Palin Gives Thumbs Up To Financial Bailouts, Down To Rape Victims

Another day, another dollar, another morning of Crap with me and Moe — but this time, with economics! Yes, there's another financial market bail-out going on if you hadn't heard because you were being all political while the Republicans were being all Realpolitikal and abandoning their free market principles (again) to save their financial and political hides! Anyway, so Sarah Palin hopped on board the bail-out train even though she would never allow rape victims to come in the way of her bedrock fiscal conservative principles! Also, Moe and I decide to take the Foreign Service exam so we can get out of Dodge during the Palin Administration which will be in charge when Kim Jong Il dies, and Condi wonders what someone like herself could do about the startling lack of minorities at the State Department.

MEGAN: Good morning, sunshine! Is there somewhere you are at? Because I got up to thunder and lightening...

MOE: Hey sorry I've been having some issues with the internet.

MEGAN: Ugh, I feel you there. Technological ones, or just a deep and abiding hatred for it?

MOE: Well like, it seems like it's on, and I'm getting your messages, but you're the only buddy I see and the rest have disappeared. So actually it's pretty cool, sort of like if the internet could all just run the way it did in 1996 and there were no Gawker commenters…

MEGAN: So, a little from column A and a little from column B! Anyway, I just had to ask if you wanted a good laugh, because then I would encourage you to read this article about how Condi is sad that there aren't more African-American diplomats, as though that is something, like, completely outside of the control of the Secretary of State. Who does, after all, appoint the senior ones. It's that kind of lack of self-awareness that I'll miss about the members of the Bush Administration, at least until Biden brings some of them up on charges.

MOE: Wow this broad doesn't stop getting better eh? Sarah Palin charges rape victims for rape kits and Alaska for nights in her own home. When my dad was in the State Department I remember it was rather difficult at the time supposedly for a white male to make it to senior foreign service, so I guess Warren Christopher did try to do what you're suggesting and promote minorities. And I believe that if you're an underrepresented minority standards are different on the oral exam, or your application gets expedited, whatever. The thing is that basically there are not enough African American diplomats for the same reason there are not a lot of Ivy League educated African American JD community organizers; there is not exactly enough money to pay off your student loans in the State Department, although they give you a lot of free education once you're there.

MEGAN: Word on the not being enough money to pay off your student loans, I looked into it in college and could've taken a Hill gig and come out better at the end of the first year if I'd worked on moving up in the ranks on the Hill.

MOE: And you have to be extraordinarily well-educated and pass a test that is not exactly accounted for in the No Child Left Behind act. Yeah, Condi might have noticed these things before…

MEGAN: Yeah, that exam blows, and then the oral is totally based on a judgment of the reviewers and all about how you interact with the other people there, so I can see as how it might not exactly be encouraging a groundswell of new minority foreign service officers. And, notably, plenty of places charge for rape kits. Like, until very recently, North Carolina. Hell, I expected to be charged for mine, but Virginia doesn't. On the other hand, Condi does not appear to be a Palin fan, so she's got that on her side.

There are different kinds of experience in life that help one to deal with matters of foreign policy...I'm not going to get involved in this political campaign. As Secretary of State, I don't do that.

MOE: Hahahaha she doesn't think it matters that her husband rode his snowmobile to the Bering Strait that one time?? As for the oral exam, my brother passed the written and failed the oral and said something along the lines of, "look, knowing who they did take, fuck that." I'm not exactly sure what that means though. I will tell you that now you've got me sitting here thinking, "Hey, I am a white non-money motivated person with no student loans who was, at least before I subjected my brain to so many hundred successive nights of alcohol abuse, a good 'test taker', who would like to quit this industry and get out of the country, maybe learn a language or two…hey!" I don't think you need a college degree if you pass the test. Let's sign up for the foreign service exam Megan! I'm sure the government would be so happy to have us.

MEGAN: I will sign up for the Foreign Service exam, but only if you agree to take it sober and I will take it drunk and we will see what happens and write about it. I am an excellent test-taker, too, but I really have no intention of moving to Uganda for two years. One of my grad school classmates ended up in the shittiest post in the world — Quebec City. Plenty of people don't pass the oral, actually. In grad school, they made us practice it even if we didn't intend to take it and the secret is: to be a complete asshole. Don't concede. Defend your point long past the point of absurdity. That is the key to becoming a U.S. diplomat. If you concede in the face of irrefutable logic, then you'll make a shitty diplomat. Now, go forth and prosper at the oral.

