What Sarah Palin Shows
Sexism and racism alive and well in US politics.
Alaska Governor Palin: double standard.
Watching Sarah Palin rouse Republicans as she accepted their vice-presidential nomination last night, my mind went back a week to another moment, at another political convention.
There was nary a dry eye in Denver's cavernous Pepsi Center as Beau Biden introduced his father, Joe, and told the heart-wrenching story of how the Democratic Party candidate for vice president once had juggled the demands of being his kids' dad while serving as a newly-elected U.S. senator.
"In 1972... before he took the oath of office, my father went to Washington to look at his new office space. My mom took us to go buy a Christmas tree," Biden told thousands of misty-eyed Democratic Party delegates and hushed members of the news media. "On the way home, we were in an automobile accident. My mom, Neilia, and sister, Naomi, were killed."
Following the car crash, Beau, then three years old, and his younger brother, Hunter, spent many weeks in hospital. "Dad was always at our side. We, not the Senate, were all he cared about," Beau told the hushed crowd.
In fact, Biden explained, his father almost had quit the U.S. Senate to care for his broken family, but "great men like Ted Kennedy, Mike Mansfield, Hubert Humphrey... convinced him to serve."
Then just 30 years of age and the widowed father of two small boys, Joe Biden took his oath of office not at the U.S. Senate, but in his sons' hospital room. And for the next several years, until he re-married, Biden maintained his tireless devotion to his sons while simultaneously serving the Delaware* voters who had sent him to Washington, D.C.
"As a single parent, he decided to be there to put us to bed, to be there when we woke from a bad dream, to make us breakfast, so he'd travel to and from Washington, four hours a day," Beau Biden recalled.
Family values
It was an emotional narrative. And it accomplished its purpose: to successfully portray Joe Biden -- now a six-term Senate veteran, acknowledged foreign affairs expert and fierce partisan politician who will savage his Republican opponents in this fall's campaign -- as a compassionate man skilled enough to balance the personal needs of his family and the public interests of his Delaware* electorate.
Principled, devoted and accomplished... what a guy!
And yet compare the response of many Democrats and more than a few members of the news media -- and notably several prominent female journalists -- to the life-story of the GOP's newly-named vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska.
Forty-four years of age, Palin is the mother of five children, including a four-month-old son who has Down syndrome. Plus, her 17-year-old, unmarried daughter is pregnant.
Instead of being inspiring or admirable, however, Palin's family circumstances have caused howls of outrage from Democrats and female members of the news media, who scornfully question how she will balance the needs of her family with being vice president of the United States.
"Not only do we have a woman with five children, including an infant with special needs, but a woman whose 17-year-old child will need her even more in the coming months. Not to mention the grandchild," wrote Sally Quinn, a high-profile columnist at The Washington Post. "This would inevitably be an enormous distraction for a new vice president (or president) in a time of global turmoil."
Quinn concluded: "Is she prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job? She is the mother of five children, one of them a four-month-old with Down syndrome. Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick, what choice will she make?"
A gender double standard
Is it even possible to imagine that anyone, political opponent or journalist, would suggest that a male politician's family was "a distraction" to his job? Or ask whether a male politician would choose to make his family a priority over some urgent political or governmental task?
It seems silly on its face. After all, as was demonstrated at the Democratic convention, Joe Biden's determination to combine a widowed father's responsibilities with service in the U.S. Senate won praise and admiration from the assembled delegates and news media.
Moreover, Sarah Palin is not a widow; she is raising her children with her husband. Consider what might be the Democratic Party and news media response were Todd Palin and not his wife the family politician and Republican candidate for vice president. Would his ability to juggle family obligations with the demands of public office be questioned or criticized?
The question is laughable; the answer clearly is, no, just as it isn't for any other male politician.
Indeed, it is inconceivable that either the Democrats or the news media would similarly question the values, capability or experience of two other state governors once considered as contenders for the GOP vice-presidential slot: Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, who has been in office just since last year and is the father of three, or Minnesota's Tim Pawlenty, first elected just over three years ago and the father of two.
How many is too many?
Sarah Palin's public service includes stints as a city councillor, as a mayor, as a commissioner on her state's Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and last year she won election as governor of Alaska. Which of these offices was she, is she, unsuitable or unworthy of holding because of her status as a mother?
