Looks like the cartoonist should have added another wolf named “Air America.” Or maybe a coyote/jackal would have been a better critter choice for that.
h/t Baldilocks for the cartoon, Hot Air for the additional wolf name.
Dear Sarah Palin Attackers,
At this point, only a week and a half after Sarah Palin was announced as the Republican pick for the VP candidate, whenever I hear or see a new attack on her, I simply roll my eyes and assume it’s bullshit.
Too much, too silly, too fast. Nothing’s sinking in. My eyes just sort of glaze over whenever some new, negative report of her “wrongness” comes on the air or over the net.
To be quite honest, it’s pissing me off. The more you attack her, the more likely I am to vote for McCain and her, and I wasn’t all that excited about him before you started flinging the crap.
And Senator Obama? The difference is, when Senator McCain made the “lipstick on a pig” remark last year, he was talking about Senator Clinton’s medical insurance program, you seemed to be attacking Governor Palin herself. That’s not the sexism card, that’s the, “What happened to disagreeing without being disagreeable?” card.
So just keep it up, we may not be paying attention to the details any more, but we are paying attention to what you’re attacking. You’re attacking the person, not her policies.
What you’re not getting is even though a lot of us don’t agree with her on everything, I know I don’t, we admire her for what she’s accomplished and who she is. We admire her for being so freaking normal compared to the rest of the political world.
You blew it. When you attack her, it feels like you’re attacking me, disagreements and all. I can relate to her a whole lot better than I can to you. Every time you throw mud at her, it splashes onto me. You seemed to have missed that.
And if you missed that, I just think you’re too dense to run the country.
UPDATE: In all fairness to Senator Obama, once I saw the entire clip, the argument can be made that he was talking about McCain and his policies vs Governor Palin. Although the crowd obviously didn’t take it that way.
Ran across this on OpinionJournal.com yesterday…
Notable & Quotable
September 9, 2008Howard Fineman writing in Newsweek on the Republican vice-presidential candidate:
Democrats dare not issue [Sarah] Palin a pass—she’s too dangerous a foe. Normally vice presidential candidates fade into the background. Nobody is expecting that with Palin; indeed, her newfound celebrity has made even Obama look dull.
The usual rule is that voters don’t trust attacks from people they don’t know, but Palin is turning the adage on its head. Democrats are determined to attack her credibility, even if it gives her more visibility. “We’ve got to go after her, and fast,” a top Democratic strategist, who asked for anonymity when discussing strategy, told me.
I understand that some of our foreign observers generally are having a bit of trouble grokking the attraction of Sarah Palin amongst the blue-collar electorate in a variety of American locales not known for exhibiting that Olde Worlde Cosmopolitan Charm. Lord knows our very own dear political and media elite are having much the same kind of problem. Kind of fun to watch them twist and squirm in the icy cold wind, as they slowly realize that the rest of the ’08 campaign will not be a walk in the park for the Fresh Prince of Chicago – that the anticipated coronation might have to be put on hold… with luck for the foreseeable future. I ought not to enjoy the sight so much… but I – aside from the collection of Japanese prints and affection for Bach’s Brandenburg concerti – am a person with simple taste in amusements. This election season is turning out to be way too much fun.
OK, back to my main point – the reasons why we kind of like Sarah Palin. There are any number of considered reasons to not like her political stance. Some may be put off by the adamantly ant-abortion bit, or a distinct lack of enthusiasm for big-government solutions to real world problems, and a certain lack of experience with persistent and endemic problems in mega-big Americian cities. When I think of desperately broken inner cities with huge gang problems, endemic poverty and the occasional outbreak of rioting, Juneau, AK is about the last place which comes to mind. Something about extreme heat and extreme cold keeping people law-abiding, mostly because going out and breaking the law in a serious way is just too damn uncomfortable.
These days, when we turn on the tube or go to a movie, we get the strong woman whose personal life is a mess, or a strong woman whining about the glass ceiling, or having the vapors because someone said something, or some dithery and charming ingénue, eaten up with equally charming neuroses. Or any one of a number of other stereotypes… which are, frankly, getting a little boring. In real life, in flyover country, most of us know a Sarah Palin, sometimes a great many of them; strong and competent women with happy marriages, well-adjusted families, and a long career of service to their communities… or for the places where they worked. They are not nearly as rare as they might appear – it’s just that the job openings for governor and VP-nominee are not nearly enough to absorb them all, and to be honest, the interest of the media is a sometime and fleeting thing. So what it is it about a hitherto mostly obscure local politician, with a personal story arc that looks like something assembled from a collection of upbeat country songs and those Lifetime Channel made for TV movies which have a kick-ass happy ending? (Yeah, all three of them….)
Basically, it’s because she is an archetype – the frontier woman. Or the pioneer woman, and that’s a sort that we haven’t really seen front and center for a bit. Well, not on the national stage, anyway. In the military maybe; lots of that sort of woman. Tough as nails, do not take a lot of BS or give it out, supremely competent, unflappable, and amusing to hang out with, comfortable in her own skin. Now and again you might see that kind of woman appear briefly in a supporting role. But even in the 19th century, they weren’t especially thick on the ground… except possibly on the American frontier – although such marvelous women did make occasional appearances in other venues.
