On Saturday, a Sarah Palin staffer told a conservative radio show why they removed Palin's TakeBackthe20 website, screengrabbed above, in the hours after the Tucson shooting. Transcribing:
SARAHPAC's REBECCA MANSOUR: Here's the timeline for it. I'll just be completely honest. I believe the person that controls our website, our contractor that runs SarahPac.com and all that, they were the ones that hosted our Take Back the 20. We had thought that Take Back the 20 was taken down after the November election because it's irrelevant now.
HOST TAMMY BRUCE: Right.
REBECCA MANSOUR: And they called us this morning and said, Do you want us to take this thing down, because they realized, instantly, you know. . . [Note: Mansour trails off without completing this sentence.]
And I think just reflexively, without even thinking about any consequences, our PAC treasurer said, Well, it should have been down already. We're not paying for that, you know, and it's not getting any traffic. It's not, it's no longer relevant.
So it was taken down. It was not trying to scrub anything. The original Facebook post where we had this graphic is still up.
And I just want to clarify again. Maybe it wasn't done on the record enough by us when this graphic came out. The graphic is just -- we never, ever, ever intended it to be gun sights. It was simply crosshairs like you'd see on maps.
BRUCE: It's a surveyor's symbol.
MANSOUR: A surveyor's symbol.
BRUCE: Yeah.
The marks on Ms. Palin's map indicated the 20 congressional districts where voters supported McCain/Palin and Democratic representatives voted for health reform. If those marks are clearly surveyor's symbols, as Ms. Mansour said, why would the Web contractor have "realized, instantly" that SarahPac might want to take the website down? Perhaps the contractor had seen Ms. Palin's own interpretation of them on Twitter after the November elections: "Remember months ago "bullseye" icon used 2 target the 20 Obamacare-lovin' incumbent seats? We won 18 out of 20 (90% success rate;T'aint bad)"
And when Ms. Palin introduced the graphic and the Take Back the 20 campaign in March, she tweeted, "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!" Pls see my Facebook page."
The full interview lives here. The clip above starts at about 10:50. After the jump, the graphic as it appears on Sarah Palin's Facebook page.
As Ms. Mansour says, this graphic is still available on Sarah Palin's Facebook page.
Leave a Comment:
Um, yeah, no.
Agreed. If it's supposed to be a surveyor's symbol, then why do they turn red when the politicians in question are leaving office? Because they've been taken out.
So, Ms. Palin -- could you explain to us how you "reload" a surveyor's symbol?
What everyone keeps missing is this symbol was also used to strike fear into San Francisco and the State of California in the 60's and 70's... here is the ''other'' use of this symbol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zodiac-logo.png
Yeah, I'd already called that as Sarah Palin being a fan of his work and using his symbol as a measure of her adoration.
It is also very close to what I have recently discovered is a "White Power" symbol: a circle with an equilateral cross in the middle. Not saying that Palin is a white supremacist...just a very ignorant woman who will say anything to make herself look innocent.
Yep, I'd agree with that explanation if it wasn't SO close to the time.
They're covering their derrieres. It was as intended: gunsights.
Why not just put dots, representing the cities or the particular districts? Why not put little donkeys? Why not just an "X" to mark the spot?
And why did Rep. Gifford's opponent invite people to an M16 rifle shoot?
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck . . .
And sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
You're probably too young to remember, but there was a catchy little song years ago which went something like this: "I didn't know the gun was loaded - I'm so sorry my friend - I didn't know the gun was loaded - I'll never do that again".
Almost as good an excuse as Palin's apologist.!
You know as soon as she says, "I'll be completely honest," that what follows is to be a bald-faced "pants-on-fire" whopper of a lie. It's also nice to see that Bruce read her talking points about the "surveyors symbol" disinformation campaign.
Palin has the blood of at least 6 people on here hands, and she's fine with that.
Only pro-life when it deals with 4 cells in a test tube.
