Clearly, the woman is an idiot. I mean, who could possibly believe this stuff?
\n\n\nShe made three interlocking points. First, that the United States is now governed by a \u00e2\u0080\u009cpermanent political class,\u00e2\u0080\u009d drawn from both parties, that is increasingly cut off from the concerns of regular people. Second, that these Republicans and Democrats have allied with big business to mutual advantage to create what she called \u00e2\u0080\u009ccorporate crony capitalism.\u00e2\u0080\u009d Third, that the real political divide in the United States may no longer be between friends and foes of Big Government, but between friends and foes of vast, remote, unaccountable institutions (both public and private).
\nIn supporting her first point, about the permanent political class, she attacked both parties\u00e2\u0080\u0099 tendency to talk of spending cuts while spending more and more; to stoke public anxiety about a credit downgrade, but take a vacation anyway; to arrive in Washington of modest means and then somehow ride the gravy train to fabulous wealth. She observed that 7 of the 10 wealthiest counties in the United States happen to be suburbs of the nation\u00e2\u0080\u0099s capital.
\nHer second point, about money in politics, helped to explain the first. The permanent class stays in power because it positions itself between two deep troughs: the money spent by the government and the money spent by big companies to secure decisions from government that help them make more money.
\n\u00e2\u0080\u009cDo you want to know why nothing ever really gets done?\u00e2\u0080\u009d she said, referring to politicians. \u00e2\u0080\u009cIt\u00e2\u0080\u0099s because there\u00e2\u0080\u0099s nothing in it for them. They\u00e2\u0080\u0099ve got a lot of mouths to feed -- a lot of corporate lobbyists and a lot of special interests that are counting on them to keep the good times and the money rolling along.\u00e2\u0080\u009d
\nBecause her party has agitated for the wholesale deregulation of money in politics and the unshackling of lobbyists, these will be heard in some quarters as sacrilegious words.
\nMs. Palin\u00e2\u0080\u0099s third point was more striking still: in contrast to the sweeping paeans to capitalism and the free market delivered by the Republican presidential candidates whose ranks she has yet to join, she sought to make a distinction between good capitalists and bad ones. The good ones, in her telling, are those small businesses that take risks and sink and swim in the churning market; the bad ones are well-connected megacorporations that live off bailouts, dodge taxes and profit terrifically while creating no jobs.
\nStrangely, she was saying things that liberals might like, if not for Ms. Palin\u00e2\u0080\u0099s having said them.
\n\u00e2\u0080\u009cThis is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk,\u00e2\u0080\u009d she said of the crony variety. She added: \u00e2\u0080\u009cIt\u00e2\u0080\u0099s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest -- to the little guys. It\u00e2\u0080\u0099s a slap in the face to our small business owners -- the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70 percent of the jobs in America.\u00e2\u0080\u009d
\n
(Yes, that was sarcasm.) Via Some of Sarah Palin's Ideas Cross the Political Divide - NYTimes.com.
\n" }