Cluelessness

Alan Sorkin wailed away,
On his blog the other day,
'Cause Sarah Palin shot a moose,
Or was it Rudolph on the loose,
While hunting up Alaska way.

Mr. Priss procures his meat,
When Bambi he's of a mind to eat,
From someone who a cleaver wields,
Behind a screen at the Fresh Fields.
His hands are clean; but he's effete,
And his cluelessness is hard to beat.

And now for a little political incorrectness

Commenter Diane at Commentary Magazine's blog just did the best job I've seen of capturing the reason behind a phenomenon that outrages me - namely the blithe way the news media has attacked Sarah Palin in a way it would never attack a member of any other racial or ethnic group.

Here's a thought to enrage you Barack Obama fans. Sarah Palin is more qualified than Barrack Obama to be President of the United States, at least by demonstrated experience. Barry is better educated, and he's probably smarter; but Sarah has at least done something that looks like governing for a few years. Going by actual experience governing, Barry is a smooth mouth, a talking head. He's all hat and no cattle. He's an empty suit. Even he puts forward nothing but his running of his own campaign as his main executive qualification to run the country. And if you believe he runs his own campaign in detail, or even on an executive level, you must also believe that Kermit the Frog has a third arm and hand tucked up his own back passage to make him move.

But enough of me - here is Diane, the commenter who so aptly captured the reason so many so called elite folks feel free to trash Sarah Palin while they act like Barack Obama is the second coming of Franklin D. Roosevelt - who was a not too bright governor like Palin when he was elected president, by the way.

Diane Says: October 22nd, 2008 at 3:36 PM
I’d like to get something off my chest re: the hypocrisy of the Left’s attacks of Sarah Palin. I contend that it is a stunning piece of overt reverse racism.
We’re told she isn’t smart enough. Doesn’t have the right college degree. Imagine for a moment if Sarah Palin were a Native American. Everything else about her is the same — hunting, snowmobiling, religious, self-made freshman governor. Would we be hearing the liberal establishment deriding her non-Ivy education, her funny accent, her folksy word-choices? Her family’s size or her children’s morals? Her parenting skills? No, we wouldn’t. Because as a Native American, she would be the long-suffering victim of oppression. Her having risen above it would be a tale of triumph. Her hunting and religious views (let’s say she was an animist who prayed to ancient spirits in a sweat lodge) would be accorded the dignity of a fine and noble cultural heritage.
Cast her in any other ehtnic minority — Hispanic, black –– and the test yields the same results.
We don’t scoff at Thurgood Marshall attending Howard University law school. It was a miracle, we are told, given the advanced state of white oppression, that he attended law school at all. Look at Bolivian president Evo Morales, the high-school drop out, former bricklayer, baker and llama sherpherd whose peculiar Catholic faith included making alcohol and coca offerings to the earth goddess, Pachamama. But because he is a full-blooded indigenous Amerind, none of this disqualifies him in any way from political leadership.
This amounts to a form of political affirmative action. White politicians who aren’t elites are subject to vicious stereotyping and condescension. Non-whites who aren’t elite get a pass, indeed a pat on the back for not kowtowing to “the man.” And minorities who are elites — like Obama — get the double-advantage of full acceptance by elites and massive affirmative-action bonus points for their so-called disadvantaged origins.

Me again - Diane's comment was in response to a post by Abe Greenwald about Christopher Hitchen's blind spot re religion. An interesting post and comment thread if you're into such things.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/39671

Free Pete Rose!

Poor Pete Rose is unjustly being denied his deserved spot in the Baseball Hall of Fame. And why? Merely because he placed a few little bets on basebal games. And he didn't even bet against his own team. Unjust! Especially in the new world of ethics we now inhabit.

Last night a crooked journalist named Gwen Ifill moderated the debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden. And all the while she was supposedly being evenhanded, Ms Ifill was nervously wondering how her huge bet on the outcome of this year's election will turn out.

You see, Gwen Ifill has already written a book titled The Breakthrough, Politics and Race in the Age of Obama, and that book is scheduled to be released on January 20, 2009, which just happens to be inauguration day for the next president. If you don't believe me you can look it up on Amazon, where the book is already for sale on pre-release basis. If Obama wins, she will sell tons and tons of those books. If Obama loses, she may as well plan to insulate her house with the books.

