# Scum and villainy: Republicans already throwing Palin under the bus. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 6, 2008, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420 "2008-11-06T05:44:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/61 "2008-11-06T17:15:08Z")
> [@Antinor01](#): > > It wouldn’t surprise me if she’s had one or more abortions. Or she’s hiding an old STD. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/62 "2008-11-06T17:15:34Z")
> [@Icerigger](#): > > Andrew Sullivan is still pushing the non-release of her medical records as promised. I don’t believe the phony pregnancy angle so what could be in those records she doesn’t want the public to know? Oh, gods of earth & air–WHO CARES? She LOST THE DAMN ELECTION!!! Elsewhere I’ve written that Governor Palin is an hubristically confident moron; the greatest tragedy of her life is that she was born a century too late for the career she was best suited for: wet-nurse. But she’s lost the election. There is no damn reason for the public to have access to her medical records, and it is inappropriate to seek them. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/63 "2008-11-06T17:15:37Z")
Sure, I can fully understand that this information would eventually leak out, but this is so incredibly cold and ruthless. This thread is somewhat less about how ludicrously unqualified Palin is (and she is. Thank God we dodged the bullet there.), but more about how the RNC is perfectly willing to jettison her without a look back, and all that less than a day after wanting her to be VP. I know that politics is a nasty business, but man. Wait til the campaign is cold out of common decency, huh? And of course Fox News is gleefully dancing all over her twitching corpse. Manipulative, disloyal bastards. I just don’t see any philosophical changes happening for the Republicans. No drift toward moderation. No self-examination. They’re going to groom Bobby Jindal for the next race, just because he’s a strong minority politician, not because he represents any sort of basic change from the neoconservative agenda. ---
**Author:** ![davidw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@davidw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidw)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/64 "2008-11-06T17:18:06Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > They saw where things were going and also saw that Palin was positioning herself as the new Queen Bee of the GOP. The people who actually run the GOP (the business interests) did NOT want an actual, sincere populist conservative Christian to get the bit in her teeth. They knew they had to undercut her. Though they did leak a few bits and pieces before election day, the major stuff (like in the Newsweek article) was being held back until after. They do NOT want Sarah Palin to be the frontrunner of the GOP…she’s not from the correct wing of the party. You know, I’m a Dem, so take what I say for what it’s worth, but I think Huckabee is sooo much better than Palin as the leader of the populist conservative Christian wing of the Republican party. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/65 "2008-11-06T17:20:10Z")
> [@Great\_Dave](#): > > fuck that, you shouldn’t be able to graduate from 8th grade!! Canada, USA, and Mexico. how hard is that??? I guess you never finished the 8th grade either… you’re a little short there. > **[List of sovereign states and dependent territories in North America](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_countries)** > > The following is a list of sovereign countries and dependent territories in North America, a continent that covers the landmass north of the Colombia-Panama border as well as the islands of the Caribbean. > All of the states listed here are member states of the United Nations. > This section contains areas that are not sovereign states nor integral parts of the sovereign states listed above. These include dependent territories and integral areas of primarily non-North American states. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/66 "2008-11-06T17:20:38Z")
Well, **Icerigger** , the alternatives are few. First assumption: the concealment of her medical records was politically motivated. Therefore, what could be in her medical history that could cause her ultra-social-conservative base to turn away from her? Possibility 1: an abortion. Possibility 2: a sexually-transmitted disease. Possibility 3: proof of mixed-race ancestry. Possibility 4: a terminal disease. #1 is the most damaging to social conservatives; #2 would be embarrassing but not fatal to the campaign. #3 would have mixed results. #4 would undercut the argument that she’d be able to backstop the aged McCain. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/67 "2008-11-06T17:21:49Z")
Possibility 5: proof of an underlying mental disorder. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/68 "2008-11-06T17:21:58Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I guess you never finished the 8th grade either… you’re a little short there. > > [List of sovereign states and dependent territories in North America - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_North_American_countries) The situation is a trifle more ambiguous than your list implies. I personally would say that the North America includes Central America, but not everyone agrees. