Hypocrisy
As is my custom, I went and stuck my dick hands into a hornets nest over at all of the other blogs, where the flurry of mutual admiration, back slapping, and high fiving over the choice of Sarah Palin as VP nominee continues unabated. When real talent like Tom Ridge gets ignored just because the spoiled children who make up this bunch of looney tunes could not stand it-well the rest of us should be very afraid indeed.
Mainly, because McCain is going to win in November. By about 10 electoral votes from my point of view. Obama, in my opinion, will underestimate the threat that is being posed to him and the party he represents. And, I also believe- because of his inexperience- he will not be up to the challenge of coherently offering a script that real Americans (not extremists on either side) can grab onto and feel comfortable with.
Which, in this particular election, is a shame, because George W. Bush and the Republican party he represents desperately needs to be repudiated. On so many issues-the Iraq war, foreign policy in general, the role of government in society, rights to privacy in ones communications, misguided ideas on the role of tax cuts and deficit spending-George W. Bush has failed miserably. Sadly there is little means at anyone’s disposal to punish him for his malfeasance and incompetence in office.
Except to make sure that the party he leads gets sent to the outer darkness for more than few years.
Which would be happening if the Democrats themselves were not so inherently stupid and, like the Republicans, are weighed down a by a fringe base that- just like the evangelicals on the right-cries like a spoiled child when it is not appeased. With a President who is only slightly more popular than a child molester-the Democrats should be winning this election in a walk.
Yet, it is essentially tied right now-and over the next few weeks I predict will shift over to McCain by about 7 points. Because what McCain did by picking Palin, was to turn this election into an argument of the whiners-on both sides of the aisle. Phrased another way, it will be about style over substance.
Which is probably in keeping with the title of the above named book.
As far as Palin goes-well my objections to her center on two things: 1) I wanted a guy like Tom Ridge on the ticket; who is my opinion far more competent than Palin- and comes out ahead on points in terms of his political views. 2) There is something really scary about a woman who is just too perfect. And who, despite possessing the very characteristics that they criticize Obama for, is loved by the evangelicals who think that religion has a place in politics. Palin’s whole life story seems like a lost episode of “Thirtysomething” if you ask me-right down to the quotes about her being just another hockey mom with a great body who runs five miles a day, works her husband’s boat on weekends, and is just another hard working middle class Mom.
Except she is not. She’s not obscenely rich like McCain, but she is not hurting either. Basically her and her husband together rank in the top five percent of income earning families in America.
Palin can’t match the McCains’ eight homes, but her real estate portfolio is respectable (Three houses), as is her family’s net worth. Not in McCain’s league to be sure-but her husband’s stock portfolio is one I envy. It is worth well over 300,000 dollars by my quick figuring. Add in the real estate and I would place their net worth at somewhere between 500,000-1,000,000 dollars depending on how you choose to count the money.
Its about the same as Barak Obama. ($799,000). But hey, he’s an elitist-don’t you know?
Like I said before and will continue to maintain, there is a back story there that we all don’t know yet. But its out there, just waiting to be found. Nobody is this perfect. .
Think of a good looking, female version of Dan Quayle-that’s Sarah Palin. By all accounts Quayle was a decent, family man-who no one believed qualified to be President. That worked out Ok didn’t it?
Only because George H.W. Bush did not die.
Comment on Palin’s selection is pertinent because of McCain’s age and health. And it is also pertinent for comment because of what it says the conservative wing of the Republican party really values. Think about Harriet Myers:
ST. PAUL, Minn. — By all rights, there should be a revolt at this week’s (now-delayed) Republican convention against John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate — for the same reasons so many Republicans opposed President Bush’s selection of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court.
Palin is, if anything, less qualified for the vice presidency (and the presidency) than Miers was for the court. But there is one big difference: Palin passes all the right-wing litmus tests, which means she is unlikely to suffer Miers’s fate.
It’s amusing to watch Republicans play gender politics. At the time Bush chose Miers, he was under pressure to pick a woman to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. But most of the plausible female jurists were either too moderate to satisfy conservatives or so right wing that they faced serious confirmation problems.
Which brings me to the Websters quote listed above. It was alleged that, “That, to me is the difference between right and left. People over here are passionate about those things in which they believe, and we have many spirited discussions, but very seldom do the attacks get personal and almost never is the decorum lost here.”
I’d agree, maybe there perhaps-but only because the ump will boot you from the game if you don’t, even if his strike zone is unfairly biased against the visiting team.
However the rarefied air of Lex’s place, is not indicative of the big numbers producing right wing blogs as a whole. Who, if judging by the tenor of the posts-have little difference from the left wing loonies of the liberal blogosphere- they are equal opportunity smearers of people’s reputations. Now don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of level headed discussion out there-but the idea that the Republicans are somehow above old fashioned mud slinging is just ludicrous.
Or does anyone remember the primaries? And the whole Madrassah thing? The Republicans are more than willing to get in a good ole grease filled smear campaign if it will help the noble cause.
And Rick Schenkman gets ammunition for his book.
I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.-H. L. Mencken
Update! Hugh Hewitt is an evil man-and now I know where so many of the pontifications about the difference between the two campaigns ideas came from…………And he proves my point about how ‘fair minded’ these folks really are.