As I wrote a couple of months ago, about Lizzie Johnson– schoolteacher, cattle baroness, landowner, writer and bookkeeper – such women had no other habitat than on the frontier. Which was a tough place, despite many romantic notions about it; dangerous, devoid of the usual support systems that women of the Victorian era, no matter of what class were accustomed to. Women on the frontier died in childbirth, of various unpleasant illnesses to include spousal abuse, went mad, were killed in accidents and Indian raids… but many of them thrived in the relative social freedom. Some of them even went to the extent of putting on mens’ clothing, but many of them did just fine in their own.
In one the books on my shelf for research – a volume about cattle ranching – there is a picture of three young women in the corral of a cattle ranch in Colorado in the 1890s. Two of them are in properly modest, dark-colored, ankle-length dresses, and the youngest wears a light-colored dress with a ruffled hem that comes down to the top of her high-buttoned shoes. All of them are wearing straw boaters. The girl in the short dress and one of the older girls are holding braided lariats, drawn tight on the fore and hind legs of a cow laying on the ground. The third girl is holding a long-handled branding iron, as a small woodfire burns a short distance away. The three girls, according to the caption, are the daughters of a well-to-do rancher, who wanted to be sure that they had every necessary skill to carry on with the business of the ranch after his death – even those skills which were normally carried out by male ranch hands. Frontier women, god bless them. They could probably go into the parlor, after a round of calf-branding, and do a mean round of cross-stitch embroidery, and then host a meeting of the Women’s Library Book Committee.
In the end, it’s all about competence – not if you are male or female. Can you do the job and not whine, or ask for special treatment. So that’s why we like Sarah Palin – she’s a frontier woman, a hundred years after the frontier.
I remember the ’72 election well – and how the mad antics of some McGovern supporters really, really did horrify a lot of other people. It all reflected quite badly on him – who was otherwise a fairly well-thought-of and otherwise undistinguished politico. Those election-year stunts drove – so the conventional wisdom goes – a lot of people into voting for Nixon. Happening again? This blogger thinks so. Interesting take here – can’t remember where I found it. Not through LGF… to much madness among the lizardlings, these days.
I’ve never watched any of the Godfather movies, but even I recognize the brilliance in The Anchoress’ latest piece.
She titled it: The Humbling: “The One” goes to Don Clinton, and not only is it hilarious, it’s replete with sources for each of her points. Funny & factual – who can ask for more?
So, it appears that “The One” is going begging to Don Clinton, hat in hand:
The One strides in confidently and extends his hand to The Don. The Don looks up, contemplates the proffered hand, and watches The One’s smile fade as it is not shaken. The One retracts his hand, and tilts his head, comprehending, but not liking it. Still, he needs this meeting.
Don Clinton nods slightly, and with a silky hand motions The One to take a seat. Don Clinton’s blue eyes are grave, but there is a noticeable twitching about his mouth, as though he is suppressing a smile, or sucking on a peeled grape. He remains silent. The One looks about the room in discomfort, waiting for an opening. Don Clinton makes a point of playing with his pinky ring, and gives him none. Finally, clearing his throat and assuming a cavalier affect, The One speaks:
The One: Uh, thank you, Mr. President, for seeing me in your beautiful offices.
Don Clinton nods, but says nothing. More praise is due.The One: I, um, think it’s er…a wonderful, a wonderful testament to your, eh, your um, unquestionable commitment to em, the uh, your solidarity with the black community.
Don Clinton, remembering when The One played the race card on him, narrows his eyes and does not smile. He leans back in his chair and waits, squinting through the smoke, his cigar tilting upward in his mouth, ala FDR. More praise is due.
The One: It – it was a masterstroke of erm, brilliant racist-baiting, erm…a stroke of masterburbating, uhhhh, stroking, ermmm…a master…stroke…of getting back at the Republican jerks who impeached you and foreplaying, I mean forestalling any future innuendo or scandals intern erm…in turn.
Don Clinton’s eyes are ablaze with anger. The One, too cool to cower, crosses his legs and wishes for a teleprompter.
We’re half watching the McCain/Palin rally in Colorado Springs. There are a lot of American Flags in the audience. Where did they all come from?
Apparently, vendors cleaning up Invesco Field after the DNC found them heading for the trash!
I know, to many people the American Flag is just a party favor, to others, kind of big deal.
To me, it tells me that I can’t even think about voting Democrat. The organizers gave no thought to taking care of all those flags if folks didn’t want to take them home. The participants gave no thought to what to do with them after they were done waving them.
No consideration. That’s what I can expect from the Democrats, and that’s what I’ll give them.
They simply don’t get anyone outside of their scope.
… that the mainstream media and the elites who run them are – to put it mildly – way out of touch with ‘fly-over’ America, and may have fatally misunderestimated the Palin appeal.
Item One (courtesy of the Great Blogfaddah) – Oprah balks at hosting Sarah Palin.
Item Two (courtesy of Rantburg, my source for all things pointed and sarky) Angry readers dump US over Palin.
I’m sure there are more out there. My one rather mild regret is that I don’t watch Oprah or read US, so I can’t join in the glorious pile-on of angry subscribers or watchers.
See, here’s the thing; I’ve got nothing against the hosts of TV shows, or the publishers of magazines favoring one political candidate over another. Hey, free country and all that. It’s when those hosts and publishers forget their main demographic and appear to be openly supporting one side over the other. It’s going to cheese off at least half the audience or readership, and I am surprised as heck that I have to explain this to people who have been in the biz since I was in high school.