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/69 "2008-11-06T17:22:21Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > I just don’t see any philosophical changes happening for the Republicans. No drift toward moderation. No self-examination. They’re going to groom Bobby Jindal for the next race, just because he’s a strong minority politician, not because he represents any sort of basic change from the neoconservative agenda. The Republicans seem to me to be all surface. There’s stuff going on below what we see (or rather, what they project for us to see), but it’s not stuff that’s congruent with the visual. They picked Palin because a) she is a woman, and b) she’s a conservative Christian (or, at least, pays excellent lip service to being a CC). They’re definitely looking at Jindal because a) he’s a minority, and b) he’s a conservative Christian. Nothing the Republicans actually do involves any coherent philosophy of government for the greater good of the nation. Everything is style over substance. The Bush White House has probably been the closest thing to an Old West building facade that we’ve had in decades. It’s like the Republicans are an empty party. They don’t actually have any governing philosophy anymore. There is no such thing as an actual Republican thinker anymore. They’ve alienated the few right-wing intellectuals they had in this presidential campaign, and they lost more to death in the last 8 years. I think they have the potential to kind of coast along as a shell of an actual political party for another decade or two, but unless they address some of this stuff, they’re going to continue spiralling into irrelevancy. ---
**Author:** ![Karyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/fbc32d/32.png) [@Karyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karyn)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/70 "2008-11-06T17:25:06Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > They saw where things were going and also saw that Palin was positioning herself as the new Queen Bee of the GOP. The people who actually run the GOP (the business interests) did NOT want an actual, sincere populist conservative Christian to get the bit in her teeth. They knew they had to undercut her. Though they did leak a few bits and pieces before election day, the major stuff (like in the Newsweek article) was being held back until after. They do NOT want Sarah Palin to be the frontrunner of the GOP…she’s not from the correct wing of the party. That makes sense to me. Hopefully it’s sign that they’re figuring out that a big part of their base is dragging them down. It will be interesting to see where they go from here. When she said that she was going to be in charge of the Senate I pictured jaws dropping all over Washington and thinking ‘like hell she is’. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/71 "2008-11-06T17:25:42Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Please pardon the egregious use of this election cycle’s most onerous political cliche, but it’s particularly appropriate here. Fox News is running the following story: > > [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWZHTJsR4Bc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWZHTJsR4Bc) > > …in which the Republicans give the “inside scoop” on the problems they had with Palin, including her astonishing ignorance about basic geography, to say nothing of geopolitics. > > She didn’t know what countries make up NAFTA. > > She didn’t know that Africa is a continent. > > Shockingly stupid person. Given. Fuck her. Given. > > But what’s killing me is that the RNC, less than 24 hours after trying to put her next in succession to the fucking PRESIDENT, is now leaving her out in the cold (and I ain’t talking about Alaska here). They have thrown her to the wolves, probably to make room for another fresh Republican face. > > And the gears of politics turn. Heavy, cruel, and crushing, but they turn. > > As friend put it, “They eat their own.” And the democrats aren’t guilty of any of that, ever, no siree. Bah, they’re all politicians, what more do you expect? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/72 "2008-11-06T17:25:48Z")
> [@davidw](#): > > You know, I’m a Dem, so take what I say for what it’s worth, but I think Huckabee is sooo much better than Palin as the leader of the populist conservative Christian wing of the Republican party. Absolutely. Huckabee is intelligent…he’s also a conservative Christian, but he’s an actual CC. His economic policies are populist, and very Christian (as in following the philosophies of Jesus). His only problem this time was money…the business Republicans (the ones with the money) were scared to death of him because of those economic policies. Here’s some nightmare fuel for us Dems…Huckabee takes his lessons from Obama and encourages small-dollar donations from hundreds of thousands of evangelical and fundamentalist donors. I have no doubt that such a tack will earn him scads of funds. And that could be a problem for us, either in 2012 or 2016. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/73 "2008-11-06T17:26:53Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Possibility 5: proof of an underlying mental disorder. I said it would have to be _damaging_ to her base. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/74 "2008-11-06T17:28:48Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > Oh, gods of earth & air–WHO CARES? > > She LOST THE DAMN ELECTION!!! This one. But it will soon be dark again and she will rise from her icy coffin. Time to drive a stake through her heart. And you can’t blame a journalist for trying to find out what has clearly been hidden, and for asking why they are hiding it. Hell, I’d like to have experts examine McCain’s records also with sufficient time to analyze them. But, since he is through, it is less urgent. