Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Pathological

I had a friend who was a pathological liar. It boggled my mind, because he would just lie about meaningless, unimportant stuff - and stuff that was easily proven false. He once claimed that his mother was a dentist. I knew his mother, and she wasn't a dentist. It was like he was lying for sport. More troubling, it was almost as if he lost the ability to discern fact from fiction.

Well as I pointed out here, Palin is a liar. But is she pathological? As reported by the always entertaining Anne Marie Cox of the Washington Independent, when talking about Joe the Plumber:


Gov. Sarah Palin apparently got so excited that she momentarily granted him the honored double status of veteran and Frontier State native: “He’s a fellow Alaska[n], and he’s a fellow military man who has served our country proudly. I’d like you to meet him.”

He is neither. But then again, his name isn’t Joe and he isn’t a plumber. So, really, who’s to blame her for getting a little carried away?

Is she pathological? I will let you decide.

No I won't. You might get it wrong.

She is.

Why in the hell else would she lie about this? What could cause the words “He’s a fellow Alaska[n], and he’s a fellow military man who has served our country proudly" to come out of her mouth? It just isn't true. It has to be that she's lost the ability to discern fact from fiction (scary), she is just lying for sport (scary), or she is just flat out batshit crazy (scary). Whichever is the case, she is pathological.

***UPDATE*** Thanks to reader, James, it appears that Ms. Cox was wrong about the veracity (or lack thereof) of Palin's speech. Which shoots my theory to shit. Oh, well. He lived in Alaska for 4 years, and was in the Air Force. And he looks like the dude from The Shield.

Glad to have a more right-leaning reader to keep us in check. But save the "don't care about the truth" stuff. We try to get it right, and we will admit when we get it wrong.

11 comments:

Pat Bateman said...

See, Pants, I can't decide whether to laugh or cry (or move to Canada):

Palin grouped Khalidi with another familiar target: the media, suggesting that The Los Angeles Times has been suppressing a video tape of Obama’s attendence of the controversial figure’s birthday party: “The newspaper that HAS THAT TAPE — THE LOS ANGELES TIMES — REFUSES TO RELEASE IT.” She continued, “If there is a Pulitzer prize for excellence in kowtowing, then, LA Times, you’re winning it.”

Defective Pants said...

I'm leaning towards batshit crazy.

Warm Apple Pie said...

Um, let me quell the liberal uprising at The Potatoe and grant her a pass on this one. That sounds like a left-out-to-twist gaffe, nothing more.

By this standard, Joe the Senator is really Joe the Minister of Disinformation. Joseph Goebbels.

Defective Pants said...

A pass? A mere gaffe? A mere gaffe would be something like "he also plays a mean guitar and also," when he really plays the drums. This is a complete fabrication. She said he was a veteran! That is not a gaffe. That is a lie.

Why do you and other insist on pulling punches when confronted with flat out lies?

Warm Apple Pie said...

I need to watch the clip. Maybe she got mixed up on the cards. Maybe the prompter was off. What does it serve her to make him from Alaska. I never hesitate to chop Palin down. Just want to be in the light when I do it.

Defective Pants said...

That's the whole point of my post, WAP - it doesn't serve anything! It's a lie for the sake of lying. Sport, inability to discern fact from fiction or batshit crazy.

This isn't the first time she's done this type of thing.

theKansasCitian said...

Do you just make this stuff up or do the facts not bother you?

Samuel Joseph Wuzelbacher, AKA Joe the Plumber, lived in Alaska for four years. http://community.adn.com/node/132881

Samuel Joseph Wuzelbacher served in the US Air Force between 1992-95. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081016/NEWS09/810160418/-1/NEWS

Oh, by the way, his name is Joe, Samuel Joseph Wuzelbacher. He, unlike your guy, just isn't ashamed to have his middle name spoken outloud.

Election 2008's theme:
It's not the questioner, it's the answer, stupid!

Defective Pants said...

Well, James, unlike the Palin/McCain camp, I actually provide my information sources. I linked to it. You have provided contradictory information. Fine, I can admit when I've gotten bad information, and I'll correct the post.

But save the whole "do you make this up" schtick. You know I didn't - I gave a link.

And you can also get rid of your intentional ignorance on the middle name issue. Does "your guy" (I'm guessing it's McCain) go around calling himself John Sydney McCain? Why not? Is he ashamed of his middle name? Is his campaign hiding it? Of course not.

You know that the right throws around "Hussein" as a pejorative term. It's not that they use "Hussein", it's that they use it like an insult or to invite some looney conspiracy theory about secret Muslim plans.

Do you think something is wrong with his middle name?

Warm Apple Pie said...

And the Pie comes out scot-free because he exercised caution. I don't understand why you guys are still guns-blazing on Palin when her bullet-riddled corpse is already decomposing. Stop rushing to judgment. She's now irrelevant to this election. It will be decided by two things: (1) do the American people fall hook, line and sinker for McCain's claim that Obama is raising taxes or actual believe Obama that he is cutting taxes for 95% of the folks and (2) will there be an international even in the next five days that scare chicken-livered voters into running to the scary GOP fathers.

Notice I do not count Ayers-Khalidi-Wright in this equation. I might be foolishly optimistic but I at least feel the voters are somewhat more serious this cycle, if not skiddish about the slightest global belch.

I note too that the reported "n*gger" yell at a Palin rally was lefty fabrication as well and I will post an update accordingly to my previous post.

Proud to be an independent. Proud to have voted Libertarian and Green during the past two elections. Proud to vote for Obama in this one.

Hey James - what's worse: printing a story in error and then retracting it or blatantly lying on the stump and never retracting it?

theKansasCitian said...

Pants, I realize you were just quoting someone else, but I would think before you just start assassinating the mental faculties another person you might check into the facts first.

As for the middle name issue, Richard Milhouse Nixon, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, George Herbert-Walker Bush, Franklin Delano Roosevelt... It's not unheard of for Presidents to have their middle names used.

In either case, it's all in good fun. And all the credit in the world for correcting the record, not a lot of people would do that.

theKansasCitian said...

BTW, McCain is most definitely not "my guy". I'll be voting None of the above this time round.