I say that if Ms Ifill is still invited to polite parties after this conflict of interest, Pete Rose should immediately get his place in the Hall of Fame. His actions were a lot less corrupt than hers.

And lest you say that she was fair in how she moderated the debate, here's an amusing letter that was sent to Stephen Spruiell of Media Blog about one of her supposedly fair questions.

IFILL: OK, our time is up here. We've got to move to the next question. Senator Biden, we want to talk about taxes, let's talk about taxes. You proposed raising taxes on people who earn over $250,000 a year. The question for you is, why is that not class warfare and the same question for you, Governor Palin, is you have proposed a tax employer health benefits which some studies say would actually throw five million more people onto the roles of the uninsured. I want to know why that isn't taking things out on the poor, starting with you, Senator Biden.
Translation – tell why it’s okay to make the evil rich pay their fair share, o’ herald of the mighty light bringer. And you, mouth of Sauron, why are you and the dark lord trying to make things worse for the poor?

I might add that anybody who believes Barack Obama and Joe Biden can pay for the vast spending plans they have proposed by increasing taxes only on people earning over $250,000 is smoking some mighty fine weed.

Here's are two examples. Obama and Biden are right this moment sponsoring a law in the Senate which, if passed, will require the U.S. to donate something like $10 Billion per month to the United Nations to be strewn around the world as foreign aid. And both of them strongly support the idea of the government requiring industry to buy so-called carbon credits to cover the CO2 it emits. That carbon credit scheme is a pure tax, disguised to look like an environmental law, and - in fact - it is a very regressive tax which falls hardest on those who earn the least. Companies are going to pass that tax directly onto you and everybody else who buys anything.

Update 10/05/08: My apologies to Pete Rose for comparing him to Gwen Ifill. After reflecting on it I now realize that Pete Rose doesn't deserve that. What he did doesn't compare in immorality to what Gwen Ifill did. What she did is only comparable to a baseball umpire placing a big bet on a game with a bookie just before going into the stadium to umpire that game. In a rational society she would be fired from her job and barred for life from engaging in journalism just as a major league umpire would be fired and barred for life if caught betting on a game and then officiating at it.

It seems Sarah Palin really drew out the geezers

Jas thought last evening that Sarah Palin pulled in a crowd of 18,000 at The Villages the other day. The fire chief of The Villages estimated 60,000. I've seen other estimates as low as 25,000.

One way or another that's quite a crowd. I was a little surprised to see somewhere else that Joe Biden only drew 2,000 when he went there. Maybe Palin offered a blue plate special to get her big crowd. On the other hand Biden must have tried to charge them or something. I know Biden is boring, but heck, there are usually 2,000 or so wandering around lost and confused in The Villages at any given time.

My impression of The Villages is that you can get a bigger crowd than 2,000 if you spread the rumor that you'll give out free boiled peanuts and new rubber feet for people's walkers and canes. For those of you who haven't experienced boiled peanuts I'll just say that you haven't really lived until you try them and learn what people will eat when they're starving.

I wonder if Al and Doris dropped by to see Palin.

http://news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080921/NEWS0107/80921022

The attack dogs are really out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URIypadX3n0

Only Jonah Goldberg of National Review's The Corner would post such a thing. I read his stuff compulsively for it's sheer manic brilliance even though I'm still a bit irritated at him for his continued refusal to fess up to his error re Superman's birthplace in the footnotes to his otherwise excellent book Liberal Fascism.

Superman was born on Trantor, Jonah. No, I mean he was born on. . . I can't remember right this moment. But he certainly wasn't born in the midwest.

If true, what a wuss

A sympathetic blogger at getreligion.org feels sorry for Charles Gibson. She thinks he was in a tough position and had to be tough on Sarah Palin because of all the peer pressure of his colleagues in the media. Here's what she said.

"I have been reflecting on the Charles Gibson’s performance during his ABCinterview of Gov. Sarah Palin and I actually feel bad for him. Because Palin has not been as available to the press as they would have liked, he had the burden of representing the entire mainstream media establishment. And with the mainstream media admitting they are “angry” and passionate these last few weeks, that put Gibson in a very difficult position. I mean, he has to work with and socialize with these people for the rest of his life. That is an incredible amount of peer pressure and it had to have been an unbelievably difficult situation for him. I don’t think it excuses getting basic facts wrong but it’s just worth considering all the pressures he was under.

