God bless Sarah Palin. Whether you agree with her or not, one has to admire the passion and dedication she has for our nation. She will probably not run for office again, but she has inspired many to brave the nastiness of politics for the greater good of public service to our country.

Hahahahahahahaha

True, @1. SP did prove to the world that it was possible to be stupid, hypocritical, a money grubber, and a liar and still run for public office.

@1: for once i think you're being ironic.

"putting your picture on the front of your own "book" is lame. #FakeHumanBeing"

I'm amused that someone who likens themself to an existentialist philosopher is getting their panties in a twist over Sarah Palin. Classic case of her idiot fans who claim to be "readers" without any understanding or comprehension.

@1: You mean when she quit her governing job mid-term to make money on the book/lecture circut?

That passion and dedication to her nation?

She is passionate and dedicated to her purse, which she fattens by making feeble minded people think she is a dedicated and passionate patriot.

Not cool, never wish cancer on anyone.

I would have gone with "Now words will be the second nastiest thing coming out of her mouth".

Glad to see you're not letting the turkeys get you down.

But, man! What a bunch of gobblers!

Dan, you're an asshole. That's hardly breaking news. So am I. Neither is that.

Sarah's one of the most likable people I've ever met. But Jeebus, she's dumb. I mean, bag-of-rocks dumb.

Oh well. What any of us thinks won't change the world anyway.

@7: Much better!

Noted: Phoebe in Wallingford, already high @8:23AM.

@10 actually, what Dan thinks has changed the world, q.v.It Gets Better Project.

But your other part is correct, what you think is inconsequential and useless.

If Palin commits suicide, then it's bullying and I will tell Dan, "Shame." (No exclamation point.)

Wait, one of the critics says putting your picture on the front of your own book is lame.

Didn't Palin's picture appear on the cover of her "own" book?

If you spend 5 mins talking with her, you come away completely understanding how and why her kids turned out to be so trashy and such disappointments.

@11 - That should read : "Already TOO high @ 8:23AM"

Seriously, one of the stupidest comments to ever come out of Wallingford...

@14

Oh, after the jump.

Yeah, Dan, you weren't being a bully, you were being a dick. I don't know why people can't tell the difference. Commentators (including politicians) are dicks all the time. Sometimes they catch hell for it (and even lose their job) but it is not bullying.

The speech itself was fairly well written and presented. I think she was surprised (as I was) at how tepid the response was. She had some good lines and was expecting a big roar from the crowd but only got a few claps. She just isn't relevant anymore, even though she is probably as good a politician as ever. What I find so striking (and this is typical) is how hypocritical the speech is. She makes a good point about emotion -- maybe we shouldn't base our policies on it. But then she spends the rest of the speech making arguments that are based purely on emotion (gun control or restrictions on tobacco advertisement equal loss of freedom). To make matters worse, the emotion she (and fellow Republicans) so often evoke is an us versus them, tribal mentality. Such emotions are downright scary, if you know anything about history or world affairs.

i miss being high at 8:20 a.m.

Once again, "led," not "lead."

@12, no, IGBP didn't "change the world." But it's a small step. That's about the best any of us will ever manage before we fade into obscurity.

Actually, I think the fact that Palin puts a picture of herself on her book covers supports the idea that its a "lame" thing to do. Sorry Dan.

@ Fifty-Two-Eighty If you think the IGBP didn't "change the world", you need to watch some of the videos at itgetsbetter.org. There are thousands of testaments from young adults as to how much better their world and their lives got because of Dan and Terry and IGB.

What's the opposite of "aging gracefully"?

@23, I think IGBP didn't change the world as he perceives it. That I can certainly believe.

At least Sarah Palin helped popularize "ass clown".

@7' I agree with you sentiment on cancer. However, I think you have the nastiness ranking wrong. I would rather lick up her spit chew juice than listen to her talk.

Hey, Dan, I'm not sure but I don't think that's really Soren Kierkegaard.

I actually think that Dan changed the world more with Santorum than with the It Gets Better project. Just my opinion.

@24 "meth addict"

On a side note, Palin's not aging well. It's like all her meat-beer-junk-food diet is catching up with her. I'm assuming she doesn't eat like a stereotypically health-conscious, Earth-conscious liberal. It'd be funny if she did.