Or was Palin a capable, competent public servant when her brood was composed of, say, just two children? Was she suddenly rendered incapable of combining motherhood and service with the addition of the third child? The fourth? Or was it the fifth, the special-needs newborn, that made her unfit for public office?
Moreover, are there any other elective or appointed offices from which she ought to be disqualified? Could she perform, say, as a congressman, but not as a senator; a White House staffer but not a cabinet secretary?
And do these restrictions apply to all women, whether or not they are mothers, and regardless of how many children they have? Is this an argument that pertains only to Sarah Palin?
Questionable questions
We won't get answers to those questions, and nor should we. They are insulting and -- it seems unnecessary to add -- sexist.
But that doesn't stop female columnists, like The New York Times' Maureen Dowd, from complaining that Palin's appointment was "ineptly vetted" by Republican party officials.
One has to wonder what was the question, or questions, that GOP staffers failed to ask of the Alaska governor. Or better yet, what response might have kept Palin off the Republican ticket? ("Oh, you have a baby with Down syndrome? Sorry, we can't accept you." Or, "Geez, your unmarried daughter is pregnant? Nope, you can't be allowed near the White House.")
Maybe we haven't come so far after all, baby.
Why Palin got the call
There are four major reasons Republican presidential candidate John McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate.
The first three are obvious, the other, less so.
One is that Palin, a staunch pro-life Christian, inoculates McCain from the constant hectoring of his party's Christian base. Since his selection of Palin to join him on the GOP ticket, former McCain critics such as right-wing pundits Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and religious leaders like Gary Bauer and Ralph Reed, have switched from being noisily antagonistic to loudly enthusiastic.
Then there is Palin's acknowledged record as a political reformer, a maverick who, like McCain, is not afraid to buck her own party while advocating change. Seldom is a Republican candidate hurt by bashing Washington, D.C. and big, wasteful government.
The third is similar to the second: Palin, a woman, signals "change." In a U.S. election season that saw Barack Obama, an African-American whose very candidacy represented change, prevail in the Democratic party primaries over Hillary Clinton, who repeatedly emphasized her 'experience,' it is evident that American voters in 2008 are rejecting politics as usual.
Palin, like Obama, clearly represents change to the political status quo of "white men in suits."
Playing to blue-collar white voters
The fourth reason that John McCain tapped Sarah Palin is somewhat disquieting, and like the Democrats' and female journalists' criticism of Palin's family circumstances, reveals an unpleasant undercurrent of U.S. politics.
Recall that in May, as the Democratic primaries were drawing to a close, Hillary Clinton and some of her campaign officials made what many observers viewed as "race-baiting" comments.
"Senator Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again," Clinton told USA Today, citing an Associated Press story. [Emphasis added.]
She added, "Whites... who had not completed college were supporting me. There's a pattern emerging here."
More fuel was thrown on the fire by one of her top strategists, Geoff Garin, when he told the news media that, at the beginning of the primary campaign, "we were running exactly even with white voters in North Carolina... and ended up winning a very significant win of 24 points among those voters." [Emphasis added.]
The insinuation was clear: a sizeable number of white voters in the Democratic primaries refused to cast a ballot for Barack Obama for the simple reason that he is black. And, like Clinton, the Republicans know that some percentage of whites will do the same in the presidential contest in November.
Moreover, it's a well-defined substrata of the white population that might reject Obama on the basis of his race. As Clinton herself observed, those voters likely to be antipathetic to an African-American president are in the working-class, and especially those whose education stopped short of college. And they largely are to be found in the Appalachian states, the rural Midwest, the South, and mountain states in the West.
Obama and the Democrats know this as well, and it is one of the key reasons that Joe Biden was selected as the party's vice-presidential candidate. For Biden was born and raised in the coal-mining town of Scranton, Pennsylvania, in the heart of northern Appalachia.
(So, too, was Hillary Clinton's father, a point she emphasized repeatedly during the later primaries in an attempt to bond with white, blue-collar Democrats.)
Palin's not-so-coded message
A hunter and life-time member of the National Rifle Association, Sarah Palin also is a snowmobile racer and a self-described hockey mom, and with her husband once started a small business.