I'm a real estate attorney. The surveyor's symbol with the crosshairs is usually square representing North/South/East/West. I've seen it octagon including NE, SE, NW, SW etc., but only on rare occasion. The round symbol usually represents a pipe and is either empty in the middle or has a dot in the middle. Sorry, Sarah, this isn't a surveyor's symbol.
I couldn't post the link but an approved surveyor's symbol is as she described above.
Surveyor's symbol my little you-know-what. These people can talk their way out of murder.
Yeah, we all know SP and her staff are shoveling BULL*IT!! She really does think we're all stupid. I hope her funding dries up and all her supports disappear into the great white north. B**CH!!
What possible reason could Palin have for using "surveyor's symbols" on a map showing targets to be taken back to the private sector?
Uh huh. Sure. And I have a bridge for sale...
Sarah bought to road to it ....going no where!
What a load of crap!
I googled surveyor symbol and that symbol does come up. It is typically used on maps to suggest areas or buildings to remove. That's fine. But it DOES look exactly like a rifle's crosshairs and when you combine that with the words RELOAD and BULLSEYE, it gives the connotation of hunting or targeting.
As a graphic designer I can tell you that there are 100 other symbols or shapes to use to show where a congressional district is.
Your post contains a subliminal agreement with the tone of the symbol discussion: "...used on maps to suggest areas or buildings to remove." Cross-hairs of a rifle/gun are targeted on things to be shot and "removed". Seems this surveyor's symbol references the same, just in a different context. Interesting...
Be careful. Teabaggers have posted pictures of crosshairs adding the words "surveyor symbol" to it to make it come up if googled. Ask an actual surveyor to be sure.
In any case, I do NOT believe they were ever intended to be surveyor symbols. She couldve used a "pin" to designate if that were the case.
What a pile of BS. They took it down because someone thought it would be fogotten by everyone and they could pretend that i did not exist and never did . So much for after thougt Gee could we PLEASE FORGET PALIN AND PRETENT SHE NEVER EXISTED
Actually it had nothing to do with gunsights. Actually, Sarah Palin had always been a huge fan of the serial killer, the Zodiak, and commemerated her love for him by adopting his symbol...which just happens to look like a gunsight for her website.
It makes as much sense as a surveyors symbol unless the campaign was all about proper land boundary recognition.
I grew up in Vallejo, CA during the Zodiac killings, and I immediately thought of him, and the terror we lived with, when I saw the symbol on Palin's map. Maybe she knows who he was?
It's garbage to pretend this was anything other than an attempt to provoke violence against our government. That symbol will always mean murder and hatred to me and to many others I'm sure. Anyone who calls for the use of 2nd Amendment Rights is asking for their followers to use any means-including violence-to attain their goals.
The more that woman opens her mouth....Verbal diarrhea just flows out. She needs a muzzle.
Or to extend your metaphor: a diaper.
Diapers on sale at WalMart...five aisles away from the Glock ammo.
right, and I've got some land in Florida I'll sell you
"And they called us this morning and said, Do you want us to take this thing down, because they realized, instantly, you know. . . [Note: Mansour trails off without completing this sentence.]"
That says EVERYTHING that needs to be (un)said. They knew precisely what those symbols were meant to be. No question whatsoever.
You are saying that they (designers) put up the symbol that has crosshairs without discussing what they were using with Sarah? If so, then how did it become so coordinated in text and graphics?
Or are you saying that the designers were tasked with making the whole without any discussion and when it was posted, they said that the crosshairs were really surveyor symbols? And that Sarah's comments about the graphic were just adlibs.
They're surveyors' symbols, yeah, that's the ticket. And the timing, that's just coincidence. Uh huh...
Surveyors symbol?? I don't think so.
Sarah Palin owns lots of guns. I'm sure she's well aware of what crosshairs are.
It is a surveyor's symbol. The graphic artist who made the map used a surveyor symbol. Palin, however, referred to it as a bullseye.
http://surveying.wb.psu.edu/sur162/stadia/radial.htm
Number 79.
