Subject: RE: Palin rally piece
From: "Hogan, Michael" <Michael_Hogan@condenast.com>
Date: 7/2/10, 15:23
To: "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com>

Hey Barrett,

I'm out till Tuesday. Can this wait till then?

Thanks,
Mike

Sent from my GoodLink synchronized handheld (www.good.com)


 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Sent:	Friday, July 02, 2010 02:59 PM Eastern Standard Time
To:	Hogan, Michael; Bradley, Bill
Subject:	Palin rally piece

Finally got out of fucking Tyler, Texas. Here's the piece; let me know if
this works for you. I can take out the paragraph about my Texas background
if it's too long.

Tyler, Texas is in many ways the exact opposite of New York, for better or
worse or both. The best coffee in Tyler is found at Jack-in-the-Box, as I
finally discovered after hours of aimless marching - a practice which is
frowned upon here, apparently. Traversing a cross-walk during one of many
coffee-getting expeditions, I was nearly run down by a woman who really,
really wanted to make a right-hand turn but whose plans were being stymied
by my own entirely legitimate and fait accompli crossing-the-street agenda.
After nearly hitting me, she honked and sped off. Not having a cup of coffee
to throw at her car, I simply gave her the finger. This is something I never
had occasion to do in four years of living in New York - the capital of
Unreal America, devoid as it is of Wal-Marts, meth, and federal farm
subsidies.

In the interest of full disclosure and self-indulgence, allow me to note
that I myself am originally from Texas, de facto stronghold of Real America.
My parents are from Texas, their parents were from Texas, and so on and so
forth going back to the days when Texas was still Mexico. My mom’s family
used to raise rabbits, name them, and then eat them. I own a .243 and a
fifty-year-old shotgun and do so much hunting you'd think I was running for
president on the 2004 Democratic ticket. My dad just bought a
Blackwater-issued .45 for God knows what purpose. The less said about my
extended family back in ranch country the better, as I don’t want the ATF
burning them alive. In short, I am as Texan as one can be without getting
shot at the Alamo, and thus I reserve the right to say mean things about my
home state, which I have always regarded as being akin to a hot girlfriend
who is also batshit insane. I may sleep with Texas when the mood strikes,
but I tend to disregard its text messages. “didja no tomas jeferson didn't
rly exist plus husane obamas frum kinya in irak???? also im pregnant or mabe
not call/me.”

Coming back to the matter of Tyler and New York, there is another, more
fundamental difference between the two cities, one that is even more crucial
than the matter of coffee availability and anti-pedestrian sentiment:
whereas the great bulk of the NYC-based media operates largely by way of
deliberately amoral careerism without regard to the consequences of such
ethical negligence, the Tyler-based media is driven by abject incompetence
and blatant advocacy of movement conservatism. In the wake of the most
recent Sarah Palin rally, for instance, a reporter from one of the several
Tyler-based network affiliates that serve East Texas described “an
electrifying speech” delivered before a “crowd full of patriots and
constitutionalists.” Directly before the electrifying speech in question,
Palin was hit with the conservative news outlet equivalent of a tough
question when a reporter asked her about a possible 2012 presidential run
alongside Texas Governor Rick Perry. “Oh, I love your governor!” Palin
responded. “He’s so great, I think he’s a great guy, and Texas is lucky to
have him, and I don’t know why Texas wants to change horses in mid-stream.”
Frankly, I had no idea Texas was in the midst of some potentially
earth-shattering war that requires continuity within the executive branch
lest we be overrun by the Oklahomans or whomever it is that we’re fighting,
but then I’d been away for a while. At any rate, Palin was referring, with
some difficulty, to Perry’s apparent vulnerability in the upcoming
gubernatorial election, which could very well put a Democrat in office for
the first time since the Ann Richards era. I can’t remember the opponent’s
name and couldn’t care less anyway; if recent history is any indication,
he’ll likely end up deploying an additional 30,000 troops to Tulsa upon
taking office.

I am reluctant to describe the speech itself as it’s difficult to know how
one is supposed to go about writing on the subject of Sarah Palin. Many
conservatives have come to the convenient conclusion that anyone who
describes the woman as anything other than a provider of electrifying
speeches before crowds of patriotic constitution-lovers is some biased
partisan intent on transferring his or her own views to the public at large,
sort of like the reporter described above. Likewise, Palin backers such as
Larry Kudlow have gone so far as to compare their favorite to Lady Margaret
Thatcher. And so in deference to the five or six conservatives who read Vanity
Fair, I will do likewise. In fact, I’m going to one-up all the Palinistas by
pretending that Palin actually is Margaret Thatcher, and I shall write the
rest of the piece accordingly.