She is a woman, yes; but the important point about Palin is that she is white and hails from a blue-collar background. Like Biden, her mission in the presidential campaign will be to appeal to working-class whites in key battleground states.
In her speech to the Republican convention last night, Palin pointedly described her family as working-class, saying her husband was "a lifelong commercial fisherman... a production operator in the oil fields of Alaska's North Slope... a proud member of the United Steel Workers' Union."
She also extolled the virtues of small-town Americans: "I grew up with those people. They are the ones who do some of the hardest work in America... who grow our food, run our factories, and fight our wars. They love their country, in good times and bad, and they're always proud of America. I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town."
And she launched the following barb at Barack Obama: "I might add that in small towns, we don't quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren't listening. We tend to prefer candidates who don't talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco."
How much progress?
One might have hoped that in 2008, the United States had moved beyond the racist and sexist politics of an earlier age. Alas, as was demonstrated by Hillary Clinton's observation regarding white antipathy to an African-American candidate, and revealed again in the frenzy surrounding John McCain's selection of a female running mate, the nation perhaps has not made as much progress as was hoped.
Still, the mere presence of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin on their respective party's presidential and vice-presidential tickets is evidence that the U.S. is moving in the right direction. And one of them, either Obama or Palin, will make an historic breakthrough in November.
*Corrected on Sept. 7, 2008.
Related Tyee stories:
- Belittling Belinda
We're told she's a 'blonde bombshell heartbreaking attractive dipstick whore.' Nothing gender specific, of course. - Clinton Goes to the Poison Well
Coded racism and faked populism. Can US politics ever pull free? - Can We Elect a Woman?
Carole James now must survive where "alpha males" vie "for control of a baboon group." To win, she'll have to change B.C.'s political culture.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
seth
05-09-2008
real women
McMartin misses it completely.
There are many clouds over Palin. Support for the succession of Alaska from the union, abuse of power, attendance at an antisemitic church, corruption etc.
The problem with Palin's family life is the hypocrisy. How is the abstinence based sex ed she advocates as law, working for her and her family. Why does her religious right demand mother's stay home with the children yet support a favorites desire not to.
nightbloom
05-09-2008
Good article - very
Good article - very fair.
Seth, how can you accuse the Palin family of hypocrisy when they adhered to their professed beliefs? The fact is that babies with Downs Syndrome are being aborted out-of-hand. It is very, very, very rare to see a child with Downs Syndrome today. There's only one reason why this is so - mothers and medical professionals have been routinely aborting them for the last two decades. Period. Do we euthanize the disabled in a civilized society? You tell me who's the hyprocrite here.
And there's nothing wrong with validating abstinence and self-restraint alongside the usual precautions. Her daughter intends to marry the father, and they are both taking responsibility for the life they have created. No hypocrisy there - and btw I don't remember Bristol publicly advocating any varity of sex ed. You seem to want perfection, and to believe that the lack of perfection should obligate people to abandon their values and responsibilities. I don't accept that as a valid standpoint.
G West
05-09-2008
Nothing wrong with promoting
There's nothing wrong with promoting your particular version of virtue...I think a quick look at Palin's record indicates she wants to do a good deal more than that.
What's hypocritical about Palin is that she professed to also believe in democracy but, when elected, she behaved like an autocrat...not all that different from a certain pee wee rambo right here in Canada. A closer look at her record as a ‘reformer’ won’t stand scrutiny either.
As for the fact that she had guys like Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney in her cheering section - well, I'd say that's the definition of hypocrisy. Without even mentioning the disjunction between a party that professes to be about community and service denigrating someone who's put a lot of his life into community service and a party run by elites trying to say they’re ‘agin ‘em.
Now what was it Peggy Noonan said?
I agree the article is fair and even handed on the gender question.
deeby
05-09-2008
Who...when...?
The only comment I heard from a Democrat was from Obama, saying he considered peoples' families off limits. The official party spokespeople have been silent.