Right. I could buy the line that it was intended to be a surveyor's symbol, but only if there wasn't rhetoric associating it with hunting. When you say you've got a bullseye on someone it makes it hard to pretend like you're not talking about a rifle scope. Perhaps Sarah isn't evil and is just too stupid to realize her words have consequences- kind've like a teenager. I think maybe she says stuff impulsively and isn't used to being held accountable for her blurbs, although since I don't know her personally this is merely a speculation. It would explain a lot, at least in my view.
How presidential, hey?
WHY would anyone vote for a moron like that for ANY public service job?
u can put lipstick on a pig......
Correct, and correct.
Where was all the the footage on"Sarah Palin's Alaska" about her extensive interest in surveying? (Yes, I watched. Alaska is beautiful to see.) Was it lost somewhere in between a hunting trip and some shooting practice?
People use personally meaningful metaphors.
I don't think she ever actually wanted anyone to be shot or to be killed. I do think she has always meant a much more innocuous "successfully achieve the goal" theme with her inflammatory language rather than literal death to those with whom she disagrees. Her problem is she doesn't properly equate effective shooting with death. If she did, she would have chosen a different metaphor.
She equates an accurate shot with success, with achieving her goal. She knows something died on the other end of the bullet, but that fact is somehow lost in the jumble of blather about how good it feels for her to have done what she set out to do and the resulting good fortune that will now follow her achievement. Hers is a heavily weighted, one-sided perspective.
Any good hunter will tell you: never point your gun at a living thing unless you absolutely mean to kill it, always eat what you kill, never kill what you can't eat, (unless it is literally for self preservation) and always respect the right of that kill to walk the earth with you. She actually addresses all of these concepts on her reality show. The problem is she pays these concepts lip service but does not live them 100%, even though she thinks she does.
Perhaps I give her too much credit there. I just really believe she is too stupid to understand the depth of her own ignorance and how she affects the world around her. It's kind of a cyclical problem.
Politics has devolved into an obscenely lazy, kill or be killed, self preservation culture which is reflected countless ways in the current rhetoric. It is lazy because it is much easier to silence those with whom you oppose than to defend (and thus challenge) your own positions through meaningful discourse, so to ultimately come to a compromise with which everyone can abide. Sadly, this is the very job description of an elected official. Very few qualified applicants seem to be applying to fill the positions.
Have you ever been at a funeral where some moron is having a loud conversation with a distant relative they haven't seen in years, as if it's a family reunion instead of a funeral? They inevitably say something to the effect of "OMG I would have just DIED!" during some irrelevant and inappropriate conversation right in front of the grieving widow? That is Sarah Palin, self-centered and stupid, completely desensitized to her own words. Unfortunately, that sort of reckless stupidity is also dangerous when given a gun metaphor and a national megaphone.
It's funny about words and images. Other people hear and see them when you say and use them. You have no control over how they will be received, so it is wise to deliver them with care.
If Sarah Palin had any grace at all she would have made an immediate statement calling for an end to violence as a considered option for approaching America's political disagreements, and she wouldn't have done it Saturday. She would have done it the first time she was criticized for publically using a bullseye as a graphic or gun language in a speech, and she would have personally committed herself, in that statement, never to use them carelessly again. Of course, such a statement would have required her to have both leadership qualities and intelligence, and she possesses neither.
To repeat my favorite KO truism: "That woman is an idiot."
Ultimately though, I believe all of this outrage would be better placed at Sharron Angle's feet than Sarah Palin's. Rachel was spot on last night in her indictment of that other dangerous idiot woman.
It's a surveyor's symbol - right. And Palin's comment "Don't retreat, reload" is referring to a film camera, not a gun - right. She's directing her comments to surveyors and photo journalists. Right...
LOL! I know!
And former contestants of Fear Factor as well ("bullseye").
So... we can make 'Take Back the 20' t-shirts and it'll be perfectly fine? What the Palin camp lacks in knowledge, tact, grace, and skill they certainly make up for in creativity.
