Call it the bipolar season
The unanticipated result of this historic presidential campaign, as well as the once-in-a-generation economic meltdown, is that they test the ability of any reasonable, thoughtful person to hold two contradictory ideas at once. Here are a trio of examples of how I’ve recently come to be in philosophical and ideological conflict with myself:
(1) I have arrived at the conclusion that Sarah Palin is woefully and scarily unprepared to be vice president of the United States. Yet at the same time, I am endlessly entertained by the torment her nomination has inflicted upon progressive citizens. Everyone expected this would be the year a woman finally made it to the White House, but no one anticipated it would be a moose-hunting, gun-loving, abortion-hating former beauty queen — instead of Hillary Clinton. The result has been the captivating spectacle of liberal women scrambling to reassemble the glass ceiling. (A great example is this interview by Stephen Colbert with the head of the National Organization for Women, who all but admits that only certain barrier-breaching women can expect NOW’s support.) But for all the entertainment value in this, there remains the queasy reality that Palin has no business even being in the same ZIP code as the White House.
(2) There should, of course, be a bailout of Wall Street. Who wants to see the economy dive any closer to perdition? There should, of course, be consequences to bad investment decisions. Who wants to see financial fat cats walk away with their millions? But being rich doesn’t automatically make someone guilty of contributing to the mess, and being in default of a mortgage doesn’t automatically make someone else an innocent victim of the mess. Bring us the heads of the responsible parties. But get them to restore our 401(k) portfolios first.
(3) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who decided to deliver a bitterly partisan speech right before the House was set to vote on an important bailout bill which needed bipartisan support — is an idiot. House Republicans who voted against the bill because they were angry at Pelosi are idiots. Anyone who declares that idiocy belongs exclusively to one party or the other is an idiot. For that matter, anyone who disagrees with me is an idiot. But because I don’t even agree with myself half the time, as I’ve demonstrated here, that means I’m an idiot.
Who’s gonna argue with that? Finally, a clear, unambiguous thought.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:41 am
Well, comfort yourself as best you can, but from this liberal female’s perspective, the ones made most uncomfortable by Palin, the ones really squirming with frustration, are members of the GOP, no matter their sex or age, who don’t happen to still believe in the literal truth of Adam and Eve and who were earnestly hoping their party’s candidates would offer a credible answer to the kind of progress that Obama’s candidacy represents.
I have a feeling I’m enjoying Palin a lot more than you are. It’s not hard for Colbert to snag a goofy interview, but if you really think that the NOW gal’s struggle to respond was representative of the majority — or even a sizable percentage — of progressive women in this country, you’ve far underestimated our intelligence, or perhaps just never “got it” in the first place.
In fact, I have a hard time understanding why any women are assumed to be “struggling to reassemble the glass season” on the basis of their opposition to Palin. It’s as though you think that when we see a woman, we see as you do (tits/ass) instead of whether or not she is packing a brain.
As funny as Colbert is, the utter silliness of the notion that a liberal (or illiberal) female voter is somehow conflicted in her view of Palin on the basis of their shared gender suggests to me that you’re having to take comfort from a fairly meager self-delusion.
While her proximity to the White House is something we can all be worried about, the comedic aspects of the McCain/Palin team are getting the heartier laughs from the other side of the aisle, my friend.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:37 am
Thank God for the House Republicans.
Is anyone besides me struck by the timing of this supposed economic meltdown? A meltdown that to the best of my knowledge has not happened. Treasury Secretary Paulson told the media that we had to act and act RIGHT NOW, TODAY, to save our country from a revisit to the era of breadlines and Bonnie and Clyde. The Bush Administration whipped out a 3 page bill asking that 700 Billion dollars be immediately approved so that the Secretary, at his discretion, could buy up bad mortgages or car loans or student loans or credit card debt etc. and save us. Talk about high pressure sales tactics. One house member said that the phone calls to his office were running about 50 / 50. 50% NO and the other 50% “HELL NO!” The Democrats and Republicans voted it down and the market tanked but the next day the sun came up, the market roared and when the dust settled Obama had risen in the polls.
A new bill will now come forth. It will be a better bill for the average American taxpayer.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:24 pm
1 - Brunette is right. The dilemma you somehow see in the hearts and minds of various libruls is pretty much a delusion.
2 - Pelosi may be an idiot, but that speech didn’t show it. She’s entitled to describe what’s happened in the past few years as she sees it.
The house republicans aren’t idiots either. What they are (and what you’re enabling, thanks very much) is inteverate whiners longing for a blame-free zone. Seriously … a speech made me do it? It’s pathetic.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker of the House, for nearly the past two years has been a heartbeat and a half from the Presidency (VP Dick Cheney being the half). Now that is indeed frightening.
October 1st, 2008 at 2:55 pm
We liberals call Palin ‘the gift that keeps on giving’. I think pundits (and Dan) assume way too much about liberal women and their angst or confusion over her. She’s a trainwreck; it just so happens that she has a vagina, and that’s not an important selling point for me. The woman believes that men and dinosaurs coexisted 6000 years ago. That pretty much tells me all I need to know.
October 1st, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Read this:
http://www.newsobserver.com/105/story/1237444.html ……. and calm down.
