Less is fewer? Why would you write "in less than" 140 characters when you knew the proper grammar would be "in fewer than"? [see Usage Note] Because you were twittering and honing your prose to keep the tweet count to at or below 140 characters, that's why. The written language evolving right before our eyes. Above, the eyes have it in fanciful Sunday breakfast fruit bowl with canteloupe, strawberry-infused apple and blueberries.
Like President Obama when it comes to the rationale behind police work in Cambridge, when it comes to the rationale behind Sarah Palin's stepping down from her Alaska governorship Sunday, Palinologists have a nasty habit of rushing to judgment in a fact-challenged cloud of psychological denial and projection, curiously incurious about what makes "the other" tick. Why did she really quit? Scroll down beyond Mr. Potatoskin Head (below) for the answer, but first let's review the narrative. Most talking heads cast Palin's exit as a disastrous admission of defeat, but as Carl Cameron said when the Alaska Governor first announced her decision three-plus weeks back:
She's done it again. To some, it's the end of her career. To others, it's the start of her presidential campaign.
And as we blogged at the time:
Like Barack Obama, Sarah Palin can be a blank canvas upon which huddled masses yearning to breathe free — or in Obama's case, huddled masses yearning to be on the dole — project their inchoate longings. The difference is that while Obama speaks from the latest polls, Palin — in Fox Brit ex pat Stuart Varney's words — "speaks from the heart, and maybe that's what Americans want."
Forget about 140 or fewer characters. Tuck trumps Twitter with a postprandial Tw-eat that says "Great meal!" in five menu items: baked stuffed potato skin, mushroom, Stroganoff sauce, sweet potato puree and peas.
John Fund had put his finger on the problem weeks ago, reporting that frivolous "attacks inside Alaska and largely invisible to the national media had paralyzed her administration." Adding at least the appearance of impropriety to the series of accusations, it was reported last week that "the independent investigator who has accused Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin of violating state ethics laws is a major donor to the Democratic Party as well as a partner in a law firm that represented Barack Obama's presidential campaign."
But it was the self-described "Rodeo Clown" with a mission and a microphone, Fox News supernova Glenn Beck who connected the dots the other day with this 140-characters-or-fewer tweet [via KatyinIndy]:
Sarah P. Think like a Comm organizer.They were overloading the system. She is 6 steps ahead. VERY SMART lady.
Expanding beyond 140 characters, Palin recognized that her adversaries — from the dirt-digging thugs on the ground to the fancy lawyers and their bosses behind the curtain — were soldiers in an Alinskyesque, Cloward-Piven-inspired army of "community organizers" out to destroy her and the small-government, free-market principles she stands and fights for by sowing discontent from within the system. Understanding their modus operandi, she outfoxed them, quoting Gen. MacArthur as she exited stage right victorious [via goparchitect]:
We are not retreating; we are advancing in another direction.
Coda: "This guy has a social justice agenda," Glenn Beck told Fox & Friends this morning:
He is going to set all of the wrongs of the past right.
I have a feeling that the paradigm is about to change.
People who have been forced to live in a politically correct world … are just going to say "I'm not living in your politically correct world, and I don't care anymore." You've never seen the media really go after him. He's never really been cornered. How does he react?
The people he surrounds himself with, have you heard them with new ears? When you put in a science czar who has advocated forced abortions and made the case that we could put sterilants into the water to control the births, something's very wrong.
Update: Music to my ears:
Cambridge cop on Obama: 'I voted for him. I will not again."
Listen and take heart. The City Upon a Hill is shining still!
Update II: "Dan Riehl = 1, Palin haters = 0," we wrote in the comments to Dan's perfect-pitch "Sarah Palin: They Just Don't Get Her, Or Us." Thanks for the linky love!
Let us hope that right shall make might and that we shall see an end to the evils perpetrated by the community organizers.
Posted by: goomp | July 28, 2009 at 02:41 PM
2010 is getting closer all the time. Those who genuinely care about containing this aberrant nitwit occupying the Oval Office until we can make him a 1-hit wonder in 2012, must rise up and elect people with genuine spines to the Congress, thus removing Zero's enablers - Pelosi and Reid - from power!
Posted by: Gayle Miller | July 29, 2009 at 09:12 AM
Gayle: You're right; 2010 is literally just around the corner. I sure hope we've got a bunch of strong candidates to put up against those Congressional jellyfish up for re-election.
Sissy: Don't fret. The City Upon a Hill will shine as long as there is even one good person who will (to solidly mix metaphors) not hide his/her candle under a bushel.
Posted by: Stoutcat | July 29, 2009 at 02:05 PM
I refuse to let Politics spoil my mood.
Gotta love it when Sis puts a face on her food!
Posted by: Elisson | July 31, 2009 at 08:05 AM