In the speech previous to the Tyler variant that we shall examine presently,
Lady Thatcher began by assailing what she termed the “lamestream media” for
having revealed that her confidential speaking contract included demands for
bendable drinking straws to be provided at the podium. It was an odd moment
for Thatcher, whom I do not recall ever having been so concerned about such
commonplace and inconsequential reporting of the sort to which every
politician is  subjected. This was behavior one might more readily expect
from Sarah Palin or Axl Rose.

Unlike Axl Rose, Lady Thatcher had aged well, as I was happy to observe at
her Tyler address. The uncommonly comely octogenarian began with a joke at
the expense of California, the state which had just hosted her a few days
before. It was pretty funny if I’m remembering it right, which I’m not.

But then I am being unfair to the baroness, whose eloquence speaks for
itself. “Many in the lamestream media,” she proclaimed, “want to keep
suggesting that I, and others who are pro-energy independence, pro-drilling
advocates, that somehow we are too cozy with big oil - you guys feel free to
shout out to them, ‘You lie!’ Because it isn’t true.” I would take issue
with Thatcher’s assertion that such suggestions on the part of the
“lamestream media” are deliberate lies; perhaps the lame-o’s in question are
honestly confused due to such incidents as GOP Representative Joe Barton’s
public apology to the CEO of a British oil firm on behalf of what he
characterized as criminal activity on the part of the United States
government, or the fact that Barton’s assertion has been echoed by a great
number of conservative institutions ranging from the Heritage Foundation to
Rush Limbaugh, or that Barton’s own apology was followed by a Twitter link
from his account to an American Spectator piece entitled “Joe Barton was
right,”
or that this link was later deleted by Barton’s office after causing another
outcry. If Barton himself can’t figure out whether or not he’s overly cozy
with foreign oil interests, and if the conservative movement appears split
on the question of whether or not his coziness was appropriate or even
insufficiently cuddly, then perhaps the media - disadvantaged as it is with
lameness - may be forgiven for it’s own confusion on the matter.

Thatcher continued to build her case with the ease and erudition that has
marked her half-century career of public service. “Their other argument is
because I and other energy independence advocates support the free market,
pro-drilling, that we can’t possibly be in favor of strict oversight. Man,
these guys in the White House, they are just so blind to ever believe that.
I am for strict oversight because I’m for that allowance for drilling.” To
wit, the baroness favors strict oversight because she is for it.

Once in a while, Thatcher would realize in mid-sentence that she wasn’t
currently pacing across the stage and gradually raising her voice into an
oddly deliberate shriek, but then she would immediately correct herself. “I
want this most exceptional country in the nation to be free, to be
prosperous! To not be beholden to the foreign countries that soon we are
going to be [shriek increase] bowing to [slightly less alarming shrieks from
the crowd] if we become more reliant on them to drill for us!” Here Lady
Thatcher has made a pretty good case for prosperity, freedom, and the
exceptional nature of the country in the nation. Still, I would quibble that
she missed an opportunity to really drive home the risk we face of bowing
down to foreign countries insomuch as that she neglected to point out that,
in fact, our last president was in the habit of literally bowing down before
theocratic Saudi monarchs who happen to provide us with a great deal of oil.

“I’m a firm believer in the free market and I know you are too,” Thatcher
continued. “But being free market doesn’t mean being for or against any
particular company or any particular industry. It means being in favor of
competition and an honest level playing field and for government really to
get out of the way and let the private sector do what it does best. But the
government does have a key role to play in overseeing some of our natural
resource developments obviously, because our natural resource development is
so impacting on our economy and on our environment. The president and the
anti-energy independence crowd, they don’t seem to see how you can be
pro-free market and pro-drilling and pro-constitutionally limited government
and at the same time be pro-strict oversight, all at the same time, which is
what they can’t understand and can’t wrap their arms around.” Thatcher
elsewhere reiterated that she favored “appropriate regulation of industry
like the energy sector, because there are far-reaching adverse consequences
for our public, for our economy,” which is to say that regulation is
apparently warranted in any case in which far-reaching adverse consequences
may be hypothesized by someone. To sum up, “I don’t think that they
understand the proper role of government in the free market.” Frankly, I was
a little confused myself at this point; it was surprising to see someone as
typically coherent as Thatcher accidentally make the case for socialism
while attempting to make the case for the free market while simultaneously
attacking others for advocating socialism and then accusing the opposition
of failing to understand her views. I suddenly remembered that I wasn’t
actually watching Margaret Thatcher speak, but rather Sarah Palin. Then it
all started to make sense.

“You asked for the job, Mr. President, so buck up,” added Palin, who quit
her job as governor of Alaska after two years because people were being mean
to her.

-- Regards, Barrett Brown Brooklyn, NY 512-560-2302 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ This e-mail, including attachments, is intended for the person(s) or company named and may contain confidential and/or legally privileged information. Unauthorized disclosure, copying or use of this information may be unlawful and is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please delete this message and notify the sender.