Clearly the GOP thought/hoped that the response would be different, setting up the great showdown between the rural populist and the secretly sexist urban elites. All they've been able to do is hammer away at the media. Kudos to the Dems for not rising to the bait....
tacet
05-09-2008
Pampering Palin
Two points:
First, Sarah Palin belongs to a fundamentalist church that insists that for women, motherhood trumps all other roles. In other words, they're sexist and proud of it. So with Republicans trumpeting her religious belief as a major aspect of her appeal, she legitimately invites the question of divided loyalties: "Governor Palin, we godless liberals may not have a problem with young mothers pursuing careers, but your church does. How do you reconcile your professions of faith with your violation of its tenets?"
Second, "there is Palin's acknowledged record as a political reformer". You mean, her claimed record as a political reformer. A look at her record shows that she is now lying about her opposition to earmarks--she was in favor of the 'bridge to nowhere' until it became politically unpopular, and she hired a Washington lobbyist to secure earmarks when she was mayor of Wasilla. As for the old boys club, she happily accepted the endorsement of now-indicted US Senator Ted Stevens back when that was convenient. And now that journalists are actually looking at her record, they're finding a clear pattern of cronyism and the misuse of government power to serve her friends and stiff her constituents.
In short, she is--to put it biblically--a whited sepulchre.
alive
05-09-2008
Palin is maybe what they deserve?
First off: comparing Bidens caring for his son with the Palin situation is off the mark because any US senator can be absent and never missed; not so with a potential Vice President or perhaps President!
About the republican convention: anyone watching could be excused for thinking it was a convention of bible-thumpers!
Given a different setting the speeches fitted the pattern, by continuous repeating of a few words as if the message was a gift bestowed on the crowd.
One speaker reminded me of the typical promotional spiel one encounters if considering direct sales as a livelihood.
Altogether too slick and almost overbearing!
If this is what is needed to rouse the average voter there, it speaks volumes about where we are heading.
Is Palin a good choice: If talking one thing for the public and accepting a different standard within the family, great! She is a typical politician in that respect.
nightbloom
05-09-2008
The media has behaved
The media has behaved atrociously. The antipathy has been so blatant and thick. In the words of Gerard Baker of the Times:
“What's the difference between Sarah Palin and Barack Obama?”
“One is a well turned-out, good-looking, and let's be honest, pretty sexy piece of eye-candy.
“The other kills her own food.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/gerard_baker/article4677799.ece
Now the scuttlebut is that Oprah is refusing to host the first woman nominee in American history on her show. Sour.
I'm looking forward to the debates. You just know she's gonna walk away with Biden's cojones, especially since his first reaction to her nomination was to note what a pretty little thing she was. Old pols can't get into verbal jousts with women - it's against their culture and their grain. I've observed this time & time again. And Biden will find it hard to pull the "aloof, magnanimous gentleman-lion" pose that Obama used on Hillary to such great effect.
nightbloom
05-09-2008
On a slightly tangential
On a slightly tangential note, here's an interesting riff on the Vice Presidency which Palin and Biden each hope to succeed:
Uncommon Sense: The imperial vice presidency
http://www.waynesuburban.com/WebApp/appmanager/JRC/SingleWeekly;jsessionid=pg2SLQ3Ycmppm54QNQ7x1pQcgXznsv7Ds5LQ4PNjstBQQgqTgln2!944915439?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=pg_wk_article&r21.pgpath=%2FWSU%2FOpinion&r21.content=%2FWSU%2FOpinion%2FHeadlineList_Story_2433456
Viewed in this light, a Obama/Biden ticket would likely perpetuate the lopsided weightiness of the "imperial" Vice Presidency which began with Bush/Cheney. It's actually McCain/Palin who would return the executive branch to the traditional model of Senior and Junior Consul. The whole idea is to have someone who can run their own ticket in eight years (or four). Conceivably, Palin could be the first woman to become both Vice President and President.
nightbloom
05-09-2008
...and on an even more
...and on an even more tangential note, my fellow Battlestar Galactica fans have worked themselves into a frakked-up state of geeked-out titillation over the physical resemblance between John McCain and Sarah Palin to Colonel Saul Tigh and President Laura Roslin of the Twelve Colonies:
Picture:
http://presurfer.blogspot.com/2008/08/us-presidential-election.html
...and this has even an inspired a website and on-line forum: http://tighroslin.com/
Who says we're not allowed to have any fun at election time??...Now if we could only come up with something diverting that sends up the Harper-&-John Baird duo...
nightbloom
05-09-2008
Correction
I meant first Republican woman nominee (three posts back, re. Oprah's reluctance to host Palin). Geraldine Ferraro is, of course, the first female nominee (Democrat) in U.S. history.
