Skip to content

Mutant Palm

  • About
  • Historical Chinese Image Collections
  • SchizOlympics: Words Fail Us Bibliography

Let’s Play: Republicans, or BOCOG?

Posted on October 17, 2008 by davesgonechina

UPDATED BELOW*

Two quotes. Which one is from the Beijing Olympics, and which is from a Sarah Palin rally? Number 1:

When reporters tried to leave the designated press area and head toward the bleachers where the crowd was seated, an escort would dart out of nowhere and confront him or her and say, “Can I help you?” and turn the person around. When one reporter asked an escort, who would not give her name, why the press wasn’t allowed to mingle, she said that in the past, negative things had been written.

#2:

One volunteer said that in addition to biological and chemical weapons attacks and bombings, volunteers were told to guard against journalists, so they say that their job is to “prevent drugs, prevent bombs, and prevent journalists.” … from the point of view of the organizers and decision makers, the media is an imaginary enemy with a full body of poison.

Andrew Sullivan keeps comparing Palin to Putin. But when was the last time there was public event of international significance in Russia for them to even try to dismiss journalists from? This lazy shorthanding of Russia and the Soviets for anything vaguely authoritarian has got to stop. It’s very important to distinguish between your different flavors of authoritarianism, otherwise you’re just flailing your arms. Know thy taxonomy.

* From Dana Milbank at the Washington Post:

I wasn’t at the Scranton event, but I have to say the Secret Service is in dangerous territory here. In cooperation with the Palin campaign, they’ve started preventing reporters from leaving the press section to interview people in the crowd. This is a serious violation of their duty — protecting the protectee — and gets into assisting with the political aspirations of the candidate. It also often makes it impossible for reporters to get into the crowd to question the people who say vulgar things. So they prevent reporters from getting near the people doing the shouting, then claim it’s unfounded because the reporters can’t get close enough to identify the person.

The Secret Service? Just making the case for my analogy all the better, are we?

Posted in China

Post navigation

Important, Pay Attention
The New Terrorists, and Some Unnamed Countries

2 thoughts on “Let’s Play: Republicans, or BOCOG?”

  1. Chinamatt says:
    October 7, 2008 at 11:14 pm

    That’s creepy. I can’t tell the difference…though the second has a hint of Chinglish…though Palin’s grammar ain’t so good either.

  2. Lady says:
    October 14, 2008 at 8:29 am

    It seems to me that Sarah Palin is a very famous girl.

    All this negative publicity about her still creates the publicity she needs for the elections. But hopefully, the right person will win. (Am not much of a McCain-Palin supporter admittedly)

Comments are closed.

Recent Posts

  • Survey Says… “Oops”
  • Happy China Internet Maintenance Day!
  • CIRC 2009
  • Chinese Al Jazeera? No Chance.
  • Teacup Feet

Recent Comments

  • vigrakrs.com on About
  • sildenafil 58 on SchizOlympics: Words Fail Us Bibliography
  • fluorometholone generic on Historical Chinese Image Collections
  • anastrozole moa on About
  • cathopic.com/@vermovent on About

Archives

  • May 2013
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007

Categories

  • China
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org
Proudly powered by WordPress | Theme: MiniZen by Martin Stehle.