No Way, No How, No Palin

Sarah Palin is the nail in the coffin as far as any thought I might have had about supporting McCain. I really was willing to listen with an open mind next week, but his choice of Palin as VP shows me that it's just business as usual for the GOP: pick a candidate that has some personal appeal and figure you can blind the electorate to the reality of their experience and beliefs. That's exactly what they did with Bush, and they actually succeeded in making enough people believe that the most important thing about a presidential candidate was whether you'd want to have a beer with him. I'm going to misquote Bill Maher here: "The American people are stupid and they deserve the presidents they get."

I'm one of those middle-aged, educated white women who supported Hillary. I find it insulting, not to mention pathetic, that the Republicans truly believe that I'm only interested in the gender of the candidate. Palin's social conservatism is anathema to Democrats who supported Clinton. The women the GOP is trotting out who are just loving loving loving Palin are Republicans, the proverbial converted choir. The thinking in the McCain camp seems to be: well, Palin's got a vagina too and isn't that what these women really care about? Besides, we can use that "cracking the glass ceiling line with her", and maybe no one will notice that her strongly held beliefs are antithetical to women's rights and women's lives. How stupid can they be--or, better question, how stupid do they think we are. Best question: how stupid are we?

Can you imagine if McCain died in office, that Palin would be President? They'd probably spirit her away to the Tower like they did with the Two Princes, and then bring Darth Vader back to rule the land. History is filled with all sorts of vile chicanery, and this may only be the beginning. Be afraid; be very afraid.

#DNC08 - Some tweets and more

Night One of the Democratic National Convention, America's answer to the Olympics. Every four years, we hold a major competition and the winner gets...not a gold medal, but a chance to fuck up the world. Or at least that's what's happened the past eight years.

Seriously, I'm struck by the similarity in handicapping between, say, Chris Matthews and Bob Costas. If process is what counts in this world more than product, than what difference does it make if the topic being masticated is Barack Obama's chances or Michael Phelps? Barack has Michelle; Michael has Debbie. And who might we cast as Hillary in this scenario? Probably the Chinese--that nation willing to do anything to win the gold, or so would say Clinton's detractors.

Michelle Obama gave a helluva performance tonight. Moved a lot of people to tears--or at least enough that the control room had more than one or two to pick out of the crowd. Me, I was moved to admiration--for her performance. Did it, as the pundits say, do the job? I don't know, because the job for me was done by Teddy Kennedy. He reminded me of why I'm a life-long Democrat. He made me feel proud to be one. Will that translate to my making up my mind for Obama? I dunno. I'll wait and see what the man himself has to say on Thursday night.

There is a hagiographic bent to the coverage of Obama, of that there is no question. Chris Matthews and Keith Oberwhatever were absolutely creaming their drawers over the whole Michelle Obama package. It was a little embarrassing; like watching two grown men have a wet dream in public. It will be interesting to see how their journalistic integrity reasserts itself when the Republican convention begins.

I AM SO SICK OF ALL THIS TALK ABOUT CLINTON's SUPPORTERS. Like they're accolytes in the convent of Hillary. Bull twaddle. Here's how to really screw women to the wall: set them against each other for imagined slights. Insist that they are operating on emotion, rather than reason. Demean their beliefs by refusing to acknowledge their right to those beliefs. Ask them if they're PMSing. Wonder if they have the balls to have balls. And then when they do, attack them for it.

Is it any wonder I get cranky when I'm exposed to "alleged" political coverage? And yet, I can't seem to stay away.

Heeellooo, Anybody Home?????

Aristotle said that there are two kinds of reasoning: the appeal to intellect and the appeal to emotions. Clearly the following two comments, both from friends of mine, both women who I respect, speak to the effects of the second appeal. Their responses to Hillary are visceral: "cannot abide" "makes my hair stand on end" I can feel the intensity of their antipathy. What I have no sense of is any rational, supported reasoning behind them.

I cannot abide Hillary. She trumpets her experience - doing WHAT? Being a wife does not mean she has political experience. One term as a senator. Big deal. Her husband wasn't so great, either - he gave us NAFTA and the WTO. I honestly believe she would do or say ANYTHING to get elected."
I think John Edwards rocks, and I love Obama because he makes me feel like John F. Kennedy is speaking.

Hillary makes my hair stand on end. I don't think she's
authentic. But then who is in Washington. I feel handled by her. I know what
you're saying about Obama but I just like feeling the country behind
someone the way they were sort of with Kennedy. 

For the first woman, Hillary engenders antipathy because she is outspoken in saying she has experience in government. Which she does. But then this writer reduces that experience in to the ultimate putdown--she was just a wife. Didn't we hear this the first time Bill ran, when the baking cookies isssue came up? And it is, at heart, purely an appeal to emotion: all she did was marry well. That's bad enough when some Rovian conservative says it, but when a woman who espouses feminist principles says it? Ugly.

The second woman doesn't like Clinton because she has been successful at playing the political game. As has been every other politician who gets in office. I suggest anyone who thinks there is an unsullied candidate waiting in the wings go rent the film The Candidate. And read Machiavelli.

Both these women like Obama because he resonates with echoes of JFK. And George Bush is president because so many people thought he'd be a great guy to have a beer with. Neither of these sentiments are the responses of an informed electorate applying reason to the candidates' records. They're functions of nostalgia, which is, after all, an emotion, one that in both cases has been deliberately engendered by Bush's and Obama's handlers.

Election 2008: Off the Top of My Head....

...which means my gut response, okay? This is what I wrote to a friend of mine today in response to an email in which she asked what I think....

I watched the debates last night too. Of the Republicans, I like McCain the best. Of the Dems--well, I'm still not sure ( me and you and the rest of the country, it seems). I do like Hillary because I think she has what it takes to (a) outplay the Republicans (like Rove), and (b) deal with the messes abroad. I sorta like Edwards, but I don't think he can go head to head on foreign affairs. I DO NOT LIKE OBAMA. Did I say that loudly enough? I haven't liked him from the gitgo. He's eloquent and passionate and, if you like the type, attractive enough, but I don't think there's any there there behind his fancy words. It's so easy to promise the world; but that doesn't last much past the Inauguration (as we've seen with the last Congressional elections). I liveblogged the debates on Twitter and my last post was "The Republicans will eat Obama for breakfast." So that leaves me with Hillary--or McCain, if I switch parties(!).

A Political Prediction...Just Because

Al Gore will be the Democratic nominee in '08. Barack Obama is too young and untested; Hillary Clinton is too...too...devisive, at least among Democrats.

Here's how the Dems will think: After all, Al Gore won it the first time, didn't he? And now he's been reinvented, as Time, among others puts it. He's warm and funny and down to earth and passionate and....

At the MoveOn.org Victory Party in Sacramento that I went to just a few weeks ago, there was a straw poll taken to determine who the attendees, who are politically active people, wanted for President in '8. Al Gore won by a landslide.

And finally, the last exchange in the Time interview is quite telling, if you're one who believes, as I do, that we say what we mean.

You have stated repeatedly that you are not currently plans to run for President in 2008. Do you have a more creative denial?
I don't have any plans to run. Nor do I have any creative denials. I'm using the same ones. They'll soon be out on DVD.

I think the words I've boldfaced say a lot. Do you?