Stump
05-09-2008
Geraldine Who?
Just to correct a fact, Geraldine Ferraro was the first woman nominee for V.P.
Further, Palin is entitled to her beliefs regarding abstinence, but if the events unfolding in her own family aren't enough to make her rethink her position, she's clearly unable to process new information and adjust her viewpoint accordingly. Not a great trait in an almost leader of a country.
Politicians who can't deal with the facts are already too numerous for my taste. So, I agree with Will that she's getting some sexist treatment, but on the other hand, the position she's taken (on abstinence) has been pretty thoroughly discounted by now... and leaders who can't deal with change and admit errors are a pox upon us all IMO.
As for Oprah, it's her show and she can pick and choose her guests. She's not hosting a news program and has no reason to be held to the same principle of "fair and balanced" coverage. It's television... where journalism goes to die. Surely it's no secret that Oprah is a Democrat, nor is it surprising she might not want to have Palin on her program.
nightbloom
05-09-2008
Gotta be quick 'round
Gotta be quick 'round here.
I agree that Oprah is not obligated. It just looks bad. She already alienated the Hillary-ites. People are gonna start to suspect that she just doesn't like uppity white women.
Abstinence should be taught, validated and elevated as the only fail-safe approach to high-risk uncommitted sex, along with all the secondary higher-risk options. It's taken the AIDS/HIV sector nearly a quarter century to come around to that conclusion. Most smart programs include abstinence within the spectrum of informed choices, and validate it as the only reliable and 100% "safe" default behaviour. It's important for it to be included, and I don't understand the peculiar hostility of the liberal establishment to the very notion of including abstinence in the program (we're not talking about "abstinence only" here).
Fii
05-09-2008
I actually feel pretty bad
I actually feel pretty bad for the young man who is the father of Palin's daughter's child... wow. He's 17, too?
Do you think he saw any of this coming?! Huh! Maybe this is the best incentive yet for young Americans to think twice about whether or not to use protection... (the ones who are having trouble with the whole 'abstinence' thing, that is).
G West
05-09-2008
The Media
I guess nobody watches Fox News or the Daily Show.
The disconnect between fact and reality if far greater on the Fox Network than it is on the fake news show.
Pardon me while I mention that the only person who has taken the high road in this little nonsense drama is Barack Obama.
One might have thought that a reporter fromt the Times of London would have at least mentioned what Obama told his supporters on the Palin question.
On the other hand, I think it's a bit rich to suggest that there's a problem with Oprah choosing not to feature Palin on her show when the McCain team shut out CNN after a few tough questions about Ms Palin being the commander in chief of the National Guard as a proof of her 'foreign affairs' experience.
Gimme a break. Like everything else in American right wing politics, this too is a criminal farce.
Perhaps someone should interview a few residents of Bush's 'Hanoi Hilton' in Guantanamo.
They might provide a slightly more 'fair and balanced' story of what America has really been up to for the last 8 years.
Stump
05-09-2008
abstinence education
Sure, in theory. In reality, not even adults who take vows of celibacy can guarantee they can live up to this impossible ideal. Expecting your average teens to do so borders on the ludicrous.
Jeffrey J.
05-09-2008
Off Base
While I LOVE the Tyee and read it every day, Mr. McMartin has missed the boat on this issue. First, quoting Sally Quinn as if she were a Democrat or "liberal" is highly misleading. Quinn is a multimillionaire right wing Republican. That some right wingers will take aim at Palin is not surprising. That Palin supports the right wing is whats confusing, given her penchant for breaching the code of the neocon family values regime (which regime Democrats and progressive people everywhere reject out of hand).
Maureen Dowd was making a different point. McCain didn't "vet" Palin appointment appropriately, because in the Republican Party, having a pregnant, unmarried teen daughter is a BIG deal. Not so in the Democratic party, and nor so with 80% of our citizens. But for them, it matters. And it is clear they were caught off guard. You can't help but ask, why did they mismanage that fact pattern, and what does it tell you about their organizational process.
