Branding Sarah Palin.

Whatever your political orientations/choices may be, there's some interesting information to be found in the article about Sarah Palin in the October issue of Vanity Fair, now online.

She manages to be at once a closed book and a constant noisemaker. Her press spokesperson, Pam Pryor, barely speaks to the press, and Palin shrewdly cultivates a real and rhetorical antagonism toward what she calls “the lamestream media.” The Palin machine is supported by organizations that do much of their business under the cover of pseudonyms and shell companies.

In accordance with the terms of a reported $1 million annual contract with Fox News, Palin regularly delivers canned commentary on that network. But in the year since she abruptly resigned the governorship of Alaska, in order to market herself full-time—earning an estimated $13 million in the process—she has submitted to authentic, unpaid interviews with only a handful of journalists, none of whom have posed notably challenging questions. She keeps tight control of her pronouncements, speaking only in settings of her own choosing, with audiences of her own selection, and with reporters kept at bay. (Despite many requests, neither Palin nor her current staff would comment for this article.)

She injects herself into the news almost every day, but on a strictly one-way basis, through a steady stream of messages on Twitter and Facebook. The press plays along. Palin is the only politician whose tweets are regularly reported as news by TV networks. She is the only one who has been able to significantly change the course of debate on a major national issue (health-care reform) with a single Facebook posting (in which she accused the Obama administration, falsely, of wanting to set up a “death panel”).

The reaction from Palin's marketing division/PR should be instructive.

Teabagging for profit - you betcha!

The "Tea Party Nation" (the Tea Party Patriots handle was used for awhile, which produced the unattractive acronym TPP, pronounced teapeepee) keeps shifting and changing names which makes branding the organization somewhat tricky.

Progressives like to remind them that it was their own members that came up with the teabag monniker early on which they quickly tried to jettison. Kind of like C.R.A.P. - Canadian Reform Alliance Party - anyone remember that snafu?

Anyhow, although the organizers of the Nashville convention next month are trying to control media spin, it appears that some journalists are asking uncomfortable questions.

The $549 per person price tag for the sold-out Feb. 4-6 event -- which is closed to all but a "select" group of media friendly to the movement -- has angered some activists. But they began to raise questions when it was revealed that, unlike those similar national events, the organizer of the convention registered the group behind the event - Tea Party Nation - as a “for profit” corporation.

The little-known organizer is Judson Phillips, a self-described "small-town lawyer." He is a former assistant district attorney now in private practice, specializing in driving-under-the-influence and personal-injury cases. He is organizing the convention with his wife, Sherry, his sister-in-law, and a handful of other volunteers.

A background check of various public records databases raises questions about how he has handled money in the past. The search shows that Phillips filed for Chapter 7 personal bankruptcy in 1999 and during the past decade, he has had three federal tax liens against him, totaling more than $22,000.

In an interview with NBC News, Phillips admitted to the financial difficulties. He declined to comment on the bankruptcy, but said the federal tax liens have been paid off. “I work for myself,” he said. “Sometimes you have a good year; sometimes you have a bad year; sometimes you get a little bit behind; the government files a lien. They’ve been paid off. ” [...]

Phillips, who said he ran in a Republican primary for a seat [a Tennessee county board] in 2002, denied that his personal finances have any bearing on his ability to be a responsible steward of Tea Party funds.

“That question is so - that question is not asked about NBC with its advertisers or anything else,” Phillips charged. “We are putting on an event that is a convention. People are paying for their attendance. It’s a private event. People who are coming to it are private; people who are participating in it are all private citizens. It’s not really any of anybody else’s concern.”

Oh really? I'd bet that some of the teabaggers might be interested in knowing where their hard-earned money is going - whether to building a political party or building a business for Judson Phillips and his friends.

On a cold cold January day in Detroit ...

Just like the ReformaTories's diehard pro-prorogation supporters (read Canadian Cynic: Just wait until they can drown it in a bathtub.) the US rightwing socons who have joined the "Tea Party" are not the most coherent or unflappable citizens around. Even when they're armed with their thousand twinkling points of sound bites and their marching orders, they tend to get all belligerent-like.

This blogger headed off to Detroit to participate in a demonstration in front of the Cobo Centre where a national Auto Show was being held. "Oh look!" he emphasized with a photograph, "We have a Black person joining us."

He posted YouTubes of his co-called interviews where he basically harangued union members and other supporters of healthcare reform by asking them the same question over and over again.

In spite of his demonstrably bullying tactics, he took great offense when he got called out as a teabagger. But he did get one positive comment from 'Anonymous' at his blogsite:

Wow, thanks for posting this. Great "on the scene" reporting. People like you amply demonstrate why the old media is irrelevant.

And while that observation should make us all stand prouder, that particular comment is, as they say, context-dependent.

More rightwingnuttiness update: Good catch by this blogger who monitors the teabaggers and their messaging. What is it about the healthcare reform in the US that lifted the rock underneath where all these mean-spirited and stupid people were hiding? Now they're in public view, basking in the glory of their wrong-headed self-righteousness.

The teabaggers are coming just in time for Xmas.

And you thought it was safe to disregard the tragically studip? Bwahahahaha! they're ba-a-a-ack!

From here:

Tea Party Patriots — the right-wing organizers controlled by FreedomWorks — sent an urgent call to action today, asking supporters to come to Washington December 15th to “storm Senate offices” in order to “play out the role of patients waiting for treatment in government controlled medical facilities.” The e-mail says organizers plan to “stay there until they force us to leave,” and incites supporters to “flex our muscle” and “hold the line in our fight against the government takeover of health care” ...

Any moment now, a TPP (pronounced teapeepee) leader will declare that the "government takeover of healthcare" (which is called healthcare reform by sane people) is a manifestation of the War On Christmas.

W.O.C.kers' vigilence regarding the phenomenon claimed to be yet another form of discrimination against and/or persecution of Christians is constant and never-ending. Focus on the Family has foot-soldiers marching in shopping malls all over the US, scrutinizing the wording in flyers and reporting what evidence they find.

Balbulican wrote a trenchant blogpost: "The REAL War on Christmas – Found At Last!" where he observes even christofascists are jumping on the retailing bandwagon. In the comment section he says:

About 95% of the “War On Christmas” stories you read have to do with vendors who are now promoting their products and services by encouraging EVERYONE who’s got a holiday with a gift-giving tradition to come and spend money. That’s as capitalist, as entrepreneurial, as private sector as you can get.

At the risk of provoking yet another round of shrieeekkking from fundamentalist religious zealots, this may be an appropriate moment to quote someone who had a powerful approach to creating Peace on earth and goodwill for all living creatures.

Mohandas Gandhi: "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. The materialism of affluent Christian countries appears to contradict the claims of Jesus Christ that says it's not possible to worship both Mammon and God at the same time."

Only in the US you say? Pity (party).

JJ at unrepentantoldhippie and Scott at scott's diatribes look southward to the fauxgrassroots, more like astroturf 'tea party' protests happening in the US.

Here are more suggestions on the beverages likely consumed by ignoranti who populate these pseudo-demos.

Constant Comment Blather - a pungent mix of freeze-dried limbaughburger cheezy bits mixed with instant tea pellets, MSG and GMO high-fructose corn syrup.

Redneck Rose - a traditional infusion.

Sour Grapes Medley - a bitter mouthful of old grievances, fetid ideologies and republicon trash talk.

As many have said, the whole 'tea party' gimmick is a thinly veiled attack on Obama's presidency since most of the economic strategies that makes the teabaggers shrieeek were initiated on Dubya's watch.