It's Alive! [Updated]

‘CBS should be ashamed for continually providing a forum to propagate lies. Consider the source of the most recent attention-getting lies—those who would sell their body for money reflect a desperate need for attention and are likely to say and do anything for even more attention’.

How’s that for the mother-in-law from hell? Yes, the quote is from Sarah Palin speaking publicly about Levi Johnston, the father of her precious grandbaby. I guess that’s one way to defend ‘family values’.

Speaking of selling one’s body for money, Palin is currently extorting $100,000 from Iowa Republicans for the chance to come flash her beauty-pageant mug at them. It sure isn’t for intellectual stimulation.

And speaking of family values, who knew that just-withdrawn Republican candidate for Congress, Deirdre Scozzofava, had toiled away patiently in the New York State Assembly as head of something called the Republican Task Force on Sex Crimes against Children & Women? The days when Republicans can even dabble in such dubiously feministic pursuits are fast disappearing, and Scozzofava’s upstate New York district is about to provide dramatic proof.

Scozzofava got involved in sexual abuse issues as mayor of a town called Gouvernour, New York, when a gang rape investigation took place involving a woman in a bar, back in the time when a woman’s drunkenness could be credibly used to discount a rape accusation. You might know the story: Jodie Foster dramatized it in The Accused.

The Watertown Daily Times editorialized that Scozzofava ‘publicly said little, other than to attempt to protect her community against the national media as it descended on her village to describe it as a town without pity. But privately she was working with journalists, law officers, state politicians and anyone else who might be able to do anything to put those five SOBs in jail for raping a near comatose woman in her town and then bragging about it’.

Not that the people who benefited from Scozzofava’s earnest interest in such topics came to her defense when two boys’ club opponents piled on with all sorts of crypto-sexist tactics to eliminate her. They successfully showed that she would never win a beauty contest, leading to the conclusion that she didn’t deserve to go write laws in Washington. How telling that just as a camera-hogging, boneheaded bimbo like Palin becomes their darling, ‘conservative’ America grinds up a thoughtful professional woman like chopped chuck steak.

‘Conservative’ my upstate ass (I was born in that district)—these are Mongol Hordes attempting to sweep down upon us from the Asian steppe. The cynical Republican machine created this monster in the 1980s out of fundamentalist Christian paranoids to usher in the Reagan revolution and accumulate vast wealth. It has now emerged ready to eat daddy—and mommy.

[Update] Here’s what the now-official Republican candidate for the 23d District, teabagger Doug Hoffman, said about Scozzafava’s decision to drop out:

‘I think her statement clearly implies that the important thing from this point on is that all of us Republicans combine forces to make sure that we get a congressman that will represent the values and the ideals of the 23rd District, and I believe I am that person’.

There’s only one thing wrong with that—it’s totally made up. Here’s what Scozzafava actually said about quitting the race: ‘I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit’.

In other words, the departing Mrs S did not endorse as her party’s candidate for office the guy who helicoptered in (he doesn’t live in the district) and forced her out.

Civil War? If so, there is a God after all.