Progressive people aren't critical of Palin because she is a woman. Indeed, that's her best attribute. The concern is her connection with big oil, support of the illegal war, support of right to life regimes, etc, etc. The same concern we have about Bush and McCain. Same policies, different chromosomes.
Love your publication!
BC Mary
05-09-2008
Arroooooooo, wa wa wa wa ...
I swear to god, if my Canadian friends and compatriots can't for a day, an hour, a minute stop wallowing in the U.S. presidential election campaign
... I will be forced to paddle off to some South Pacific Islands where other citizens have chosen to worship scraps of old WWII aircraft which came to them ... [cue the thundering mighty organ music] ... from the sky
and, painting myself with mud and feathers, and with large, many-coloured pythons draped around my neck
I will dance in the tropical moonlight, telling myself that yes, [halelluya] I am nuts, but how lucky I am that at least I didn't go nuts from wilfully wallowing in a stupid, venal, corrupt U.S. presidential election campaign ...
So stop it. Stop it, I tell ya. I just read up (by accident -- I thought it was an important message from a friend) on the first Mrs John McCain and then this (above) ... arrooooooo!!! [cue the drums ... ]
alda
05-09-2008
sexism is a red herring topic
If the author wants the election to move beyond sexism and racism, then WHY IS HE TALKING ABOUT THEM?
Why isn't HE talking about Sarah Palin's ideas about the U.S.'s broken health care, decaying education system, rampantly corrupt banking and monetary system, and its war-mongering foreign policies, etc.?
To my mind, he has either unquestioningly accepted the idea that Sarah is "a reformer with honesty and integrity" (when a little bit of research suggests otherwise) or he's focussing on a red herring topic in order to take the heat off of economic and social matters that TRULY count during these precarious times. It's beautiful. That way voters never ever hear about solutions that would be in their own best interests, nor is there time to hear from the multitude of more intelligent backbenchers, thoughtful candidates (including independents we never hear from), and academic experts who could actually explain how those solutions would work.
This piece rings of hack journalism and a waste of time.
Bernard
05-09-2008
The simple question really
The simple question really is:
Should a mother of young children for office or not?
Will is quite right, there is still very much of a double standard out there. No one is making an issue of Barak Obama having young childern and not being around when they need him.
One of the other Republican potential VP nominees has a child just two years old.
It comes down to a simple fact - in the US being a woman or having a different skin colour means you have a different standard to adhere to. Thankfully in Canada this is not the case
Frank
05-09-2008
Mary
You had me at "paddling off to some South Pacific islands" :-)
I think the best part about Palin is not her resemblance to a character from Battlestar Galactica , its that she's in favour of Alaskan secession.
Damn right! Seward's Folly was aptly named.
And the day after they get independance we'll annex them, and Hawaii won't be far behind.
notbeingemployed
05-09-2008
Palin Wouldn't Give You The Time Of Day
Palin chose to perform a human player piano act, and she deserves all the criticism she gets. Her supposedly spontaneous convention speech was written for her by Madison Avenue ad people. This is how she speaks without a teleprompter. According to her the Iraq War is "God's will." If so then the deity will that 4,000,000 Iraqis would be exiled, 1,000,000 dead and 25,000 Americans dead or wounded.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0UQbA0ZmmM&feature=related
Unfair scrutiny? She has attended sessions of the Alaska Independent Party, which doesn't recognize American sovereignty. Earlier this year she made a video to wish them a good convention.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwvPNXYrIyI
You may have heard of a long letter from Anne Kilkenny, who watched Palin's performance as mayor of their city, being a falsehood. Not true. Kilkenny was interviewed by the New York Times a few days ago. This portrait of Palin isn't pretty:
http://www.andrys.com/palin-kilkenny.html
Cynical male hucksters decided that women would identify with Palin. They knew what they were doing but the real question is: does Palin identify with them? She is a power junkie Her users have more power.
lynn
05-09-2008
Focusing on the flea, instead of the elephant.
Why isn't HE talking about Sarah Palin's ideas about the U.S.'s broken health care, decaying education system, rampantly corrupt banking and monetary system, and its war-mongering foreign policies, etc.?
Exactly, alda.
That's a really good question considering the growing treachery of these times:
So many real elephants in the room.
So little real scrutiny.
By almost everyone.