And while Gibson’s performance is getting eviscerated as unfair by many observers — and that includes the New York Times media critic and the Los Angeles Times — he’s also getting lots of support from some media friends. So I think that he probably did what he needed to do to stay in the good graces of his colleagues."

Here's my reaction to this idea. First, Charles Gibson had every right to be as tough or as easy on Sarah Palin as he felt he should be in his own professional opinion. But note that I said "in his own professional opinion."

If Charles Gibson was so much as one jot or tittle tougher or easier on Sarah Palin because of public opinion, or out of a desire to preserve his own reputation, or especially out of a desire to keep the good opinion of his "in" crowd he's not a "professional" except in the sense that he's a professional whore. If he did that he's no more professional than any contemptible little sissy on a kindergarten playground who joins in taunting a former friend because "everybody is doing it."

Not that there's anything wrong with that, at least in the thinking of much of our modern culture, especially including the glib gaggle of sniggering gigolos who make up the media.

A word about my use of "whore" and "gigolo" in the above. I used the words in their meaning as insults connoting those who sell their honor for money. I certainly intended no insult to honorable whores and gigolos who merely rent the use of their bodies. Such honorable whores are not to be confused with the thoroughly dishonorable whores who infest the media.

We deserve better!

The Demos are trying to sell Joe Biden as a po' boy from Scranton. If Barack Obama bought Joe Biden as a coal miner's daughter type Pennsylvania native scion he's a lot less smart than he appeared when he rolled over Bill O'Reilly on taxes last night.

Here's a random thought that struck me while watching Obama swish O'Reilly around on the floor like a dust mop and then unscrew his head and slam dunk it.

After this election we're going to have to look at either Obama's big wart or McCain's turkey wattle neck for the next four years. Not pleasant. And then there's that thing with the tongue Palin does behind her lower lip when she's thinking.

And if that's not enough; all three of the above pale next to the thought of listening to Biden talk out of both sides of his mouth for four years. What a supercilious asshole. Caligula's horse is a lot more believable as a popular favorite for a Senator's stall and trough, and he didn't get re-elected 6 times. At least half of the three or four dozen voters down in Delaware must be brain damaged from smelling all that chicken shit.

Anyway, after eight years of putting up with George W's earnest Alfred E. Neuman imitation we deserve better.

Obama will say Ouch! when he reads this

Over at Commentary Magazine's Contentions blog a poster took on the issue of why Barack Obama continues to trade punches with Sarah Palin even though his real opponent is John McCain.

I'm betting the writer is a graduate of a top notch college which has a Womyn's Studies Department. Alternatively, this is such a pitch perfect example of it's genre that the writer may even be Camille Paglia posting under a pseudonym.

"Joe NS Says: September 6th, 2008 at 2:50 PM

The Democratic campaign is not in a meltdown. The proper image, I believe, is that of a long metal chain the links of which are one by one sliding off the edge of a bench. One can see what is happening, very slowly at first and then accelerating, with horror or glee depending on party affiliation; but it’s very definitely underway.

It is nearly impossible to credit it, but the Palin pick has caught the Democrats so flat-footed that they have clearly decided the only counterpunch they have is to argue that Sarah Palin cannot be a mother and a vice-president at the same time. That is a flat-out incredible position for a Democrat to take. It is unvarnished surrealism. And I fear it might even work. The truth, however, is that they really have no other option at this point. Largely because of the psychology of BO himself, I believe.

In any sensible assessment of his current predicament, Obama MUST IGNORE Sarah Palin. To have the Democratic presidential nominee fencing on almost a daily basis with the Republicans nominee for vice-president is only a little short of insane. Palin was wrong on one matter: the longer the jousting between them continues, the more voters will notice that the proper level of comparison of Obama and Palin is not between Obama as community organizer and Palin as mayor, but between Obama as community organizer and Palin as a member of the Wasilla, Alaska, PTA. Obama should put Sarah Palin out of his head. So why can’t he?

It’s simple: She’s sexier than he is.

One of the things that has always seemed to me creepiest about the 2008 presidential campaign has been its erotic - I would even say homoerotic - atmospherics. Sheer celebrity, of course, tends to push things that way, to be sure; but with Obama something else has been going on, something that is often referred to as “narcissism” or “self-absorption” or, more honestly, as “seductiveness.” Though others may take offense, I think it was always more the self-fascination one sees in a young girl posing in front of a mirror. Edwards displayed the syndrome as well, but once he left the race, Obama had the enchantress slot all to himself. McCain? Hillary?? I don’t think so.