You piss off your main audience at your peril. Two words to remember: Dixie Chicks.
Some of my favorite writers on the net are women. Smart, funny, successful in what they’ve chosen to do, women.
So before I go to bed with my favorite woman, Beautiful Wife, I thought I’d surf around and see what some of my favorite female bloggers are talking about:
Venomous Kate: “Sarah Palin Wowed My World.”
Sisu: Just go to the main page and scroll down.
Rachel Lucas: “Sarah Palin Makes Me Want to Dance.”
Every female writer over at Wizbang.
Just scroll down this page for Sgt. Mom’s take.
In almost every case, there’s some mention about how they were bored with the election already and how they’re now excited, pissed off, energized…add whatever adjetive you’d like…except bored.
I think the lefties are going to be VERY sorry that they pissed off the working Moms of this country. They not only went after her family, they questioned whether or not she could be a good mom and do the Vice President thing at the same time. Big mistake. Huge honking blunder.
They basically questioned every working Mom’s ability to work and mother at the same time and even some Feminists with a capital “F” are going, “Oh no you didn’t!”
An old friend from back home, unrepentent hippie chick, voted Democrat her entire adult life…now thinking about voting for McCain/Palin. Why? The left wingers, so anxious to disarm Sarahcuda, pissed her right the hell off. “What do you MEAN she can’t be a good mom and Veep at the same time?” You see, that’s something only a stodgy ol’ Republican should say, not an “enlightened” Democrat.
From:Â Sgt Mom
To:Â Our Various Political, Media and Intellectual Elites
Re: The Appeal of Palin
1.I have to admit all over again, ladies and gentlemen of the uber-elite, if there were ever more proof needed that y’all (and I use the Southernism purposefully) and the rest of us live – if not on two different planets, than at least in two separate yet linked realities – then we’ve collected that proof by the bucket-full over the last week. I speak of course of the nomination of Xenia, the Warrior Princess of Wassila, Alaska to run as the vice-presidential candidate of the Grand Ol’ Party in this suddenly electrified election season.
2. A cat among the political pigeons doesn’t even begin to express the mad flurries this week; first the shock of another maverick, formerly the governor of Alaska, an outside and relatively unknown regional political personality. She appears amidst us – not like Venus wafted ashore, on a sea shell and attended with nymphs and cupids and fluttery draperies’ but heralded with the other kind of shell, a whole barrage of them, and appearing out of the smoke mounted on a roaring Harley, dressed in cammies with a hunting rifle and a sniper-scope over her shoulder and a field-dressed moose carcass slung over the back - oh, no! that’s no moose, it’s Michael Moore! You get the idea, this has been a pretty startling week, all the way around. I actually can;t blame the “good ladies* of NOW for reacting as if a hairy Visigoth had just barged into their board meeting and let out a prodigious fart. (And lit it.) They;re all for women in positions of power and authority – they just have to be the right sort. With the right kind of background, the right sort of friends, the properly vetted positions and opinions.
3. So, Governor Palin – able, charismatic, sharp as a humming-bird’s beak, with a proven record in local and small-town politics – very definitely not the right sort to be enthusiastically embraced by the old-line political, media and intellectual elite. That the rest of us are charmed, energized, and approving, that is just killing the old guard. I mean, really killing them. I picture Maureen Dowd and all the rest of the NY Times line-up, doing the haughty Margo Dumont impression, all evening gown and pearls, looking down their noses through the lorgnette: well, really, how dare those those peasants approve of That Woman!? Don’t they know what is best for them? How is this possible, they can reject our wise and knowledgeable counsel?(With her pregnant teenage daughter, and her own hasty marriage – and that impossibly dishy blue-collar husband of hers – et cetera, et cetera.)
4. I swear, you must be in such a tiz about this, everywhere from the lunchrooms of the High and Mighty, the boardrooms of the Ivy League, Kos’s mother’s basement, the CBS newsroom and all. Shouldn;t all those (shudder) revelations about Her – shouldn;t all that have sunk Her nomination deeper than the Titanic with all those blue-state hicks in the sticks? You know what those people are like, darling!
5. Matter of fact, it’s become pretty clear that y’all don’t know what it;s like, out here in blue-state-land. No, honestly, I don’t think y’all have a clue at all. You have some bizarre visualization of small-town, blue-state, working-class and middle-class Americans. You appear to be disconnected from Americans who go to church regularly, who serve in the military, who go into a trade or profession without bothering with college attendance. You have nothing to go upon but tired old tropes gleaned from the movies and stale cliches from television shows and novels that someone forced you to read in high school, four decades ago. In that sort of fun-house mirror of the ‘other America;, church-goers are hysterical, judgmental fanatics, women who want to do anything more than marry well and squeeze out offspring are treated like pariahs, being divorced is cause for social blackballing and gays and blacks are regularly lynched and/or flogged. Everyone is a red-neck, hostile gun-worshiper who doesn’t know which fork to eat the salad with and reads on the 5th grade level and lusts after their sister, and can’t wait to murder the next stranger who drives into town.
