Clown and mother
I’m home and in bed now. The Husband and My Kid are both sound asleep. It was such a fun GNO with the other mommies from My Kid’s school. I hope I don’t have any trouble getting up in the morning to get to rehearsal on time–And My Kid has a soccer game…
There was wine…
There was lots of food…
We’re still all talking about Obama…
And…
Sarah Palin in front of a turkey exterminator…what the….Sarah Palin at the Wasilla turkey farm
I miss those days when the Republican would win again and we would shake our heads and be depressed for a while and then move on because it really was just politics and budgets. Then Gore won the election but George Bush II ascended to the Oval Office and WTO happened, and 9/11 happened, and Enron happened, and Iraq happened, and Katrina happened…
…and the Mortgage Crisis happened, Hurricane Ike barely made the news as Wall Street happened, and now Sarah Palin encouraging the crazy angry people to get all riled up.
I spend quite a while yesterday morning online researching Sarah Palin’s racism both overt and implied. So this evening on the subway when My Kid asked me what color Obama was…
I immediately started going through the Rolodex of my mind searching for facts I could tell her about his white mother from Kansas and his black father from Kenya and how the met in Hawaii and how some people get divorced. Also some foolish people with light skin like Sarah Palin decide not to like people who have dark skin like the Obama family, and say words like “those people” to mean they don’t want to even try to be friends. Even though they are grownups, they have not yet learned the lesson of “The Sneeches” by Dr. Seuss.
Stalling for time I asked; “What do you mean what color is Obama?”
She wanted to know if he was BLUE or RED!
I remembered an essay I once read by someone, who, attending a gay wedding and reception at a church in Seattle, wondered what carefully crafted words about love and relationships would be prepared for the child who was marveling at the weird thing he had seen. That strange thing the child had never seen before turned out to be a rotary dial telephone.
Last night, My Kid was watching “The Wizards of Waverly Place” on the Disney Channel (where the characters are drawn with such a broad brush one has to do a double-take just to register that the show is live action and not a cartoon). The main character and her friend had an encounter with the mean girl who ruled the local high school. Her mission every day was to say things to individual students to make them cry, just because she could. It gave her pleasure. It’s a type and I was reminded of Sarah Palin.
Then, also, this morning, I by myself, also, in fact, was cruisin’ the internet, and also, then I found, on my own studyin’ an article by a reporter who wrote about terrible racist things that Sarah Palin has said:
http://www.laprogressive.com/2008/09/05/alaskans-speak-in-a-frightened-whisper-palin-is-“racist-sexist-vindictive-and-mean”/
I caught a few minutes of “The View” today. Elisabeth Hasselbeck is one of the hosts. She used to host “The Look For Less” on the Style Network. It was a show about shopping and makeovers for ordinary people on a budget, copying runway style in preparation for a special event. I watched it a couple of times. The outfits are adequate, but they are never as good as the original designer clothes.
Sarah Palin looked great last night.
I can do that.
If I had a national televised debate tonight, I could be ready by show time.
All I have to do to look as competent and professional as Sarah Palin is to go uptown to Bergdorf Goodman or Saks Fifth Avenue, buy an outfit and then go to an upscale salon and have my hair colored and styled.
I can do that anytime I want–I have a credit card! (Oh crap, what if Wall Street crashes and we don’t bail out Hank Paulson, no credit, I won’t get my makeover…)
As for the policy questions..
That’s completely irrelevant.
Sorry I can’t remember how to imbed the video but here is the address if you haven’t seen it:
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/
Dear classmates –
>
> As an Alaskan, I am writing to give all of you some information on
> Sarah Palin, Senator McCain’s choice for VP. As an Alaska voter, I
> know more than most of you about her and, frankly, I am horrified that
> he picked her.
>
> The most accurate description of her is red neck. Her husband works in
> the oil fields of Prudhoe Bay and races snow mobiles. She is a life
> time member of the NRA and has worked tirelessly to allow
> indiscriminate hunting of wildlife in Alaska, particularly wolves and
> bears. She has spent millions of Alaska state dollars on aerial
> hunting of these predators from helicopters and airplanes, dollars
> that should have been spent, for example, on Alaska’s failing school
> system.We have the lowest rate of high school graduation in the
> country. Not all of you may think aerial predator hunting is so bad,
> but how anyone (other than Alaska wolf-haters, of which there are
> many, most without teeth), could think this use of funds is
> appropriate is beyond me. If you want to know more about the aerial
> hunting travesty, let me know and I will send some links to
> informative web sites.