Now here is Sarah Palin, who directly threatens the male narcissist’s amour propre because she seems to be reorienting the eroticism in the campaign toward its “traditional” locus in ordinay life: toward the female. Sarah Palin is amazingly erotic. But even more amazing: It’s perhaps the least important thing about her? Like a belle who meets an unforeseen competitor for the title of most alluring, Obama has reacted badly and, let’s be honest, a little bit cattily.

In sum, hell hath no fury . . . ."

My last word on Sarah Palin

Before last night Hillary Clinton was the most likely woman to become President of the U.S.

Last night, with that speech, Sarah Palin became the most likely woman to become President of the U.S.

She's not a lock, mind you, there is a lot of campaign ahead before she can even become vice-president; but you can be sure nobody in the media or among the political types will be taking her for granted or petting her on the head and saying she's just a token woman after her speech last night.

Which puts Hillary in a tough situation. In order to become the Democratic Party nominee in 2012 she needs to make sure Barack Obama loses to John McCain this November. But if Barack Obama loses her toughest rival becomes vice president.

An interesting take on Sarah Palin's speech

At National Review's blog The Corner, Kathryn Jean Lopez compared Sarah Palin to Mary Tyler Moore, of all people. And the comparison is perfect. She quoted the theme song to Mary Tyler Moore's show, which was set in Minneapolis.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzFiNGY3YTUzYWM2NGVmOTA1YmVmZWU4Zjc1YTM5MTE=

"Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it's you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it

Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have a town, why don't you take it
You're gonna make it after all
You're gonna make it after all"

I'd take a bet on very long odds that Joe Biden is a lot less confident today about facing her in their debate. This woman will go into that debate very confident of coming out with his head to display in her office with her dad's bear skin rug and the rack of the last caribou she shot; and she'll be smiling all the while.

There's a new sheriff in town.

Best quote, "Before I became governor, I ran for and became mayor of my home town. A mayor's like a community organizer, only with real responsibility."

About Sarah Palin and "experience"

There has been a lot of commentary about whether Sarah Palin is qualified to be President should she and John McCain be elected, and should something then happen to McCain.

Elizabeth I became Queen of England in 1558 when she was 25 years old. She did fairly well by her country.

From what I’ve seen and read of Sarah Palin so far she’s got as good a prospect as any of the four in the running to do okay if she should suddenly become President at 45 years old. Aside from her experience in government, a woman who has successfully juggled a full time job and five kids ranging in age from one year old to late teen age while staying on good terms with a 20 year husband knows quite a bit about delegation, decisionmaking and practical crisis management.

Very few of our presidents have been anywhere close to “qualified” by experience for the job. The good ones have exhibited good judgement. Some of the worst ones have been the best qualified on paper.


Update - Jonah Goldberg at National Review posted a great letter from a reader on this issue:

"Who would you hire?

To borrow from Ross Perot (not always a good idea), would you hire any of these people as a manager at your company?

Palin you'd offer the job to right away, and then you'd sweat until she accepted it.

McCain would seem like a decent choice, but wouldn't make or break you either way.

You'd wonder how Obama possibly thought he was qualified, and you'd leave him to be hired by some other company where they fall for people who say all the right things.

And you'd be telling stories about Biden's interview, and making jokes about it, for years."

Maybe McCain got the idea of picking Palin from this

Maybe Senator John McCain got the idea of picking Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate from this video. It's pretty funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yh-lW2opLyQ&feature=related

And, it turns out that way back when she competed in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant after being selected as Miss Wasilla. She also won the Miss Congeniality award in Wasilla. Apparently she hasn't always been congenial since then; her Alaska political opponents call her Sarah Barracuda. She can probably go one on one with Barack Obama on a basketball court, she hunts, she fishes and she's married to a part Eskimo who's a union member and a champion snowmobile racer. Oh, one other thing, she returned to work three days after having their fifth kid. The Democrats will be making a big mistake if they underestimate this woman, especially since their presidential candidate isn't a lot more experienced than she is.

This 2006 newspaper article gives her whole history.

http://dwb.adn.com/news/politics/story/8334949p-8231037c.html