Oh fuck that.

I do sort of feel sorry for Palin. I mean, intellectually, of course I want her to rot in hell. But, it's tough to watch someone humiliate themselves on a national stage. Even if they are the antithesis of everything you stand for and believe in.

I'm certainly happy that she's crashing and burning, but it's getting more difficult to watch all of the interview clips. Both because of the humiliation factor and because it just makes it so much more obvious that McCains/the Republicans don't care at all about our country -- they only care about winning.

@1 says it all. She made the bed with degradation and insults. Now she has to lie in it.

Marting and Coates are obviously idiots. We're supposed to feel sympathy because Palin jumped in to the deep end without realizing that she can't swim? Fuck that. John McCain didn't force her to accept the nomination. Now that she's floundering I don't feel sorry for her in the least.

Is everyone forgetting that she could have, like, declined the nomination?

Was she hypnotized into accepting the nomination? Did they slip her a roofie? Why should I feel sorry for somebody who knowingly, proudly leapt at the chance to run for an office she was not even remotely qualified to hold?

Hopefully she'll return to her six-figure salary and governor's mansion after this blows over and recover from her humiliation in peace after another month's worth of feeling out of her depth. Maybe a couple hours on the tanning bed will help offset the Election Seasonal Affective Disorder she's experiencing.

Coates specifically said that he doesn't feel sorry for her. That doesn't mean McCain's campaign isn't "tremendously sad" and that choosing Palin for transparent, cynical, impulsive reasons wasn't an act of cruelty to her.

BTW, it is Judith Warner, not Miss Manners who wrote the NYT post. (and fuck Judith Warner's stupid comment) :)

Dan, you mean Judith Warner, not Judith Martin. Warner is the notorious Mad Mommy Blogger who whines about first-world problems like the spoiled little yuppie princess she is. Judith Martin is, of course, Miss Manners, who is, of course, a goddess.

I thought it. Clicked on the comments, and Robin Sparkles had already written it.

Fuck.
That.

there's a point in all of us where schadenfreude changes from joy to shame. we all cross it at different points. i've been feeling sorry for her from the minute i saw her when she accepted the invite from mccain.

at some point in the debate you'll start cringing, and hoping for her to get to the end without a breakdown.

"most crassest"?

OMG, someone PLEASE get Savage a proofreader.

Judith Martin DID NOT say what he says she said.

how is it that Matt Damon's the one who had the diamond-cutting pithy statement on the Palin phenomenon???

I have sympathy insofar as I've been in that position of trying to bullshit my way through something and getting totally called on it.

That sympathy totally dissolves in the face of the consideration that I was trying to bullshit my way into maybe the semifinal round of a high school debate tournament, or at worst, line cook job I wasn't really qualified for, and not the oval fucking office.

it's OK to feel sorry for her, as long as you don't vote for her. She is just the most prominent current example of the damage McCain's narcissistic, tactics-only, lazy, seat-of-the-pants personality can do, to the nation and to individuals who become his instruments along the way. Nor does her predicament reflect any sort of serious "decision" on McCain's part, any more than an impulsive "Any Craps" bet at the table would. He's just in this for the thrill of it, and jerks like him leave lots of victims--even if they should have known better--in their wakes. I think it would be a mistake to bet big that Palin will be on the ticket come November 4. If her negatives continue where they are or get worse, he may well "decide" he needs Lieberman. You know, to shake things up a bit.

No, we all have a duty to hope that her humiliation is as total and as public as Britney Spears's was on that awards show. That is the only way they ever learn. And by "they" I mean the people who have the insane hubris to think they can do what they obviously can't do, or who think they can get away with it, wing it, whatever. NO YOU CAN'T.

And yeah, if she were a man, say Stantorum or some other dim bulb, nobody would be feeling the least bit sorry. Which is sexist, duh.

And Coates gives way too much credit to McCain, because there is no way that McCrazy knew he was setting that poor little girl up for humiliation - or he wouldn't have done it. Because then he gets just as humiliated for picking her. No, he just assumed they could coach her on all that boring policy stuff; he just crashed another jet.

Fuck that bullshit, no-one forced her to accept the slot on the ticket. It's the biggest big time there is.

"There's no crying baseball [politics]."

speaking of McCain and gambling:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gerald-posner/the-questions-for-perot-a_b_130277.html

Yeah, fuck that shit. I don't feel sorry for her because she should have... SHOULD HAVE... said "no".

Stupid vapid whore.