Also, I think Phoebe is a blog thread masochist. That's why she says patently stupid stuff like that. Supreme Ruler might be the same way.

She's in Ann Coulter territory. Let her wither away. Don't give her a chance to remain relevant.

Caribou Barbie. No comment, I just love saying Caribou Barbie.

@32: No, I am simply acknowledging credit where credit is due.

Oh no, you've made a few Twitter enemies! I know how much their misspelled words must hurt you. :(

@35: Credit for what? Well, besides tanking the McCain candidacy, and sparing our country from another 4-8 years of GOP insanity in the White House.

Alright, I take it back, she is kind of a hero, albeit unwittingly. Which is fitting, because she seems to lack all wit.

@37, I couldn't think of anything she'd done, but she did succeed through her failure. Either she is an idiot savant or a vast left-wing conspiracy.

I guess it's too much for Palin to be asked to get dressed up for a major public speaking event. Hard to show off the new goods while wearing a jacket, though. Still, I'm sure the tee shirt was freshly washed (by someone on staff at her hotel).

@18: You have a remarkably low bar for what sort of speech deserves the description "well written and presented". What came out of Palin's mouth here was meandering, stuttering, and full of so many fallacies and distortions of the truth as to amount to a twelve minute Gish gallop. The tepid response was probably due to even the dumbest of the mouth-breathers in the room knowing she wasn't making any sense with half of what she said, like this gem starting at 7:00 (sic, of course):

"As usual, the men and the women who created this country and secured our freedom, they have the answer. They wrote our founding documents... Our charters of freedom, for a moral and a religious people. They understood that a free people must either nurture morality, they lose their freedom."

@35: If you wanted to give credit where credit is due, you'd credit her for arguably doing more to curdle the tone in politics than anyone in the last decade. Or were you not alive in 2008?

@32, no, Palin is a quitter, plain and simple. There is no credit to give to her. She abandoned the people who elected her to go off and work for Fox News.

I have never liked her, so my opinion hasn't changed, but come up to Alaska and talk to those who supported her and you will find many of their attitudes have changed. Alaskans don't take kindly to those who abandon us and even those who strongly supported her candidacy as governor and vice president, turned their backs on her after she resigned as governor. One Alaskan blogger only refers to her as "the Quitter".

The credit she can take is bringing down the McCain 2008 presidential race and for that, I do say thank you. Otherwise, she is nothing more than a mouthpiece for right-wing conspiracy nuts.

Oh, and while I do agree that one shouldn't wish cancer on another, I will say that she can have my Crohn's disease any time. It's incredibly painful, makes it so you can't eat, and requires lots of doctor visits and more colonoscopies than you can count (4 in one year is my personal record). Considering the amount of shit that comes out of her mouth, I think it's only fitting that she have an ailment that requires her to be scoped on a regular basis.

@39: Correction, should be 2008 presidential campaign, not just 2008.

@1: your lady boner is showing...

How is it hypocritical to wish for someone's death? Also, what is wrong with wishing for someone's death? Slurs and death wishes are totally different things.

@35 I definitely credit her with an Obama win, so I guess for that we should all be grateful.

I tried watching the video of her speech but couldn't do it so I started randomly forwarding and listening to a few seconds at a time (I'm bored) and I swear every time I forwarded and started listening again she was saying the words "free" "freedom" or "freedoms". Jesus fucking Christ, it's hard to have hope when you realize just how fucking stupid you have to be to buy into what that cunt is selling.

@32: Who cares? Her target demographic either enjoys women with plastic surgery or IS a woman who enjoys plastic surgery.

@46

In all fairness, she's never plastic-surgered her boobs, as of yet. She uses inflatable water bras, on the verge of exploding one day, and quite empty the next.

Nor has she plastic-surgered her galoping alopecia. She's a all-natural proud wig lady. Who takes care not to move her head too boldly, just in case.

'Cause that's what mavericks do, gracefully balance their toupee.

Probably, but the family is vain as hell. I don't picture her aging as gracefully once the wigs and waterbras fail to cover up time.

Whenever I see a picture of Sarah Palin after a long period without seeing one, I experience a moment of surprise that it isn't Tina Fey.

Why are we crediting her with the Obama win exactly? She probably contributed but I don't think there's a case to be made that McCain would have won with anyone else. McCain torpedoed his campaign long before Palin fired a shot.