Please, Lord if anyone shoots at me let it be Sarah Palin. Amen says Alaskan columnist

[RamboLiberal]

That short prayer came to me as I watched the fourth episode of her faux-reality show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska," which had our half-term governor and former vice presidential candidate blasting away at a hapless and seemingly not very bright cow caribou somewhere in the Frozen North.

Palin, a likely presidential contender in 2012, was joined in the hunt by her 72-year-old father and a family friend. She had all the looks of somebody who has not spent much time in the woods or put in time behind guns, especially those she was using in the hunt.

Instead of coming off as a mama grizzly, she appeared tentative, uncomfortable, unprepared. She looked like what she was -- TV talent. It made me remember a song that author and journalist Harry Hurt III penned at the Pipeline Club in Valdez as we unwound every day while covering the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Most of the doggerel -- I cannot recall the tune -- is a blur of Jack Daniel's and fatigue, but its title has stuck with me, "She's an indoor girl in an outdoor world."

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But the story is in the story. All but Dowd seemed to miss the boatload of delicious allegory about Palin's life and politics wrapped up in the episode. It was Palin on the hunt; on the hunt always. First, it was small-town politicos in Wasilla who befriended her, then GOP Chief Randy Ruedrich, then Frank Murkowski, who appointed her to a cushy job, and finally, a shot at Barack Obama. Older white men carrying her guns, loading them and handing them to her, advising her, telling her when to shoot, showing her how to do the job. Letting them do the work. Out of her element. Indoor girl in an outdoor world. Missed shot after missed shot after missed shot. Blaming someone or something else when it all goes south. Killing a scrawny little caribou to sell the image. Jumping the ship of state after only two disinterested, unengaged years, going for something bigger. Out of her element. Peddling the lie. The mama grizzly. Sarah the Sniper.

Read more: http://www.adn.com/2010/12/11/1599846/always-on-the-hunt-palin-shown.html#ixzz182Dv6lRV

On edit here's Sarah shooting a bear! http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/12/post_39.html

[Dash87]

1. You could run away as she looked for the "On" switch.

:)

[Drale]

2. She is probably the same type shot as she is a person

terrible. I hope she shoots at me, so I can legally shoot back. Self Defense is a great way to get rid of her.

[awoke_in_2003]

3. this is irresponsible...

as an occasional hunter, I do not want the hunted to suffer. Badly placed shots due to lack of shooting skills is a great way to make an animal suffer for a long time.

[RamboLiberal]

7. And the gun daddy brought her was more likely to wound

Since Alaska former, half-term Gov. Sarah Palin appears to be among everyone's favorite topic of discussion these days, here's something for hunters to talk about:

The so-called varmint rifle with which she shot at and repeatedly missed a caribou in TLC's "Sarah Palin's Alaska'' was a .225-caliber Winchester. Given that, were the misses a bad thing or a good thing?

Here's some data to help the debate:

The .225 Winchester is a big sister of the .223 Remington, which is generally considered underpowered for hunting whitetail deer. A really, really big whitetail buck is about the size of the small caribou cow Palin shot. There is considerable debate among hunters about shooting deer with any of the .22-caliber center-fire cartridges, of which the .225 is one.

This said, however, it must be noted the semi-automatic Ruger Mini 14 rifle is popular in the Alaska Bush, and the Mini 14 shoots the .223. The cartridge has been used to kill a lot of caribou. It is also somewhat notorious for wounding losses.

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/voices/medred/7805-sarah-palins-bad-shooting-maybe-it-was-a-good-thing

[awoke_in_2003]

11. .225 for caribou?...

WTF- a heavy .270 or a light .300 Win Mag minimum for that size game.

[huskerlaw]

4. The only way I'd watch that show...

is if she went hunting with Dick Cheney. :evilgrin:

[nolabear]

5. Yeah, but she's magnificent at

throwing Kate Gosselin under the bus! I confess, I watched last night, when the Kate+8 crowd happened by for a hoedown. She (meaning the producers) invite the whoooooole Gosselin clan out camping on a sand bar in the rain and Mama Grizzly shows Mama "You have GOT to be kidding me!" what a real Alaskan woman is made of.

Irony is as lost on that woman as facts are. I loved they talked endlessly about how dangerous marauding bears are and then left the food in Coleman coolers beside the tents. If they actually camped at all. Kate? Packed up after a couple hours and dragged those little goslings home so Sarah could roll her eyes. I hope they paid that woman well because she looked like an idiot being played for an idiot by an idiot.