I am sorry, but this explanation is as ridiculous as the "refudiate/repudiate" fiasco she tried to explain away on her documentary show on TLC.
Seriously, Sarah, just admit that you were incorrect in using that kind of rhetoric and people will respect you for it. People in power need to know that their words have consequences. That is part of being a public figure, and if she wants to be politically viable in the future, she needs to realize that.
Why is this women around? she is a moron, Katie Couric exposed her. She couldn't even tell her what she read to keep up with current events. She is a phony. Politically viable future? As what dog catcher. Its like who listen's to these people? Rush for example, why would anybody listen to him he a drug addict. This country has been bought and sold to wall street, it will never get better
Oh please...... its a gunsite, target, bullseye..... whatever. And it went with her reload crap. Ppl aren't stupid to believe that explanation. Sheesh.
She's a gun enthusiast and uses plenty of gun language, those marks were meant to be the sights of a rifle. In the FB graphic, the targets are red after they were eliminated. There is a lot of symbolism in there. Now a reasonable person would deduce this elimination is only a metaphor(?) and is not to be meant literally, but politically.
I'm going to have to defend Palin on this one. We can't always censor our language to the lowest common denominator. Crazy is as crazy does. If the shooter had a propensity for violence, I'm sure he would have found some reason or cause to enact his violence. Civilization is far less civil than what is ideal and censoring all violent imagery is not very human.
Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, a President who would even THINK about using the kind of language she has used??? I can't think of a single one, on either side, who lacked literacy, eloquence or class as much as Sarah Palin. Reagan had class. Even Nixon had class. A great (or even mediocre, for that matter) cannot command respect when inciting such vitriole. The prospect of it is just unimaginable. It is possible to communicate without using gun/killing/violent analogies - in fact, imagine for a minute John F. Kennedy inciting the country to "take out" the people who disagreed with him. How about Ronald Reagan telling people not to "retreat, but reload" while out on his ranch shooting wild horses.
Sarah Palin needs to defend more than this. She preaches to the lowest common denominator. Do you really think something like this was a fluke? It was just a matter of time. Like those morons threatening to picket the funerals of the victims. It is nothing more than ignorance fueled by fear and false leadership. I will say that she is not solely responsible, as all fearmongers will use the promise of power and control to incite this type of behavior. "If you put lipstick on a pig..."
Exactly. There is a definite trend growing. Remember that maniac who plottted to attack the Tides Foundation after Beck kept using similar rhetoric against them? And with Beck's confusing messages, or Palin's own "mixed" signals here with the map, it's no wonder their most rabid followers can't distinguish right from wrong...
Wow...how lame. It may be time for "momma grizzly" to hibernate.
In a perfect world, she would just fade away, never to be heard from again.
Re-Write: It was Ms. Palin's legal team that felt the 'Take Back 20' map should come down, as it could be a liability, had it merely been a money issue, that would have been dealt with before the end of the year.
Ms. Bruce is obviously not well spoken as evidenced by her verbiage. Ms. Palin is obviously not well educated as evidenced by her actions. Most important, those that frequent Ms. Palin's page allow her a platform and hand her a megaphone. We need to have enough respect for ourselves that we stop wallowing in degration. There needs to be a premium on education. We need to assert, with our actions (as well as our words) that words do matter and we will only listen to intelligent civility.
A woman who uses gun and hunting metaphors (though I doubt she understands the word) constantly would NEVER use gunsights on a map. NOOOOOOOOOO.
That would never happen.
First, I just want to say how completely bothered I am that Sarah Palin is using these pathetic excuses to deny any and all responsibility for her beliefs. She might actually save her career by coming clean and admitting that she may have held a part in this.
While it may be on her facebook page, users who disagree or wish to lodge a complaint or simply express themselves are deleted and banned from Palin's facebook page. Our paper was banned for posting a question to her asking about her feelings on the subject of "Treason".
She should stand for her beliefs, isn't it about fighting and dying? What would happen if our troops turned around, ran and erased their missions? The least she could do is stand for what she believes in and answer to charges of treason.