. There are plenty of reasons Palin was not and will never be suitable for the presidency (or vice presidency, whatever). As for rage… her appointment was an insult - particularly to progressive women (and really, women everywhere), who were evidently expected to vote for her vagina. That is so very feminist.

I also love Camille Paglia’s Laird Hamilton example: He was born in Hawaii! Just like Obama!!! I’ll leave it to you to suss out the symbolic importance of this incredibly inane and meaningless comparison I just pulled out of my ass because I read Sports Illustrated in 1997 unlike you egg-headed, navel-gazing liberals. Have you read Sexual Personae, by the way? It’s kind of a big deal.

I do wonder how Paglia grades her less talented students’ papes. These run-ons aren’t run-ons at all, they’re actually stacatto rhythms that underline an unwillingness to toe the line of feminist orthodoxy! A-plus!

Comment #26: JoePo  on  11/13  at  01:25 PM

Just Google “self hating whites”—the list is topped by lovely organisations like “Jewish Task Force” (the “tasks” not being beneficial to the Jews), American Patrol (patrolling against Mexicans, apparently), Stormfront (enough said), and something called the Vanguard News Network (slogan: “No Jews, Just Right.”).

As is the wont of RWAs of any stripe, they basically appropriated the language of victimology from actual ethnic minorities. It seems absurd to us, but it’s one of those phrases that, uttered earnestly, sends up a nice red (and black, and white) flag about where the speaker’s head is at.

Thanks, Larr!

Comment #27: Gracchus  on  11/13  at  01:31 PM

Christina, when you wingnuts worship the awesome leadership abilities of a political wannabe like Palin, it may go over well with the other wingnuts, but normal Americans are aghast.

Believing with every fiber of your being that Palin is presidential material doesn’t make it true, just like believing it of George Bush Jr. didn’t make it true of him either.

Deeply flawed judgments like that call into question the ability of the Republican Base to choose anyone of true worth for any political position, let alone for a job as important as President.

But I don’t want you to think I’m telling you not to fawn over Cariboo Barbie…no, far from it.  The stronger you support people like Palin, the further the Republican Party moves to the margins of American politics…

Comment #28: MikeEss  on  11/13  at  01:35 PM

This…

“As a lifetime lover and celebrator of all things womanly I welcome these pro life feminists into the sandbox of feminism with open arms and hugs. They will change the face of feminism and force it into the Christian mainstream. I hope leftist shrews like Amanda Marcotte get used to it and show these pretty ladies the respect they deserve, or else the left won’t have a leg to stand on.”

is fucked up.

I think Christina has it backwards. Wapsie already called bullshit. I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in.

Comment #29: Mark  on  11/13  at  01:57 PM

Jesus, that article makes me want to start drinking early today.

Comment #30: Ben D.  on  11/13  at  01:57 PM

“pretty ladies” ????  W.T.F?

Parody?

Comment #31: Eric, Rejector of Memez  on  11/13  at  02:32 PM

Stormfront (enough said), and something called the Vanguard News Network (slogan: “No Jews, Just Right.”).

I’ve heard about the Vanguard News Network a bit in the past. It has a reputation as the place white supremacists go if Stormfront kicks them out.

Comment #32: Bill Ayers  on  11/13  at  02:34 PM

Sorry, ‘twas me

Comment #33: atheist  on  11/13  at  02:37 PM

<blockquote>Amanda is one of those self-loathing whites. Jesse/Pam are the type of blacks who use racism as an excuse for everything, it

Comment #34: Auguste  on  11/13  at  03:01 PM

I’ve despised Paglia for years now. She’s far from being the only self-promoting whore to emerge from the “liberal” media since the Clinton Years - God knows there’s plenty of competition to go around on that front - but in her own special way, she’s one of the worst. She openly gloated about the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson in her Playboy interview some time back, a woman who had never done a damn thing to her, or, indeed, to anyone else that I know of. And why? Apparently because she knew it would piss feminists off. In the same vein, she basically blamed Matthew Shepard for his own murder, lying about it in the process by claiming that Shepard had approached his gaybashing killers, which isn’t true: One of the bastards admitted as much at the trial.

There are plenty of people in the corporate media right now that I wouldn’t hesitate to classify as human garbage, but you know, there are varying degrees of that sort of thing. And occasionally, even the worst sort of villains will display at least a modicum of class or humanity or even surprise me with a decent gesture. Some of the reaction from the usual suspects during the Hurricane Katrina crisis really took me off guard.