6. Pointing out that small-town, flyover, other-America is nothing like that at all is like spitting into a hurricane. There is nothing so granite-like in its certainty like well-established prejudices. It’s coming back to bite you. Yes, you, our very own home grown elites. My dear people, you live in a bubble and have come to believe what you have created, in the vision you have of the ‘other’, your own countrymen and women.
7. The problem is that for you elites, the ‘other’ America can see clearly and very well, thank you. They can see past the vision, or is it the hallucination? And they also vote.
Hoping this is of help to you all
I remain,
Sgt. Mom
* As always, viciously skeptical quotemarks
I wrote an essay a good few years ago- alas now it is lost in the old MT archive and backed up on floppy disc, and my new computer does not have a floppy drive so I can’t pull it up- the long and thoughtful exploration of how I used to be a feminist. A small-f feminist, who slowly and gradually began to realize that the capital-F feminists were painting themselves into a corner.
Reading through MS Magazine, as I did devotedly during the years that I was in active service, the message became clearer and clearer: you weren’t really counted as a (large capital) feminist in good standing unless you were a vegetarian-pagan-lesbian-single-parent-of-color-employed-by-a-university-and-serious-victim-of-the-patriarchy, and also eschewed leg and armpit shaving and makeup into the bargain – and if you had the misfortune to be white and middle class, better get down and do a lot of groveling apologies for it.
The mainstream, capital-F feminists seemed so angry, so hurt in a myriad of different ways that I honestly did not feel. I was a military woman, and a single parent, but when I looked at it honestly, the patriarchy just did not seem to be opressing me that much. I had a rewarding career, interesting hobbies, a rewarding family life, a home and an income of my own. So I came to an inevitable and logical conclusion:
… maybe I am a post-feminist; holding to only a few simple strictures for organising women’s lives. The same access to educational opportunities, to be judged in the classroom and the job by the same standards, and to be paid the same for the same work. Arrange anything else – your child-bearing schedule, your profession, and your living arrangements in the manner which brings you and yours blessings and happiness. Anything more is just quibbling over special interests.
Now and again, I detected an undercurrent of similiar sentiments; even Naomi Wolf seemed to get the point when she wrote “Fire With Fire“, which seemed to chide activist women for clinging too tightly to the victim status and the enforcement of groupthink, rather than reaching out and freely excercising the power and authority which they of-times seemed reluctant to acknowledge… and of genuinely acknowledging that women were honestly and genuinely of varying religious, social and political beliefs.
So, the National Organization of Women has now proved my own point, as well as the one that Naomi Wolf was trying to make, in their descision to turn up their nose at Sarah Palin. Oh my – if you aren’t the right sort of feminist, never mind about your other qualifications or your chances to be elected to anything.
Sort of sad, really. NOW used to stand for something, to stand up for all women… not just those who met the rigorously-enforced checklist of acceptable attributes and opinions.
(Link found at Tim Blair)
So, late to the blog-reaction party, being out and about this morning, in my some-time employer’s high-off-the-ground bright yellow jeep with the ranch advertising etched on the windows, collecting my paycheck from the Large Corporate Entity and buying groceries. I had the classical music station on, which didn’t go to a newsbreak that I heard for most of the morning… eh, it was the same with 9-11. I wasn’t aware for hours.
But upon returning to the house… and wow! Talk about getting inside the Obamanation’s decision loop. Or as they say in chess parlance, ‘check’. That strange whistling sound must be that of the air rushing out of whatever room that the Obama-Biden campaign is strategizing in. Tell me, who the hell made speeches last night? There were some speeches last night at the Democratic convention, weren’t there? This is such a true maverick move. I can’t stop chortling. Somewhere, Hilary Clinton must be shredding that orange pantsuit, snarling “Mine! It should have been mine!” and making life hell for whoever is with her. In a truly just world, that would be Mr. Bill, ex-prez and aficionado of young interns.
Picking Sarah Palin for the VP slot – youngish, sharp, attractive, female, with administrative experience as a mayor and governor, mother of children, blue-collar husband, soldier son, another political maverick – oh, a Veep candidate who is proof against the arrows and slings of the hard-core Kossacks. They can’t chuck stones at her without having them rebound on them tenfold! Honestly, the only way she could be made more critic-proof would be if she were black or mixed race, spoke Spanish as her first language and was a lesbian – admittedly that last would be hard to square with the marriage and five children.
Oh, man – this campaign has just all of a sudden gotten fun. Break out the popcorn, now we are all paying attention. To loosely quote J.P Rourke, “Old age and treachery beat out youth, speed and a bad haircut.”
Later – more from the peerless Iowahawk, waxing homeric.
Proof…proof I tell you that the DNC is un-American!
Here’s the list of items that won’t be allowed into Invesco Field for Barack Obama’s acceptance speech:
From the Rocky Mountain News:
Outside food and beverage of any kind, including alcoholic beverages, coolers and bottled water
Umbrellas
Large bags, suitcases or backpacks
Noisemakers, air horns, whistles, cowbells (???!!!), horns, bull horns or other voice enhancement devices.
Signs, banners, flags or any other items that would either obstruct the view of a patron or serve as a security risk
Any and all unauthorized merchandise, including unapproved pamphlets, handouts, advertisements, etc.
Knives of any size, razor blades or sharp or pointed objects like scissors and knitting needles
Mace, pepper spray or aerosol containers
Fireworks
Weapons of any kind, including toy weapons, or any article that might be used as a weapon or compromise public safety.
