Quote for the day


My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.

Andrea Fay Friedman, the actress who portrayed a young woman with Down Syndrome in a recent episode of The Family Guy that was attacked by Sarah Palin. Friedman suffers from Down syndrome herself. Palin has recently excused conservative talk show hosts who ridicule people with disabilities reasoning that, in their case it’s OK, since they do so “using satire.”

11 Comments

You know what Mom said to me when I told her about how Palin handled Limbaugh’s response to the whole “retard” issue? “She doesn’t know what the word [‘satire’] means.”

Palin thinks “satire” means “fulminating against anyone left of Attila the Hun.”

@lynnlightfoot: It’s power-suits you buy at Saks: S-attire.

Let’s see whether Talibunny’s Facebook ghostwriter has responded yet…

Nope.

Let’s see whether she’s crackberried anything to her Twitter account…

Nope.

The best response I’ve seen so far is at the wingnut Newsmax site, where they accuse Friedman of having an “agenda”. As would any of us blind-sided by Palin’s self-aggrandizing snow machine.

@nojo: The best response I’ve seen so far is at the wingnut Newsmax site, where they accuse Friedman of having an “agenda”.

I need to see that. I love the crazies that think that anyone who disagrees with them is part of some vast conspiracy to replace America’s drinking water with liquid uranium.

@JNOVjr: My bad — NewsBusters, not Newsmax:

Seem like Ms. Friedman might have an agenda?

Ms. Friedman also starred in one of my favorite all-time Law & Order SVU episodes, so I give her double props.

@nojo: Hahaha, oh man. I wonder how long he let that post sit before he added, “Oh yeah, she has Down syndrome, too.” I’m also wondering if he realizes that kind of invalidates his whole “neither she nor her family were the target of this joke” point. I mean, if it was a shot at Trig and people with Down syndrome like they’re claiming, then that means that Friedman was just as much a target as he was.

You know, this whole thing wouldn’t bother me half as much if it weren’t for the fact that Palin has this tendency to contort satire of her to make it sound more cruel than it actually is.

Talibunny Facebook update: Condolences on the Passing of Alexander Haig.

So, she’s checked in. And so far, avoiding the response.

@JNOVjr: Let’s recap…

1. Family Guy presents an episode that’s manifestly supportive of Down folks, albeit in satiric fashion.

2. Based on a throwaway line, Palin decides it’s about Trig. Or, more properly, Palin uses the throwaway line as an excuse to wave Trig off the hotel balcony again.

3. The actress playing the Down character, who has Down herself, responds to NYT questions about her views on the controversy Palin has created.

4. The NewsBusters dude, desperate for an angle, decides that the actress herself has an agenda — although nobody thought to interview the actress until after Palin made a fuss about it.

There’s a classic Rovian expression for this, which I forget, but I think it’s “use your opponent’s strength against him.” This was how the McCain campaign decided to call Obama a “celebrity” because of the large crowds he was attracting. NewsBusters dude is trying something similar, since it’s clearly Palin who’s pushing the agenda.

@nojo: NewsBusters dude is trying something similar, since it’s clearly Palin who’s pushing the agenda.

That’s it right there. That’s what pisses me off the most about this “Vast left-wing conspiracy” bullshit. They’re projecting. The ones who claim that people like Friedman are pushing some political agenda are people trying to push a political agenda. It’s just that they’re trying to push in the opposite direction, so it’s obviously okay.

Add a Comment
Please log in to post a comment