One never has to worry about being pleasantly surprised with Camille Paglia. I can’t think of another figure who so blatantly exploits the personal tragedies of other human beings - as with Shepard and Brown Simpson - for their own purely selfish and self-aggrandizing purposes. She truly is an extraordinarily nasty piece of work.

Comment #35: John D.  on  11/13  at  03:10 PM

Whoops, forgot to add: It doesn’t surprise me in the least to find Paglia cuddling up to Sarah Palin. Like calls to like, after all. They’re both essentially grifters and con artists.

Comment #36: John D.  on  11/13  at  03:14 PM

I’ll ask Christina the same questions I’ve been asking other Palin supporters:  which of her foreign affairs policies did you find most appealing?  How about her energy plans—how do you think that someone whose state gets massive payments from oil companies would handle dealing with those oil companies for all 50 states?

Oh, but if I ask actual policy questions like that, I’m just meeeaaaannnnn.  You sound like the cheerleader in algebra class who doesn’t understand why the teacher keeps giving her a failing grade just because she doesn’t turn in her homework.

Comment #37: Mnemosyne  on  11/13  at  03:15 PM

She’s far from being the only self-promoting whore

Whoa.  Not cool, dude.  Stick to the perfectly serviceable “grifter” and “con artist.”

Comment #38: jfpbookworm  on  11/13  at  03:25 PM

Amanda is one of those self-loathing whites.

Yeah, I’m one of those too, but it’s because of my shameful love of Art Deco furnishings.

Comment #39: Rugged in Montana  on  11/13  at  04:29 PM

I certainly do feel like I know Sarah Palin.  I know her as a backstabbing grifter, one of the popular kids in school who never grew up and who applies high school meanspiritedness and cronyism to city and state government.  She’s also shameless enough to use her special needs baby as a prop.

Comment #40: keshmeshi  on  11/13  at  04:35 PM

My experience with the right wing women of the blogosphere has been eye opening! They are the funniest, sweetest, brightest women! (Not to mention far more glam then the typical women’s lib set.)

My lipstick and high heels say fuck you.

Comment #41: killjoy  on  11/13  at  04:37 PM

My lipstick and high heels say fuck you.

Look - I was told that clothes were not an invitation to sexual advances.  Can you all make up your minds?

Comment #42: Phoenician in a time of Romans  on  11/13  at  05:32 PM

I particularly like Paglia’s assertions about Palin’s record:

As for the Democrats who sneered and howled that Palin was unprepared to be a vice-presidential nominee—what navel-gazing hypocrisy! What protests were raised in the party or mainstream media when John Edwards, with vastly less political experience than Palin, got John Kerry’s nod for veep four years ago? And Gov. Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas, for whom I lobbied to be Obama’s pick and who was on everyone’s short list for months, has a record indistinguishable from Palin’s.

Sebelius’ CV:

Kansas House of Representatives             1986-1994
Elected as Kansas Insurance Commissioner   1995-2003
Kansas Governor                             2003-present.

22 years in elected public office, all at the state level. 

Edwards’ CV:

US Senate 1998-2005

7 years in public office, at the national level.

Palin’s CV:

City Councillor, Wasilla: 1992-1996
Mayor of Wasilla, 1996-2002.
Appointed to Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, Feb 2003-Jan 2004 (resigned)
Governor of Alaska, 2006-2008.

12 years in elected public office, 10 of them at the civic level, serving an town of 5,500 people. I don’t count the Oil & Gas posting, as it was an appointment.

When Sebelius first entered the Kansas legislature, Palin was attending the U of Idaho on a Beauty Pageant scholarship. Commensurate experience my flabby white tuckus.

Comment #43: jrochest  on  11/13  at  05:41 PM

Shorter Christina: “Well, fine, I may be stupid, naive, and a complete tool…but you’re, like, not *pretty* or Christian! Stomp! You’re SO not getting invited to my slumber party!”

Come back when you’re done with puberty. Sheesh.

Comment #44: Well, what?  on  11/13  at  08:10 PM

p.s. those “pretty ladies” are nice to you because they know you’re stupid enough to fall for it.

Comment #45: Well, what?  on  11/13  at  08:18 PM

“Women’s Lib?” Parody, right?

Comment #46: Rockit  on  11/13  at  11:57 PM
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