The selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska proved quintessentially McCain — daring, hazardous and defiantly off-message.
Really? Because it seemed to me to be the exact opposite--the result of an over-long, over-thought, overly-vetted process that involved a few dozen exorbitantly-salaried consultants with their several dozen fingers firmly on the pulse of hyperreality, answering questions they'd have been better off not asking. Palin's the kind of mistake only a committee could make (cf. Dan Quayle, who, even though you know it didn't happen that way, you could see Pappy Bush choosing in some slightly inebriated haze). Better choose someone who looks like she knows what 'operating system' means! Should have executive experience, but no Washington Insider status! As close to a caricature of a Red Meat Republican as we can find! Must be pro-Big Drill. And, of course, A choice lazy journalists will hail as Maverick McCain being daring, hazardous, and defiantly off-message! Mission Accomplished, and in the worst possible fashion. "Qualified to be one minor anesthesia misshap during a bi-monthly tumor removal away from the Presidency" obviously didn't make the cut; I don't know whether that was intentional or not, given that these are experts in proposing blind guesses about what people who read Us weekly will decide about complex issues. I think the two things we can say are, one, that viewing themselves now as having a chance to win the thing they were desperate to knock Obama's speech out of the news hole, and they succeeded in the same way having the candidate butcher a cow in a campaign stop in Kansas City would've (It is easier to get to the Top than to stay there!); and, two, that the one bit of floundering they didn't do is take the whole "Hillary Democrats, Ripe for Plucking" routine seriously, not in nominating an anti-Feminist, anti-Reproductive Rights, We've Got Lots of Good Unplundered Tundra Up Here ideologue. Clearly, she's a jab-it-in-your eye pick, one that'll give the moronic base a satisfyingly anti-abortion woman they can accuse Democrats of being hypocritical for opposing. Everybody knows that, right?
Yet in making such an unabashed bid for supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, he risked undercutting his central case against Senator Barack Obama.
Oh.
For some interesting Alaskan commentary regarding Palin, check out this new, Alaskan political blog called Mudflats (http://mudflats.wordpress.com/). The guy writes well and has some great local perspectives.
ReplyDeleteThe GOP has long since abandoned the notion of 'governing'. The question they now ask when they come to a fork in the road is not 'What's the right thing to do?'. It's not 'What course do conservative principles suggest?' It's not even 'What do we do to win?'
ReplyDeleteIt's down to 'What will piss the liberals off?' and or 'What will amuse the press?'
A system of governance based on bright shiny things and middle fingers.
God help us all.
Davis X. Machina.
"Qualified to be one minor anesthesia misshap during a bi-monthly tumor removal away from the Presidency" obviously didn't make the cut
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether to fall out of my computer chair laughing or start cleaning out the ol' bomb shelter at this point.
Palin:Womenfolk::CThomas:Blackfolk
ReplyDeleteThis time it's not so easy. Fooling congress is one thing ...
His (KKK) whitefolk (as representative as the reprehensibles mentioned in the equation above)mark
Pookapooka
(cf. Dan Quayle, who, even though you know it didn't happen that way, you could see Pappy Bush choosing in some slightly inebriated haze).
ReplyDeleteAw, that was just the Halcion. This time, it's Ambien!
Honestly, what's it matter? The string pullers behind the GOP have gotten well practiced at telling Bush what to do, what makes you think Palin'd be any less malleable? Probably easier to play puppet theater with than McCain, to be honest, he's a tad contrary.
And wouldn't First Woman President be a fine fuck you to the party that actually seems to give a flying damn about women's causes? Wouldn't that help immunize them against having to actually lift a procedural finger to help women achieve, for example, equal pay? Hey, the chicks are doing fine, we're living proof!
McCain probably doesn't think that way, but someone suggested the name to him. It didn't come out of nowhere, and there's precious little evidence he even really knew who she was.
My partner and I dug a little deeper and gave a little more to Obama today. Palin is an insult, and we'll be damned if we see the GOP go down on the books as bringing us the first woman president.
GILF: Glasses Identically Like Fey's.
ReplyDeletePalin is Clarence Thomas with a pussy and tits, and she's a liar about that 4 month old baby--it ain't hers. The fantasy that McCain is "independent" is now utterly destroyed--he's being handled exactly like Bush, but this time the handlers are less visible. This is the neo-con revolution happening--and they're in if he gets elected.
ReplyDeleteI think that Governor Palin is a brilliant choice for the Evil Party this year; she's a reliably evil politician and just by being female she's going to attract the torrent of hideously sexist abuse that the Hopey McChangy fanboys were heaping on Senator Clinton until the minute the VP news got out. And the Evil Party is a past master at the "so, who are you going to vote for?" bluffing game with the true believers.
ReplyDeleteI strongly suspect that the not-exactly earthshattering news that Governor Palin is a right-winger will be passed over in favor of the sort of "eeeeeeewwwww, she's a giiiirl!" hysterics that the leadership of the Democratic Party has been embracing this year. And those hysterics will lever a whole bunch of so-called independents back into the festering embrace of the Republican Party.
The selection of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska proved quintessentially McCain — daring, hazardous and defiantly off-message.
ReplyDeleteApparently McCain's choice is even more daring, more hazardous, and more defiantly off-message on Monday than it was last Friday.
Here I'm struggling to forget some of those parties I attended in Moscow, Idaho in the mid-1980s and McCain plays therapist and forces me to deal with them. Whether I met a really drunk Sarah from Alaska or met her in church while struggling through the hangover the next morning, I cannot say--probably neither, as I was thankfully absent from the twin cities (Moscow and Pullman) during most of the 1983-1987 school years.
ReplyDeleteMcCain's first executive decision will hopefully be his last. The United States cannot afford any anesthesia mishaps during a McCain Presidency.