Canes that aren’t used for medical reasons, chains, or sticks of any length
Screwdrivers or Leatherman brand or similar tools
Dangerous or hazardous items or materials including chemical, biological, radiological agents
Animals (except service dogs and guide dogs)
Folding chairs
Laser devices
Tripods
Bikes, inline skates, skateboards, scooters, shoes with wheels
Illegal drugs and any other illegal substances
Frisbees or inflated balls of any kind.
Do you see that? NO COWBELLS. Proof that they’re a bunch of commies!
Which just goes to show that Chris Muir is actually more topical than I thought…actually, I’m wondering if he’s more topical than HE thought.
On a side note, did you SEE the stage. Designed, and I shit you not, by the same guy who designed Britney Spears’ stage for her last tour. You can’t make this shit up. I swear this guy wants to give it away.
I’m kinda wishing Joe Biden had done better against Senators Clinton and Obama.
But I’m a sucker for Irishmen and blarney.
If Hillary just lost it tonight and said, “F*** this for the good of the party s***, let’s rumble!”
Some sort of bomb has to fall soon, this political season is getting boring. I thoroughly expected some sort of stink would have blown into the mix by now.
Of course there’s the ad that Obama’s folks are getting all Chicago Old School about. It’s all over the right wing blogs, but I can’t believe that it’s not getting more mainstream coverage.
Really?!! I don’t think I could be LESS excited. Okay, I could have been less excited. He could have picked some nobody that no one had ever heard of outside of their state.
I don’t know much about Biden other than a bit about how he plagiarized something back in 87, and then again in law school…which, when you look back on the news of an Obama speech last winter, kind of makes sense. On the other hand, I know I’ve heard a lot about how Biden is strong on foreign affairs so that’s going to help fill in some of Obamas gaps. Sort of like how Dick Cheney filled in Presidents Bush’s gaps on…oh I can’t type a list that long, you know what I mean, and you know how well THAT worked out.
Well, that makes November easier. Even if McCain picks Lieberman, which I think personally think is a great ticket, I believe McCain is going to just keep on crawling up and up and up the polls. Not because anyone really wants him as President, just because he’s “mostly harmless” in a Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy sort of way.
The latest right wing bruhaha is that Obama didn’t visit the wounded troops at Landstuhl and Ramstein while in Germany. It didn’t bother me a bit. It would be completely inappropriate for any candidate to visit any military installation and use it as a backdrop as part of their campaign.
BUT! -the right cries- Obama insists this isn’t a campaign trip.
Riggghhhhttt.
Here’s some news for you geniuses, if you see either Senator Obama or Senator McCain anytime in the next three months or so, they’re campaigning. You know it, they know it, even my dog Max knows it and he doesn’t have a reputation as a particularly smart dog.
I think he’s given his opponent enough fodder without tagging him with this one.
And seriously, do you really think the wounded troops appreciate ANYONE in politics coming to visit them when they’re on the mend? Think about it, the hospital is going to change all the linen, even if it’s clean, they’re going to make you put on a fresh hospital gown. The floors are all going to be mopped and buffed to a gleam causing that wonderful smell of simple green, amonia and wax, and no one’s going to be allowed NEAR the cafeteria until it’s clear the politico isn’t hungry.
Okay, look. I’m still out of work, so before, during and after I’m done surfing around the net and looking at the paper for opportunities, I catch a good portion of the news. I watch an hour or so of Foxnews (SWOOSH) and then an hour or so of CNN (now with some James Earl Jones soundalike doing their “Black in America” promos) and if I remember what channel it’s on, I’ll catch the BBC just to see what the Brits are saying about us. I got into that habit when we were in Germany. It can be very…educational and it makes me feel better about being American instead of some elitist wanker.
I gotta tell ya that I’m getting scared here. The two men running for office are freaking idiots!
Every time you turn around Obama is either making shit up as he goes along, or he’s spouting stuff that’s so ridiculous my mouth literally drops open like I’m one of my Father’s relatives who moved to Southern Missouri because it made them feel smarter. When I listen to him I feel dumber than I did before he started. I mean he sounds better than most politicos, but when he’s done talking I’m just thinking, “What?! That made absolutely NO sense.” No…I can’t give you specifics, it happens EVERY time. And he’s starting to make John effing Kerry sound absolutely decisive.
And McCain? I haven’t seen that dynamic a speaker since Bob Dole ran against Clinton. And that insipid grin he gets when he’s “scoring points” on Obama? I’m sorry but it’s just plain creepy. I’m waiting for the 1930s monster movie music to come up. And seriously, the clip of him cruising around with Bush I in the golf cart? Dude…the age thing isn’t helping your case and nothing says, “I’m too old to be President.” like a golf cart…unless it’s one of those scooters from Walmart with the basket in front.
Obama, stop making shit up. Here’s an idea, when you don’t know what you’re talking about, shut the hell up.
McCain. Stop pointing out what’s wrong with Obama, you’re sounding even MORE like a democrat when you do that.
Both of you, start talking about what you’re going to DO about the economy, gas prices, and the four years you’re presumably going to be President.