Everywhere.
weasel
05-09-2008
Voter manipulation
Perhaps Sarah Palin was chosen to be the Republican VP candidate because her personal life creates a smokescreen for what she might actually think or do. She's just too perfect to be a realistic candidate. Blue-collar, baby at 44, pregnant teen in household, husband who's a dude, son who's going to Iraq - what group doesn't she represent? The thinking American voter who cares about policy?
nightbloom
05-09-2008
That doesn't make her
That doesn't make her "perfect"...but it does make her very characteristic of American women, and a very 'identifiable' and sympathetic figure for a lot of people. Guess what boyz:
The Republican convention most-watched convention on television ever
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D930S7U81&show_article=1
The game has shifted. As I said: I can't wait to see the debates. This ingenue was a brilliant and inspired choice on McCain's part.
DPL
05-09-2008
The Republicans waited to
The Republicans waited to see what the democratic candidate was going to do with the woman who almost beat him. Was she going to be the VP candidate and bring along 19 million voters? No the Dems took Biden and lo and behold, the Republicans brought out a woman as VP candidate and folks started talking about her and the Republicans got excited enough to support her. Obama made the wrong move and revitalized the Republicans. The rest of the time up to voting day should be interesting. Our elections don't take as long and are far less noisy
G West
05-09-2008
Nope
It's just been distracted by a liar and his new leetle friend.
Obviously McCain's team vetting Palin really was asleep. Perhaps you noted this statement by McCain my friend:
"You know what I enjoyed the most? She took the luxury jet that was acquired by her predecessor and sold it on eBay -- and made a profit!" McCain declared in Wisconsin at a campaign stop on Friday.
Here's the real truth:
It didn't sell on eBay and it didn't sell at a profit:
Reference - New York Times, Aug 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/us/25jet.html
Now, how inspired was his choice?
I'd say it's about 5 - nil in favour of the 'community organizer'.
LOL
G West
05-09-2008
And furthermore, as if W wasn't enough
Read this from tomorrow's Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/06/us/politics/06church.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
Including this:
In the address at the Assembly of God Church here, Ms. Palin’s ease in talking about the intersection of faith and public life was clear. Among other things, she encouraged the group of young church leaders to pray that “God’s will” be done in bringing about the construction of a big pipeline in the state, and suggested her work as governor would be hampered “if the people of Alaska’s heart isn’t right with God.”
She also told the group that her eldest child, Track, would soon be deployed by the Army to Iraq, and that they should pray “that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God, that’s what we have to make sure we are praying for, that there is a plan, and that plan is God’s plan.”
And, what's with the names she gave her kids?
You have to admit they're a little strange!
West End Bob
05-09-2008
Point of fact
Just as a point of fact:
Joe Biden is the Senator from Delaware, not Maryland as stated.
Carry on . . . .
THANKS FOR CATCHING THAT, BOB. WE'LL FIX IT. -- TYEE EDITOR
uncle
05-09-2008
What's missing is...
What's missing from the article is the way Hillary Clinton was demonized by the press while she campaigned. The same people who are canonizing Sarah Palin were going after Clinton full tilt and their comments weren't about policy but about the way she dressed, talked etc. Palin's religous views should mean nothing except the Republicans for the last 30 years have allowed Right-wing Christians to take over the party. You have to wonder what the reaction to a Democrat who maintained one view on religion but acted 180 degrees differently. Sarah Palin looks like she is being set up to be the Belinda Stronach of US politics. You know, the good looking independant thinking woman who is going to show her party is not really the party of grumpy old rich white men most people view it as (and the Conservatives proved it was).
ME2
06-09-2008
Alive....
......the best argument I can think of against a pro forma acceptance of your "freedom of religion" is George W Bush.
Another is the recent discovery of terrorist propaganda in a London Mosque - for the second time.
There are very good reasons why complete separation of church and state is a basic requirment for a properly functioning democracy. Politics and religion do not, cannot, make a good mix.
If a Western politician told his / her audience she / he practices Voodoo, that would be the end of a political career. So why then, if Mrs Palin tells us that "our" God favours a pipeline, why isn't she laughed off the stage?
