gone fishin’

I seem to have a severe case of “what's the point?” disease. I know there is one (a point, that is) somewhere buried in the activity of writing posts here, but at the moment I'm having trouble seeing it, so this is to let you know that I am not going to worry about it for a little while longer. When I feel like posting again, I'll drop an email to the few occasional readers I know about. In the mean time, go read Obsidian Wings, Digby, LG&M, Balloon Juice, or any of the other fine blogs on the list at right. Thanks.

bernie’s common sense

Via Crooks & Liars, Bernie Sanders on health care:

a sadness

It’s one thing when I don’t feel like posting trivialities here for a few days. It’s quite another when Hilzoy decides to hang it up. Her sane, civil, and very smart commentary at Obsidian Wings has been a rare source of the wisdom we ought to expect, but almost never get, from professional philosophers. I will deeply miss her.

roadside blossom of the day

This appears to me to be Arrowwood, Viburnum dentatum, based on my wildflower book and about 20 minutes of poking around via teh Google. The toothy serrated leaves look right, and the flower clusters look right, but none of the photos I've found in print or on the web has that reddish ring-shaped marking. So maybe I'm wrong. V. dentatum is often grown as a decorative shrub, but I found this growing wild by the side of the road.

bygone american automobiles VI

Here’s another one, from 1947. Once again, Wikipedia has the history.

no sympathy

I’ve seen younger bloggers, expressing some guarded sympathy for Robert McNamara. But no sane person of the boomer generation or older—no one who actually lived through the Vietnam war era, whether veteran or bystander—feels anything but contempt. You can separate sane from crazy on that criterion alone. The young who have gone all squishy after seeing "The Fog of War" should go back and read some history. McNamara’s late perception of (some of) his errors is cold comfort for the millions of dead and maimed civilians, the ruined lives, the names on that black wall in Washington, and our ruined polity. Think how different the world might look if not for that stupid, unnecessary war.  Joe Galloway is on the mark.

final palin post

Stupid narcissism, or narcissistic stupidity—you choose. From ABC News:

But as for whether another pursuit of national office, as she did less than a year ago when she joined Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in the race for the White House, would result in the same political blood sport, Palin said there is a difference between the White House and what she has experienced in Alaska. If she were in the White House, she said, the "department of law" would protect her from baseless ethical allegations.

"I think on a national level, your department of law there in the White House would look at some of the things that we've been charged with and automatically throw them out," she said.

There is no “Department of Law” at the White House.

roadside blossom of the day

Rough Fruited Cinquefoil, Potentilla recta. I think.

4th of july...the aftermath

h/t lgm

i finally post about palin

I've settled down in front of the computer at least five times this weekend with the intention of writing something about Sarah Palin’s weird resignation and her even weirder explanations for it, without getting anywhere. And I've noticed a lot of prominent bloggers and print commentators whose reaction is still some variation or elaboration of “WTF?”

Of course she has her defenders, although the right wing talkers and bloggers are far from unanimous. Bill Kristol thinks the decision could be "shrewd." (If you think I'm going to poke around to find a link for that, you overestimate me). But when has he ever been right about anything?

If we look at her resignation from her expressed viewpoint, granting both that she genuinely wants to do what’s best for Alaska and that she has some idea what that entails, then it makes no sense at all. As Hilzoy points out, there's a lot a “lame duck” governor can accomplish, unburdened by re-election fundraising and campaigning.

There were rumors, made believable by her many known ethical lapses, that the Feds were investigating and that an indictment might be in the offing. Now the FBI is on record denying that, and Palin’s lawyers are threatening everyone from Alaskan blogger Shannyn Moore to the New York Times for reporting these rumors. A patently ridiculous threat, of course—Palin is a public figure, and it's true that there have been rumors. I've never seen anyone insist that the rumors are flatly true, and even that would be protected speech in this country under these circumstances. (Of course, IANAL). But it seems clear at this point that she didn't resign because of legal trouble, much as she appears to deserve it. (Hey, Mr. Whiplash, er, I mean Van Flein, why dontcha sue ME? I could use the publicity).

Then there's the “think of the poor children” argument—she resigned essentially because David Letterman made a crude joke about her daughter. But I don't remember Bill Clinton resigning because John McCain made a crude joke about Chelsea. It comes with the territory. Politicians (and, unfortunately, their children) need thick skins.

The only explanation that makes any sense to me is the one that diagnoses her with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I am far from the first to suggest it; Google now lists two million hits for the search terms "palin + npd." But (although IANAP[sychologist] either) I have a bit of relevant personal experience, having had significant and painful interaction with a person with that clinical diagnosis.

For the person I'm referring to, everything was about her. Everything. If there was a broken board in a floor somewhere, it was there to twist her ankle. Rules about job promotion or degree completion were there to prevent her from getting the promotion or finishing the degree. She assiduously acted the part of a caring, charitable, outgoing, fun-loving friend. But eventually it became clear that all of these attributes were facets not of her, but the character she was playing on the stage of life, virtuous but victimized, always victimized, by the malevolence of others.

This person was way smarter than Sarah Palin, so she did a much better job of anticipating people’s reactions. She was exceeding cagey—but in the endgame, when she sued someone close to me—someone who in the course of her social work career was trying to help her—the court case brought her psychiatrist’s diagnosis into public view.

According to the shrinks, people like this are motivated by a deeply unconscious conviction that they are flawed and undeserving, that there's something wrong with them, something unforgivable. In compensation, they act a part. They perform the role of a good human being. The quality of their performance depends on their talents and their intelligence. Palin, being not that bright, picked an ideologically right-wing model of virtue to strut on life’s stage.

Briefly, it seemed to work for her. McCain made his VP choice, and she was thrust into the limelight. Rightist pundits masturbated over her image.

But eventually reality intervened. She wasn't elected Vice President; in fact, she may well have cost McCain the presidency. Alaska, like every other state, has problems that need to be dealt with. And she, having no idea how to deal with them, went into a frenzy of victimization—which is typical of the NPD style.

Who would have thought that Katie Couric could set such a process in motion, just by asking a few not-too-hard questions? But Palin couldn't answer them, since they weren't in the script she was performing, and the victim characterology got its start. It built and built, through the lost election and Letterman jokes, and eventually got to be too much.

So she quit, because in her narcissist’s mind, her victimization is the primary thing to be understood about the world. You and I, according to this view, will now understand her as a victim—of the traitorous left, of the media, even of the more rational of McCain's advisors.