From: Sgt Mom
To: B. Obama
CC: Mainstream Media, Lefty Blogosphere
Re: The Sound of Skewered Sacred Cows in the Morning
1. I haven’t read the New Yorker in a while; somehow all that New York trendoid media’s almost incestuous fixation with its own navel kind of wore thin after a couple of decades. They will also persist in paying great wads-o-cash for Seymour Hersh to dribble all kinds of disinformation from his handlers – er, his oh-so-secret gummint sources into the world at large – apparently on the off chance that the law of averages will catch up to him someday and he will actually make an accurate prediction. So here they go, making a huge splash with a cover that has managed to become the blogosphere’s “S**tstorm of The Day” by skewering both the anointed of the lefty blogosphere, the Obaminator himself and his missus… and the so-called follies of the righty blogosphere.
2. I presume that the editors of the New Yorker are chortling all the way to the bank, having created more interest in this particular issue than in practically anything else since the cover that featured a Hasidim in a torrid embrace with a black woman. Still, if they really had a pair, I can’t help thinking that they’d have used one of the dreaded Danish Motoons of Doom on the cover. Ah, well, say what you will, I don’t think Moveon.org or the Huff-Post will slap a fatwa on their asses or break out the exploding vests at this act of les-majestie against the Chosen One, the Fresh Prince of Chicago.
3. It has not gone without notice that other political figures have been savaged in caricature and cartoons in recent times, occasionally by this very same publication, with scarce a resulting peep. In fact, sitting presidents and aspirants to that office have been savagely caricatured for simply decades, nay for the two centuries plus that this nation has been a going concern. There were early politicians of hot temper and thin skin who were moved to fight duels, and a senator of Southern sympathies who took a cane and whaled the tar out of a senator with abolitionist leanings on the very floor of the Senate in the lead-up to our Civil War… but in the main, they manned up and developed a hide of the approximate thickness of a rhinoceros’s. The very best of them managed to pass it off with a quip and a chuckle – a course of action I would suggest to Mr. Obama.
4. It is being said – with an increasingly defensive tone of voice – that no, no, no, the cover is supposed to represent the those fears and rumors being whipped up by those running-dogs of the Right, the Minions of the Dreaded Lord Rove, all those gun-hugging, God-clinging white racist lumpen-proles who are not falling to their knees and instantly worshipping the Anointed One, all those ignorant Jesusland freaks who would just redeem their horrible selves if they would only accept the changyness and obey the commands of the anointed… and if they don’t it only proves that they’re “teh racists!” Oh, yeah. Whatever. Go pull the other leg, sport, that one has jingly bells on it. Being one who actually hangs out on some of the dreaded “Right Wing Blogosphere Weblogs o’ Death, I must observe that the objections to his proposed tenancy in the White House mostly center upon a resume as thin as his skin, his choice of friends, his propensity for using and then throwing the embarrassing and/or inconvenient ones under the bus, his background as a product of Chicago Machine politics, and the whole “tomorrow belongs to me” * ambiance about his followers. I won’t even get into his search for a father figure except to note that these ‘seed and leave’ men (such as Obama, Senior) do tend to leave a lot of damage in their wake.
5. Eh, well – this is what makes an election season so interesting. It makes amusing sport, so pass the popcorn. At this rate, it may be a very interesting summer.
6. Sincerely though, Mr. Obama – develop a thicker skin. You are only a politician. Man up and take your lumps like all the rest. You are not special, and you are not allowed to float graciously above the fray. The color of your skin does not give you a pass. As MLK so cogently observed, one should be judged upon the content of ones’ character.
Sincerely,
Sgt. Mom
* For those who need reminding, here is the best “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” sequence that I could locate. It’s from “Cabaret”, and pretty well illustrates some of the creepiness that some critics see in elements of the Obama campaign:
There are a few news anchors who I honestly enjoyed watching and who I actually trusted. On the top of that list was Tony Snow.
I don’t think I enjoyed Presidential press conferences more than when he was the Press Secretary. When he gave his previous colleagues the look, I’d just giggle my butt off.
Rest well sir. Well done.
Sorry, I knew I promised way back when not to indulge in juvenile name-calling when it came to this years election campaign, but that was just too rich to pass up, too much like a dense and fudgy slab of Mississippi Mud chocolate tart with pecans, whipped cream and a whole real maraschino cherry, on top, the kind with a stem and a real seed pit in the center – temptation, I can resist anything but temptation.
I will say this for Mr. Hopey-Changey-Chicago-Machine-Pol – he is at least a bit more personally charming than John Kerry, who alas, came off as an unfortunate cross between Lurch and Eddie Haskell. I still wish I could reach out and give the mother of all dope-slaps to whichever of his strategist-minions suggested that he make his military service the centerpiece of his campaign, lo these four years ago. I am still cringing at that awful salute that he rendered. God, the Air Force gets all kinds of stick for sloppy salutes, but that one of his took the absolute cake. And as for reminding everyone of how he made his first political bones? Way to go, people. I couldn’t find a single Vietnam-era military vet in San Antonio who didn’t despise him so much for his part in Winter Soldier and other anti-war follies that they could hardly say his name without adding some serious bad language. Or at least, making a face like they had just bitten into a breakfast taco and discovered a palmetto but into it. However – water under the bridge, people, water under the bridge. Now we are faced with a gorgeous, well spoken well-connected and charming empty suit. It doesn’t help that his most prominent military affairs advisors appear to be Wesley Clark (better known as Weasely and worse to those who served with and under him) and Merrill McPeak, the very mention of whose name still makes NCOs who served during his tenure spit nails, not the least for his pet project – the new Air Force Uniform (ta-dah! – god, what a dog, and we would have had to buy it, too!) To steal a phrase; of all the possible advisors on matters military, I think that the Obama campaign has hit upon the two most likely former general officers to make military veterans run screaming. That takes a kind of genius, really. A warped genius… and has anyone seen Karl Rove, recently!!!???