She could walk away at any time.

It's hard to feel sorry for someone who's suffering by choice. It's impossible, however, when what's causing their suffering is their own acts of pure evil. Palin is a traitor to her country not just becuase she supports Alaska seceding from the Union (though that's enough!) but because she has to know now that she has no business trying to be the next President (which is what she would be in short order).

If she was actually a patriot, she would apologize, go away immediately and disappear from the national stage forever.

But should we ever feel sorry for her in her failed attempts to utterly destory this country? No.

I refuse to feel sorry for the pathetic waste of skin. She came out all high and mighty in her acceptance speech and then told Charlie Gibson that she had NO second thoughts about being VP.

And she tanked with Kate Couric. Just tanked. I don't feel sorry for her. I hate her and all the anti-intellectual bullshit that comes from her bottom-feeding party.

If she isn't happy in her current position, she can simply resign. There are no bars on the windows. I'm sure there are plenty of people willing to take her place.

if we presume these people do these things deliberately, it's tempting to think that picking Palin was a VRWC plot to make women look silly, little, and dumb.

(and wire explosive charges into 7WTC, etc.)

Has there been a Republican president actually in control since Nixon? Ford was a lackey, Reagan was senile, GHWB was a robot, GWB is a monkey... McCain is not really standing out in this crowd.

Middle America will start feeling sorry for her based on all the "mean" newspeople and politicians "picking on" her. Watch. If Mrs. Average Mom sees herself in palin, we're all in trouble.

I confess I feel a mild sympathetic cringe when I watch her completely embarrass herself at the hands of Katie Couric (Katie Couric of all people!!!). I mean, how can you not feel a twinge of sympathy for anyone that publicly humiliates themselves like that.

But that's as far as it goes. I don't feel any sympathy at all toward her as a person or the Republicans. I'm not the idiot on McCain's staff that suggested her as a good choice in the first place. I'm not the moron presidential candidate that actually selected this dim bulb to be his running mate. And I'm not said dim bulb who said "yes". They had any number of alternatives to avoid this disaster, but they picked her and she agreed.

Fuck them.

We should feel insulted as voters, not feel sorry for Palin.

In Texas, women of a certain class have a way of eviscerating women they do not like. They begin by listing their faults and failings with great accuracy, while being very careful to sound as if they feel sympathy for the object of their derison by suggesting she is unable to know any bettter and then bring it to a devastaing end with the simple phrase,
"bless her".

They then go on to step two which is "killing with kindness."

Maybe that is partly what is going on here. People just can't bring themselves to say they hate her in print. they want to escape the charge of being mean to woman, which I think is sexist in the context of the political arena.

NO SYMPATHY FOR PALIN!

But as a mother, I do feel sorry for her KIDS, and for Levi, too.

I'm totally in agreement with @1.

Palin, regardless of her innumerable shortcomings, has shown herself to be ruthlessly ambitious, and no doubt seized on this unprecedented opportunity to jump several rungs up the national political ladder on essentially a free-pass, thinking she'd be able to make it work to her advantage, just as she's been able to do up to this point in her political career.

But, if her delusional sense of her own importance has left her ill-prepared to swim out of the geographically large, yet otherwise insignificant pond of Alaska state politics and flounder like a salmon in a gill-net once she hit the national scene, then she has absolutely nobody to blame but herself.

Her reach has clearly exceeded her grasp. She took the risk, and now has to face the disastrous consequences of her unbridled ambition. And for that, she gets exactly zero sympathy from me.

What a load of crap.

Look, I'm no brain trust. I got through both high school and college by the seat of my pants. Multiplication tables still make my cry, and don't even ask me to add fractions.

HOWEVER, I do possess enough intelligence to realize that if someone came to me, wanting to cynically use me for their own self-promotion, and that I and my family would be relentlessly exposed to media, I would not just say no - I would say hell no.

Palin is not that bright. She has an ego much larger than her intellect. That's the story here. Smart women who have struggled up through the ranks and made something of themselves should realize what an insult she is to them.

@26: Too funny. The same lovely ladies are equally adept at gonadal surgery on the male; obvious example is Ann Richards and her "Poor George! He can't help it..." gig at the '88 Democratic convention.

Reminds me of Ross Perot's VP pick. That guy was really bad at his debate. I felt mortified for him. I hate that feeling, but oh well. Palin has got to go.

@13 Well, he did get into and briefly attend Harvard. Just another elitist intellectual we're supposed to dismiss.