It is long past time that we called this "freedom of religion" bluff which the Fundies expect us to kowtow to.
nightbloom
06-09-2008
ME2 - You seem to mistake
ME2 - You seem to mistake what "Separation of Church and State" actually means. It doesn't mean the elimination of religious people from the ballot, nor does it mean the disenfranchisement of religious constituencies, nor does it mean that those seeking public office cannot make appeals to the electorate based on religious belief.
It means that the institutions of government and law are separate and distinct from ecclesiastical institutions, and that no one creed is elevated as the official religion of the state. Properly understood, the U.S. has total separation of Church and State.
G West
06-09-2008
You're joking
is clearly a misapprehension of the reality of America...
I think you mean that, if the constitution were properly enforced and enacted in practice, the US 'might' have total separation of church and state.
I'm quite sure that many of the folks who constantly conflate one with the other 'understand' perfectly what they're doing.
Your construction smacks of the same kind of apologist attitude that characterizes the Roman Catholic definition of 'conscience'.
zalm
06-09-2008
Pah
And properly understood, that means Germany has total merger of church and state, with its tax-supported, official Lutheranism opening every parliament. Should be expecting the next Hitler any day now.
And in Switzerland with every cantonal government bent to its will by the Reformed or the Catholic church in its long, long (400-year) persecution of any kind of heresy from Anabaptism to Islam ought to be a pretty ethnically and religiously pure state by now.
Or is it?
http://www.themennonite.org/issues/10-9/articles/Tuferjahr_opens_in_Switzerland
I know which country I'd feel more comfortable, more secure, more at home exercising my human rights in.
zalm
06-09-2008
Regretfully, Bernard....
I submit to you the grilling given to Michaele Jean, Hedy Fry and Mobina Jaffer, to name ONLY three, in the popular press and the blogs indicates the Canada merely offers a distinctly Canadian way to say Fu*k U to those that aren't "like us". No less racist, no less discriminatory, merely Canadian....
Wish it was something to be proud of.
As is so ably pointed out at every turn by GWest, Rambone Harper will never get what's coming to him - his racism, sexism, religious preference, sexual preference, lack of obvious physical deformity, and complete inability to enter into another's point of view guarantees a never-ending supply of sacrifical lambs for Canadian society to blame as our economy, our politics, and our quality of life trends downward from its "Leave it to Beaver" acme of the 1950s.
Don'tcha wish we could turn back the clock?
driftwolf
06-09-2008
Sexism? No.
Actually, it's more a case of attacking rampant hypocrisy. Is the author of this piece claiming that because Palin is a woman she should be immune to criticism about the hypocrisy and utter failure of her dogma that her family life portrays? I don't think so.
nightbloom
06-09-2008
Driftwood, I still don't see
Driftwood, I still don't see where the hypocrisy is. Please explain. And also explain how so many people (all ideological liberals) seem to be able to peer into Bristol's soul and lay bare her private motivations. Do you know her? Do you know the young father? Do you know the Palin family? Do you know what kind of sex ed both teens received? We don't even know if the pregnancy was even accidental (on Bristol's part) - that's a blind assumption on your part. Teen pregnancy isn't nearly as straight forward an issue as you seem to think it is. Either way, what purview does the Vice President have over sex ed policy in the school boards anyway, and what bearing does Bristol's pregnancy have on this election? Absolutely none.
nightbloom
06-09-2008
To counter Palin, Obama to
To counter Palin, Obama to dispatch female surrogates
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/05/america/05dems.php
They're not underestimating her, and they are aware how easily she was able to lift the curtain on Obama's messianic aura during her convention speech. It think it's safe to say that many in the Democrat camp are unsettled. Nevermind Oprah, just look at Gloria Steinem's panicked polemic on the heels of Palin's speech.
reality_check
06-09-2008
Moreover,...
Palin/McCain winning would make me puke, because they represent much of the same stuff than what the other guy tried to ran down the thoat of most people in the world!
However, Palin and McCain were selected also because they are "photogenic", amongst other things.
Beautiful is good! Right?
I guess we could same the same for a number of politicians, singers, and actors/actresses, who without their beauty would be very ordinary!
What irks me though is that many people are fooled!
Will more men vote for McCain because Palin is in now?
Surely women democrats will not switch!
Surely!
No more religious freaks running the show. Here or there. Please!