Obama is an empty suit, albeit a beautifully tailored one. As long as the suit is reading off the teleprompter, and dazzling with it’s considerable charm and piquancy, distracting attention from the fact that it’s resume is as slender as Callista Flockhart’s thighs – no, I do not care for Mr. Obama. Or his friends, his resume, his pathetic father-abandonment issues, his irritatingly resentful wife, his propensity for throwing friends, family, staff and allies underneath the metaphoric bus. There are so many people under it now, it must be jacked up like one of those pick-up trucks that you need a tall ladder to climb into. I am allergic to demagoguery, to charming people who say whatever they need to say to one audience -Â mostly airy promises – and something else to the next audience, and then get their well-tailored knickers in a bunch when asked searching questions about whatever it is that they have said.
Still, there are more lawn-signs and bumper stickers out for him than there ever were in my neighborhood for M. Kerry, four years ago. It’s going to be a long summer?
…Because I’m really curious to see some thoughts on this.
In Peggy Noonan’s column today (Friday), she compares the Old America and the New America. She’s talking about the election, of course, but I found her thoughts interesting.
… 2008 will also prove in part to be a decisive political contest between the Old America and the New America. Between the thing we were, and the thing we have been becoming for 40 years or so. (I’m not referring here to age. Some young Americans have Old America heads and souls; some old people are all for the New.)
Mr. McCain is the Old America, of course; Mr. Obama the New.
* * *
Roughly, broadly:
In the Old America, love of country was natural. You breathed it in. You either loved it or knew you should.
In the New America, love of country is a decision. It’s one you make after weighing the pros and cons. What you breathe in is skepticism and a heightened appreciation of the global view.
Old America: Tradition is a guide in human affairs. New America: Tradition is a challenge, a barrier, or a lovely antique.
The Old America had big families. You married and had children. Life happened to you. You didn’t decide, it decided. Now it’s all on you. Old America, when life didn’t work out: “Luck of the draw!” New America when life doesn’t work: “I made bad choices!” Old America: “I had faith, and trust.” New America: “You had limited autonomy!”
Old America: “We’ve been here three generations.” New America: “You’re still here?”
Old America: We have to have a government, but that doesn’t mean I have to love it. New America: We have to have a government and I am desperate to love it. Old America: Politics is a duty. New America: Politics is life.
The Old America: Religion is good. The New America: Religion is problematic. The Old: Smoke ’em if you got ’em. The New: I’ll sue.
Mr. McCain is the old world of concepts like “personal honor,” of a manliness that was a style of being, of an attachment to the fact of higher principles.
Mr. Obama is the new world, which is marked in part by doubt as to the excellence of the old. It prizes ambivalence as proof of thoughtfulness, as evidence of a textured seriousness.
Both Old and New America honor sacrifice, but in the Old America it was more essential, more needed for survival both personally (don’t buy today, save for tomorrow) and in larger ways.
The Old and New define sacrifice differently. An Old America opinion: Abjuring a life as a corporate lawyer and choosing instead community organizing, a job that does not pay you in money but will, if you have political ambitions, provide a base and help you win office, is not precisely a sacrifice. Political office will pay you in power and fame, which will be followed in time by money (see Clinton, Bill). This has more to do with timing than sacrifice. In fact, it’s less a sacrifice than a strategy.
A New America answer: He didn’t become a rich lawyer like everyone else—and that was a sacrifice! Old America: Five years in a cage—that’s a sacrifice!
In the Old America, high value was put on education, but character trumped it. That’s how Lincoln got elected: Honest Abe had no formal schooling. In Mr. McCain’s world, a Harvard Ph.D. is a very good thing, but it won’t help you endure five years in Vietnam. It may be a comfort or an inspiration, but it won’t see you through. Only character, and faith, can do that. And they are very Old America.
Old America: candidates for office wear ties. New America: Not if they’re women. Old America: There’s a place for formality, even the Beatles wore jackets!
What do y’all think?
And while you’re at it, what do you think about the classified documents that were found on a British commuter train? (oops)
This is something I learned in Mr. Bryer’s U.S. History/Civics class in 1977-78.
THE 545 PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR AMERICA’S WOES
BY CHARLEY REESE
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy.
It’s 12:40 Eastern Time. We’ve had the TV on news for the past 45 minutes or so…waiting for Hillary’s concession speech…which was scheduled for 12:00 Eastern. Ya know, if it wasn’t so typical, I might be insulted. If I was one of her supporters, I would be insulted. Pardon the title, but it’s true. I think this may be the end of the Clinton’s.
12:44…her name is announced.
12:45, she takes the podium.
12:46 she finally starts talking.
She’s grateful…yadda yadda yadda. Young people…big young cheer. Old people…cough, wheeze, get off my lawn.
18 Million…big cheer.
Endorsing Barak…smaller cheer, lots of boooooos.