Palin is neither as competent as her supporters say…..nor as stupid as the rabid Left hopes.
What she does have is something undefinable.
And that’s difficult against which to form a successful political démarche.
Methinks some of these “vaginas” talk about things they no longer actually experience themselves.
October 1st, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Whaaaaa?
Debrah, I expected better. No, she’s not utterly stupid. Obviously she can banter in a pinch. She was able to get herself elected governor of Alaska, so there is apparently a skill set there.
But your sentence (if we can call it that) “And that’s difficult against which to form a successful political demarche.” ????
Were you aware when you typed out that series of words that you weren’t actually making sense?
The “rabid Left?” What is that? Moi? Am I the “rabid left” for noting that she embraces the “literal truth” of the Bible? Am I “rabid left” because I snicker at her belief that Adam and Eve actually existed?
I guess it’s just me being a bad ole “rabid” leftwinger for thinking less of her with every comment she makes.
And who are these “vaginas” you have in mind when “you-thinks” said vaginas are flapping their lips (sorry) about things they are no longer “grasping” (sorry again) in terms of experience?
All right. I apologize already for using the phrase “terms of experience,” but that puts me way ahead of you for whatever the hell you thought you would establish by this last, Indefensible “what she does have is something undefinable” post.
SHEESH ~
October 1st, 2008 at 8:55 pm
“Were you aware when you typed out that series of words that you weren’t actually making sense?”
*************************************************
Were you aware that you exude the “essence” of those “rabid Leftist” b!tches who alienate so many independent voters?
(By the way, if you haven’t read a lot of WFB or the devilish Christopher Hitchens, you are depriving yourself.)
Only then will my sentence make sense to you.
But really, it’s not all that significant, is it?
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:03 am
It’s not coherent either.
October 2nd, 2008 at 12:22 am
“I have arrived at the conclusion that Sarah Palin is woefully and scarily unprepared to be vice president of the United States. Yet at the same time, I am endlessly entertained by the torment her nomination has inflicted upon progressive citizens.”
Here’s a tormented conservative citizen for your entertainment:
Palin Problem
She’s out of her league.
By Kathleen Parker
If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream — away from Sarah Palin.
To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president — and possibly president — is to risk being labeled anti-woman.
Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.
Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick — what a difference a financial crisis makes — and a more complicated picture has emerged.
As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.
Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan’s president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)
And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she’s had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).
Finally, Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain’s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood — a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.
Palin didn’t make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.
It was fun while it lasted.
Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”
When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”
If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.
What to do?
McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.
Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
— Kathleen Parker is a nationally syndicated columnist.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:00 am
The Einstein of the fora opines:
“It’s not coherent either.”
ROTFLM-T’s-O !!!
October 2nd, 2008 at 8:53 am
Wish I saw that.
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:19 pm
I agree with Debrah’s observation that Palin has “something undefineable”. I guess she meant that as a compliment. That’s how I perceived it. And I might agree with some of the other stuff Debrah said if it was in English instead of Frog-speak.
Seems to me, if Obama/Biden don’t stir your imagination, then McCain/Palin is all you got (with all due respect to the Green Party - NOT). Might as well learn to love Sarah.
Sure, she comes up a bit short on US Constitutional history. And like the article Lippy-boy attached to his penultimate post says, she has developed a tendency to prattle on a bit when she’s unsure of herself.
But hells-bells, the chick’s got spunk! She’s got style. She’s bright and engaged and she’s willing (and able) to learn. Sarah needs to be Sarah - it works for Manny Ramirez.
And she’s Alaskan. They’re a different breed. They spend summer working their butts off just so they can survive the winter. They also haven’t been jaded yet by the Babylon that is the lower 48 states.
If I could reach out to her through the magic of Gearino’s blog, I’d say Governor Palin, don’t attempt to mask the fact that you’re a work-in-progress - embrace it. If you’re as quick on the uptake as I pray you are, then the best and brightest in McCain’s inner circle can mentor you into shape before the 2010 mid-term elections. In the meantime, just keep John outta the sun and limit his and the missus’ spirited conjugal bouts. After all, the guy’s ticker ain’t what it used to be. Right here is where I’m tempted to use my forum to ask Governor Palin about her physical relationship with her guy Todd, but decorum rears it’s ugly head.
I take some solace in the notion that we could do worse than VP Palin. Harken back to a time some one-score-and-whatever years ago. Bush The First, for reasons known only to him, tapped one J. Danforth Quayle as his running mate.
Vice President J. Danforth Qualye - that still causes certain areas of my body to retreat in horror. Never has a position so critical been occupied by one so mocked by nature and scorned by nurture. Hen-pecked, mealy mouthed and plagued with a weak chin that quivered when he got riled up, this guy was number one in the order of succession.
And it came closer to fruition than you may care to remember. Need I remind you of the time George tossed his cookies at that Japanese state dinner? Sure, he recovered soon enough, but until Barb bitched-slapped him back to his senses and wiped the puke off his chin, he looked like a goner there for a minute.
President Quayle. Yikes.
October 2nd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
“… just keep John outta the sun and limit his and the missus’ spirited conjugal bouts.”
Those spirited conjugal bouts is what keeps John outta the sun. What’s wrong with you?