>
> She has been a strong supporter of increased use of fossil fuels, yet
> the McCain campaign has the nerve to say she has “green”
policies. The
> only thing green about Sarah Palin is her lack of experience. She has
> consistently supported drilling in ANWR, use of coal-burning power
> plants (as I write this, a new coal plant is being built in her home
> town of Wasilla), strip mining, and almost anything else that will
> unnecessarily exploit the diminishing resources of Alaska and destroy
> its environment.
>
> Prior to her one year as governor of Alaska, she was mayor of Wasilla,
> a small red neck town outside Anchorage.The average maximum education
> level of parents of junior high school kids in Wasilla is 10th grade.
> Unfortunately, I have to go to Wasilla every week to get groceries and
> other supplies, so I have continual contact with the people who put
> Palin in office in the first place. I know what I’m talking about.
> These people don’t have a concept of the world around them or of the
> serious issues facing the US. Furthermore, they don’t care. So long as
> they can go out and hunt their moose every fall, kill wolves and bears
> and drive their snow mobiles and ATVs through every corner of the
> wilderness, they’re happy. I wish I were exaggerating.
>
> Sarah Palin is currently involved in a political corruption scandal.
> She fired an individual in law enforcement here because she didn’t
> like how he treated one of her relatives during a divorce. The man’s
> performance and ability weren’t considered; it was a totally personal
> firing and is currently under investigation. While the issue isn’t
> close to the scandal of Ted Steven’s corruption, it shows that Palin
> isn’t “squeaky clean” and causes me to think there ay be
more issues
> that could come to light. Clearly McCain doesn’t care.
>
> When you line Palin up with Biden, the comparison would be laughable
> if it weren’t so serious. Sarah Palin knows nothing of economics
> (admittedly a weak area for McCain), or of international affairs,
> knows nothing of national government, Social Security, unemployment,
> health care systems – you name it. The idea of her meeting with heads
> of foreign governments around the world truly frightens me.
>
> In an increasingly dangerous world, with the economy in shambles in
> the US, Sarah Palin is uniquely UNqualified to be vice president. John
> McCain is not a young man. Should something happen to him such that
> the vice president had to step in, it would destroy our country and
> possibly the world to have someone as inexperienced and inappropriate
> as Sarah Palin. The choice of Palin is a cheap shot by McCain to try
> to get Hillary supporters to vote for him. when McCain introduced her
> today, Palin had the nerve to compare herself with Hillary and
> Geraldine Ferraro. Sarah Palin, you are no Hillary Clinton.
>
> To those of you who, like me, supported Hilary and were upset that she
> did not get the nomination, please don’t think that Sarah Palin is a
> worthy substitute. If you supported Hillary, regardless of what you
> think the media and the democratic party may have done to undermine
> her campaign, the person to support now is Obama, not Sarah Palin. To
> those of you who are independent or undecided, don’t let the choice of
> Palin sway you in favor of McCain. Choosing her shows how unqualified
> McCain is to be president. To those of you who are conservative, I
> guess you have no choice for president. But please try to see how the
> poor choice of Palin tells us a great deal about McCain’s judgment.
> While the political posturing inherent in the choice of Palin is
> obvious, the more serious issue is the fact that the VP is, literally,
> a heartbeat away from the presidency. Sarah Palin is totally and
> unequivocally unqualified to be vice president, let alone president.
>
> I know this is a lengthy and emotional email, but the stakes are high.
> I thought it might help for all of you, regardless of political
> affiliation, to know something about Palin from someone who has to
> live with her administration in Alaska on a daily basis.
=
It took me a while to figure out what bothered me so much about McCain’s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, mother of 5. But, then it hit me. Her’s is the success story of Rush Limbaugh’s ideal woman who rides on her man’s boat, baiting his hook, holding his line and handing him the pole when there’s a bite. Then she admires his catch as he reels it in and hands him a cold beer to drink while she cleans the fish. When done correctly this technique can lead to a large house, children and jewelry (or perhaps a float plane.) Anyone who doesn’t see the mutual benefit in such a wholesome Christian relationship must be an over-educated bitter feminist lesbian.
The other thing I find disturbing is the apparent belief on the part of some Republican operatives that this will attract Hillary Clinton supporters to the McCain ticket. After all aren’t all women interchangeable. The ladies want to vote for a girl, how about this one. What is the difference between a hunting housewife from Alaska and a policy wonk from Yale Law School.