Socialist agenda…lots of cheers.
Bill…lots of cheers.
We need a Democrat…lots of cheers.
YES WE CAN!!! Some cheers, less booooos.
Talking points as to why we need to help Barak Obama get elected President. Some of her supporters are definitely not buying it.
All in all one of the best speeches I’ve heard her give, and remember, I’m not a fan. I’m with the analysts though, I don’t think she’s convinced all of her supporters. I give her props for not mentioning the Vice Presidency and for laying out that the dems need to unify if they’re going to win.
Congrats to Senator Barack Obama. That was one of the more interesting primaries in a decade or two. I truly hope that Trinity was the worst that we’ll have to say about you. Hoewever,…
Just a prediction, based on nothing but my own cynical outlook on life and my low opinion of Chicago politics and politicians:
Before November, more likely before August, information will be made public about Senator Obama’s “shocking” ties to the Chicago Democratic Machine in an even more “disappointing in that it’s so typical” corruption scandal.
Senator McCain’s Campaign will have nothing to do with releasing the information…there will be no ties on the release back to the Clinton Campaign.
Senator Clinton will “gracefully” step in to accept the Democratic nomination.
Oh, but to have the popcorn concession, as we observe the latest developments in this 2008 political season, as the elementals of ebony and ovary collide. Really, it’s like the clash between the gingham cat and the calico dog – they’ll be nothing but little shreds left. Or might it be like matter and anti-matter – nothing left but a little smoking hole in the ground. How the various partisan factions of the Democrat party will ever be able to work together after all the free-flowing animus is beyond me. And I’ll have my popcorn with a teensy bit of salt, please.
What to say about Her Perhaps Not Quite So Inevitableness? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. There will be a female President of this US of A in the near future, but I never invested any of my faith that she would be the one. It has annoyed me no end over the last couple of years, the blanket assumption that because she is a woman of certain age, as I am, that of course I would vote for her, strike a blow against the patriarchy, and for equal rights and anyway aren’t we entitled to have one of our own elected to the highest office in the land? Er… no.
I might have, once. Say, if she had divorced that two-timer she was married to, as soon as they moved out of the White House, and build a political career on her own, and on her own accomplishments. And if I had a lobotomy, or spent the last thirty years in a patchouli scented haze, re-living the glory days of the 60s. But I didn’t. I don’t do entitlement politics. I do accomplishments; Real accomplishments, not something jiggered up in an attempt to meet some vague ideological component or for a crowd to cheer at.
About the one positive thing you can say about Her Perhaps Maybe Inevitableness is that just about all the dirt ever on her has been out there for decades, and pretty carefully sifted through. If she is to be the Democratic nominee, AKA The Last One Standing after the convention, we can be pretty certain of there being no startling new developments. All the existing well-known dirt would be pretty well sifted again over the next five months, but I can’t visualize anything new and startling emerging.
This cannot be said of The Fresh Prince of Illinois. B. Obama, he of the middle name which can’t be mentioned, he of the thin resume and even thinner skin, nourished and groomed by the Chicago political machine and led before us, the Chosen One himself, hailed by the hosannas of the elite, the trendy, the daring… and also the Europeans. (Note to Euro political thinkers – umm, many of us have ancestors who left Europe to get away from people like you. Your recommendation in this respect is kind of a kiss of death. It’s like that letter-writing campaign during the last election, where Guardian readers were encouraged to write personal letters to American voters encouraging them to vote for John Kerry. )
As of this weekend, Sen. Obama has done a U-turn and departed his church of twenty years; that very trendy, large Chicago church with the charismatic and very popular black liberation theologist pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright… whose fulminations from the pulpit (handily recorded and originally distributed by the church itself !) did not strike quite the same note with the larger public. Observers of the current election scene had wondered for weeks if Obama really believed various of the Reverend Wrights’s racist fantasies – in which case he is belying his own words about racial healing – or did he just go along with it all because it was politically useful – in which case he is just another cynical, grubby politician, whoring after votes and influence. Guess that question has been answered.
Considering all the people who have now been thrown under the bus by the Obama campaign – the Fresh Prince’s white grandmother, various staff members, the Reverend Wright and now his church – one hopes that sucker has wheels on it like a monster truck. I am sure there will be more, even without the rumored recording of Mrs. Obama saying quite unfortunate and impolitic things. I have the impression that the Obamas and their circle live very circumscribed lives, an echo chamber of their own making. They appear to have no notion of how appalling, ham-fisted or just dim-witted some of their off-the-cuff remarks sound to the larger world outside their little bubble.
I rather miss Teresa Kerry, as the campaign season gets into full swing! I despised her husband, but at least she seemed to be a quirky, intelligent, interesting woman and a fairly experienced political wife. Michelle Obama just appears as a seething pit of resentment in spite of two high-end degrees, a large income and a mansion; a BAP with a limitless sense of entitlement. I can imagine her behaving appallingly and when called on it, blaming it all on teh racism! Straw-person argument, I know. But I have run into women like that in real life. In interviews and speeches she comes off as just that sort of woman.
Oh, yeah – interesting convention coming up. Interesting election season too. Pass the popcorn.
(Later – Additional thoughts from Cassandra at Villanous Company)
Robert Ferrigno on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Usually I hope that Robert is just kidding. In this case, I hope he’s not.