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/75 "2008-11-06T17:31:54Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > The Republicans seem to me to be all surface. There’s stuff going on below what we see (or rather, what they project for us to see), but it’s not stuff that’s congruent with the visual. They picked Palin because a) she is a woman, and b) she’s a conservative Christian (or, at least, pays excellent lip service to being a CC). They’re definitely looking at Jindal because a) he’s a minority, and b) he’s a conservative Christian. Nothing the Republicans actually do involves any coherent philosophy of government for the greater good of the nation. Everything is style over substance. The Bush White House has probably been the closest thing to an Old West building facade that we’ve had in decades. > > It’s like the Republicans are an empty party. They don’t actually have any governing philosophy anymore. There is no such thing as an actual Republican thinker anymore. They’ve alienated the few right-wing intellectuals they had in this presidential campaign, and they lost more to death in the last 8 years. > > I think they have the potential to kind of coast along as a shell of an actual political party for another decade or two, but unless they address some of this stuff, they’re going to continue spiralling into irrelevancy. I would suspect that you are correct, except that there is a very strong conservative core in America. I believe a lot of people will vote conservative simply to spite the liberals, regardless of what core values the conservative party actually espouses. I think a lot of the future of the Democratic party (and progressive political philosophy in general) depends very strongly on what kind of performance the incoming administration can produce. If he’s perceived to be another Jimmy Carter (which is already high on the Righties’ talking point list), then we’ll have another rightward swing in 4 (or maybe 8) years. IOW: I really, really, REALLY hope Obama’s up for the job, and doesn’t simply prove to be a half-competent, charismatic demagogue. Sidebar discussion: what’s the future of American conservatism? As a moderate, I am a huge fan of checks and balances. I believe there MUST be a strong conservative voice in American politics (fiscally, that is. Social conservatives can go jump in a lake.) How does the RNC actually reconnect with solid, honorable conservatism, and lose the hyper-religious Guns-n-God “family values” horseshit? ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/76 "2008-11-06T17:32:51Z")
I don’t see why this giving me ginormous wood is any of your business! -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/77 "2008-11-06T17:33:34Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > This one. But it will soon be dark again and she will rise from her icy coffin. Time to drive a stake through her heart. Governor Palin cannot be a vampire for the same reason that Milhouse van Houton cannot be a geek. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/78 "2008-11-06T17:33:38Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > This one. But it will soon be dark again and she will rise from her icy coffin. Time to drive a stake through her heart. > > And you can’t blame a journalist for trying to find out what has clearly been hidden, and for asking why they are hiding it. Hell, I’d like to have experts examine McCain’s records also with sufficient time to analyze them. But, since he is through, it is less urgent. Again: thread not so much about Palin, but more about the RNC and what this behavior tells us about them. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/79 "2008-11-06T17:34:56Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > Sure, I can fully understand that this information would eventually leak out, but this is so incredibly cold and ruthless. This thread is somewhat less about how ludicrously unqualified Palin is (and she is. Thank God we dodged the bullet there.), but more about how the RNC is perfectly willing to jettison her without a look back, and all that less than a day after wanting her to be VP. > > I know that politics is a nasty business, but man. Wait til the campaign is cold out of common decency, huh? > > And of course Fox News is gleefully dancing all over her twitching corpse. Manipulative, disloyal bastards. > > I just don’t see any philosophical changes happening for the Republicans. No drift toward moderation. No self-examination. They’re going to groom Bobby Jindal for the next race, just because he’s a strong minority politician, not because he represents any sort of basic change from the neoconservative agenda. Why disloyal? Fox is actually reporting the news, and good for them. As for people in the campaign, why would they feel loyalty to someone imposed on them who was harmful to their cause? Maybe some of them were patriotic enough to be as scared of the possibility of her becoming president as we were. (Africa a country, sheesh.) Plus it seems she was obnoxious and abrasive, felt entitled, and never seems to have reflected on her shortcomings. I bet a lot of angst was bottled up there. If this disaster forces both parties to really vet their candidates again, that would be great. It was done after the Eagleton disaster, but it seems they have to be reminded to do it every so often. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420/80 "2008-11-06T17:35:42Z")
> [@buttonjockey308](#): > > And the democrats aren’t guilty of any of that, ever, no siree. > > Bah, they’re all politicians, what more do you expect? Honest curiosity, with zero snark added: tell me about it. I’m ignorant of any comparable strategic moves by the Dems, but I’m not naive (and to be fair, I did say “not that I have any proof that the Dems are any different”) and I would like to be educated about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/scum-and-villainy-republicans-already-throwing-palin-under-the-bus/471420.md?page=5)