Help Palin Out by Barry Hollander

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Help Palin Out

by Barry Hollander | 3, Add your Comment | Apr 27, 2010

Sarah Palin needs a new line. Suddenly, no one is chanting: “Drill Baby Drill.”

Maybe it’s the 11 dead from an oil well explosion last week in the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe it’s the oil slick the size of Rhode Island now oozing its way toward the wetlands of Louisiana. Or maybe Palin hasn’t been making many public appearances this week.

When I heard the news, I immediately called my wife, who called her sister, who said our nephew — who works the offshore wells in Louisiana — was not working that week. Good news, at least for us.

I’m not making political hay out of the loss of life and the potential devastation to Louisiana’s priceless marshes and wetlands. I’m a moderate when it comes to drilling. We need to drill more and in a few places likely to get me tossed out of the Sierra Club, if I actually belonged to the Sierra Club. But I also recognize there are limits, there are places best left untouched, and I can read the numbers. The amount of oil we can produce isn’t all that much in the grand scheme of things. Saudi Arabia we ain’t.

No, what pisses me off more are chants by people who’ve probably never seen an oil well, the same folks who think a line that would fit on a bumpersticker equals wisdom.

“Drill Baby Drill.” Sounds like a bunch of sophomoric frat boys egging on a fellow member as he, well, never mind what he might be doing. Needless to say, it’s a stupid chant. Which brings us back to Palin.

Where the hell is Sarah Palin?

On Fox News, I suppose. She’s sure not leading the “drill” chant this week and not for a couple of months until the political statute of limitations on tasteless and brainless rants manages to expire. I suppose she could make do with “Mine Baby Mine” as the West Virginia coal mine tragedy sinks slowly — but not completely — off the news agenda, but it seems a bit soon for that, even for her.

This leaves our favorite former governor with a shortage of bumpersticker chants for rallies, and therefore way too much time to fill with her own words. She’s needs help, so let’s market test a few:

Spend Baby Spend (no, wait, that would work only for Dems).
Tax Baby Tax (ditto).
No Baby No (er, I’m not going there).
Deregulate Baby Deregulate (too many syllables, and stupid too, given the financial meltdown).
Bomb Baby Bomb (insert Iran or North Korea, depending on the week).
Hair Baby Hair (maybe as a chant aimed at Romney?).
Dance Baby Dance (c’mon, you know some Palin kid will eventually end up on Dancing with the Stars).
2012 Baby 2012 (which is either a new science fiction TV show or a vow to run).
Obamacare Baby Obamacare (this sounds odd, as in Michelle needs to keep an eye on this woman).
Baby Baby Baby (for those special nights, or special crowds. Everyone smokes after).

So help a former governor out. Provide her with some new chants with your comments, material she can use. Somehow I don’t think any of mine above will make the cut.

###

Barry Hollander

Former hack at daily newspapers, now hack journalism professor at the University of Georgia, number cruncher and longtime Net user, caffeine addict, writer of weird fiction, and a semi-retired god in an online fantasy world where godhood suits him quite well, thank you very much. He also blogs at http://www.whatpeopleknow.com

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http://www.youtube.com/cyprespond Monica Smith

I suspect that “drill baby drill” was some consultant’s joke that Sarah didn’t get. Her ability to remember lines is a lot like Dubya’s — largely dependent on habit and repetition. Conservatives have memory problems and are time-deficient — i.e. not cognizant of the passage of time.
On the other hand, since Sarah apparently learns by repetition until a behavior becomes habitual, “drill” is probably the operative word, so changing the appellant won’t do much good. The drill is what makes the instinct-driven learn.
Sarah’s behavioral patterns appeal to her audience, as did Dubya’s. People recognize themselves in her, even though they may not be self-aware. Making sport of Sarah will simply re-enforce the resentment her groupies already feel. As it did the followers of Dubya.
What conservatives want is respect. That should be something liberals, who pride themselves on valuing diversity, should be able to deliver.
If we want to address the hypocrisy of the people who are manipulating the groupists for their own purposes, we might consider this slogan
“TAX AND SPEND--NOT LEND AND SPEND”
Conservatives are bi-polar in the sense that whatever they oppose, there’s always a preferred alternative that they don’t talk about. In the case of “taxes paid” it’s “money lent.” In other words, the money men, rather than pay taxes to the public treasury, prefer to lend and collect dividends. Moreover, in their bi-polar world, if tax collections are restricted, then public corporations will have no alternative but to borrow. This is how the transfer of public assets into private wealth is accomplished. Obama is short-circuiting this pattern by simply printing money and passing it out to the states. The problem with this is that the money men, as soon as the money flows into their vaults, try to sequester it to put them back in control.
http://likethedew.com/ Keith Graham

I think what Ms. Palin’s been saying of late is mainly “Me Baby Me” and “Money Baby Money.”
Cliff Green

Believers and non-believers should dial up “Gulf Coast Highway” by Emmy Lou Harris and Willie Nelson. Listen to it in solitude and let it be your prayer for those 11 souls who departed this life on that oil rig last week.

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