[zehnkatzen]

6. It's always tough for the Punditry when Sarah can't hide what a phony she is.

It's easy to play up to the Artificial Sarah when you arrange her and present her on FOX news and such. But put her in a situation where she actual has to walk all that 'frontier woman' talk and she can't, and the life support system is so evident that you can't hide it.

It always ties the punditry's stomach in knots because they've chosen to foist this image of tough, independent Sarah on the rest of us and when she falls flat on her face, it's always awkward. So they mock her a little and hope the embarrassment will pass quickly and they can get her back in a studio and start rebuilding the artifice again.

Sarah isn't our future. She's our now.

[RamboLiberal]

8. Hunter becomes the hunted as Palin critics say she can't shoot

"I turned on Sarah Palin's Alaska and she just shot four maybe even five times at a caribou and missed," noted a typical comment on the Fox News host Sean Hannity's website. "Needless to say I'm not impressed with her ability to handle a firearm let alone aim it and hit."

Among the basic items of protocol blithely ignored by Palin as she set off into the wilderness in a Rambo-style headband was her failure to take practice shots, or check the sights of the rifle, which duly turned out to be off-kilter. She failed to carry her own weapon, relying on her elderly father and his companion, Steve, to lug it around. When a beast eventually wandered into range, Ms Palin left Chuck Snr to load the rifle, and discharge spent bullet casings.

"What a joke," wrote one viewer on Palin's Facebook page. "I was a fan before the show. No one who is a true hunter lets others carry their rifle or can't load their own shells. Sarah, you are a phony."

Previous episodes of Sarah Palin's Alaska have already caused debate in sporting circles. On the first episode of the show, she went salmon fishing, but cynics noted that she handled a rod awkwardly and failed to catch a fish, despite being on a river chock full of them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hunter-becomes-the-hunted-as-palin-critics-say-she-cant-shoot-2153973.html

[RamboLiberal]

9. Judge for yourself - Sarah shoots a charging bear

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYF_P3DFVs

[saras]

10. That explains it

Personally I've had a hard time understanding what people see in Sarah Palin.

This thread nails it exactly. When we understand why so many Americans LIKE these things about her, we'll understand American politics a lot better...

[RamboLiberal]

12. Another columnist calls her more dangerous than Cheney

Although some of my critics won’t believe it, there is no political agenda at work when I make this bold statement: As a hunter, Sarah Palin is a greater menace in the field than Dick Cheney.

And I have a feeling that real hunters among my readership will back me up on that. Fact is, Sarah Palin gives hunting a bad name, and it has nothing to do with the whole cruelty to animals argument, which I’ll leave for someone else to hash out. It’s based entirely on the fact that she’s so clueless and incompetent behind a gun that she ought to trade her rifle in on a tactical nuke, which doesn’t require the pinpoint accuracy a hunter needs to make meat without causing unnecessary suffering among the game population.

I came to this conclusion after a friend told me that as a former hunter, shooter and avid outdoorsman, I had to watch the episode of “Sarah Palin’s Alaska” where she and her dad go into the backcountry after caribou. I’d never watched an episode of that show, for obvious reasons, but I dialed that one up just so I could discuss it with my buddy. And I was horrified.

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• Before they leave for their hunting camp (hundreds of miles away by plane), Sarah’s dad tells the camera crew what a great shot his daughter (whom he always curiously refers to as Sarah Palin, not just Sarah) is with a rifle. But then he says that he’s bringing two guns on the hunt, a big game rifle for him and a “varmint” rifle for her, because she doesn’t like guns that kick.

That was the first red flag. A competent hunter knows that your rifle has to have a big enough caliber to bring down the game you’re after. That’s a humane consideration. Use the right caliber and place your shot carefully, and you can fill your freezer without causing the animal undue suffering. Use a caliber that’s too small, and unless you make a perfect shot, you run the chance of just wounding the game. That’s never good, and a prospect that gives competent hunters nightmares. Going after a game animal like a caribou, which can weigh as much as 700 pounds, with a varmint rifle isn’t just asking for trouble, it’s real cruelty in the making.

http://examiner.gmnews.com/news/2010-12-16/Greg_Bean's_Column/Duck_and_cover_because_Sarahs_locked_and_loaded.html