A Few Tiny Notes on the Sarah Palin 'Vanity Fair' Profile

We read it, and it was worth reading. It did not make me feel good about the future. It will make you feel concerned too.

• “Todd Palin received as much as $20,000 worth of clothing-a wardrobe that would last most men for many years, if not for life.” This is probably true and also is hilarious that it appears in Vanity Fair. Because, hey, that’s how much the outfits cost, in the pictures?

• One thing that’s fascinating is that the piece treats Palin’s oratory style as a constant negging. “But she is also planting the idea with audiences that they might not be good enough, by telling them she thinks they’re plenty good, no matter what anybody else may say. (‘They talk down to us… They think that if we were just smart enough…’)” The point is a good one! Oratory works as amplification of disenfranchisement and as outrage-churning, very effectively.

• And yes. Why is Glenn Beck spending 9/11 in Anchorage, in Alaska’s largest convention facility

?