MOE: Well would you look at that, the Wall Street Journal is just flat-out accusing Sarah Palin of lying! "Despite significant evidence to the contrary." My dad's first post was Reykjavik. Luckily for him — less so for my mom! — he also passed some "language aptitude test" that enabled him to go to China right after. Hey, speaking of, did you know Alaska had an "embassy" right here in New York? So internationalist of them!

MEGAN: I do love that every other state has their clubhouse in D.C., but Alaska was like, fuck D.C., we're gonna have it in the Big Apple!

MOE: What is so weird about that is that aside from my dad I never met anyone in all American diplomacy who was really like that. And I was pretty sure my dad would only do that sort of thing to piss me off. That is interesting. I wonder how standards have changed.

MEGAN: Well, maybe everyone besides your dad is, like, able to control it in their personal life, or able to fake it in their professional life? I wasn't in grad school that long ago, really. Also, I guess if the WSJ is accusing Palin of lying, this shitty OpEd proves once and for all that there really is a firewall between the reported side and the editorial side?

[laughs hysterically]. God, I crack myself up sometimes.

MOE: Ugh dammit Hamilton Nolan is in there I know it.

MEGAN: Well, Hamilton aside, do you want to talk about Reverend Wright's supposed mistress or are we way too bored with him?

MOE: I can't see, but what's funny about Wasilla charging rape victims was that it's the same total bullshit about Palin and her fiscally responsible term as mayor and by fiscally responsible I mean running up deficits big enough to put every child through a year of college. Yesterday I went to see Tom Frank speak with Lewis Lapham and he pointed out that preaching fiscal responsibility only to run up huge deficits was a clever strategy Republicans call "de-funding the left"…and after the panel I overheard some dude saying he was still angry at the Democrats for voting for the war and that he was probably voting for Nader or Paul and I just thought, "oh God, fuck everyone."

MEGAN: Well, the whole idea of lowering taxes was supposed to be to "starve the beast" only it turns out that Republicans — and their constituents — love the beast as much as tax-and-spend Democrats and the only real difference is what part of the bext each side wants to feed. Also, the OpEd is about Fannie and Freddie.

MOE: Okay Hamilton Nolan is still in the WSJ. I wouldn't roast him here if I didn't think he could take it though. I guess Gawker Media could get another fucking Journal account. Oh god and speaking of Fannie and Freddie what the fuck did I do to deserve 442 comments here????? I'm afraid to look.

MEGAN: Anyway, I can summarize for you: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are a complete clusterfuck but GWB is (now) totally right for bailing them out because to do otherwise would totally drive people out of their home in droves but in a McCain-Palin Administration there will be homes for everyone and lobbyists are all to blame or maybe not all to blame but none of it is the fault of Republicans nosireebob. Vote McCain-Palin for change from the Democrats who are the source of all evil and have been running the country for the last 28 years even though 20 of those were Republican.

Apparently, the Gawker commenters were mostly discussing economics, at least for the first 100 comments. After that, I can't guarantee anything.

MOE: We never get that many comments, it is not like Crappy Hour.

MEGAN: Someone started talking about spanking, and others about Canada, so that might have something to do about that.

MOE: Also they got on me for "No one has ever listened to Bush," which is a joke of course, but on a few different levels, because who in his administration has even ever really listened to Bush? I mean, Dana Perino's statement was so absurd it's hard to know quite how to deal!

MEGAN: I mean, people don't understand that few people listen to Bush himself before formulating policy, they just do it and then go in and present a shitty alternative plan and he agrees. It's like how you dealt with your parents sometimes.

MOE: So tell me about Jeremiah Wright's mistress. Is she one of those female suicide bombers? A former concubine-protege of Putin? A Weathergirl??

MEGAN: She is a church secretary in Texas, supposedly. The picture, though, is worth 1,000 words. Also, her husband is pissed she was boning a black dude.

MOE: Whoa and what happens when Kim Jong-Il dies? God I hope this country realizes how awesome it would be for people like us if it decided to leave that decision in the hands of Sarah Palin. It could be the first summit Wasilla ever hosted! Just think of the opportunities for pork. And moose stew!

MEGAN: Oh, God, and when the thought of moose stew makes me hungry, it's time to post this bitch and get some breakfast.

MOE: Toodles love. I miss it here. I have a new family now and…most everyone is very nice!

Send an email to Megan Carpentier, the author of this post, at askalobbyist@gmail.com.

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