Gov. Sarah Palin - We've got a lot of learn'n to do.....
Wow! There's a lot to digest about Gov. Sarah Palin in such a short amount of time. Like many others, I've been stooped in my tracks by the appearance on the scene of Sarah Palin. Who is she, why did John McCain chose her, what does she represent in terms of political philosophy, what's been her record.....the list goes on. It's been somewhat like going to a new country and being escorted to a buffet of totally new-to-you foods; you want to explore all of them, but aren't sure which ones are worth your time. Then, later on realizing that you really should have had a "doggie bag" so that you could have brought what was interesting home, and then picked through it leisurely while trying to figure out what it was, and how they made it.
Here's some bits that I read through today, and thought were stand-outs for one reason or another. It is amazing to me how tolerant we've become as a society in disregarding shoddy reporting and scurrilous opinion writing. There is a legitimate need-to-know by the American people about Gov. Sarah Palin, just as there still is to know about Sen. Barack Obama. In fact, there is a more urgent and more significant need-to-know about Sen. Obama, as he is running for the Presidency. It would be appreciated if the press would be as vigorous in investigating Sen. Obama's ties with Mr. Ayers and the other key mentors in his life, as they have shown in addressing Gov. Palin.
The typical attacks presented by the opposition in response to Gov. Palin's nomination speak volumes about the character of the left in today's United States........
September 4, 2008, 8:41 pm
Here's some bits that I read through today, and thought were stand-outs for one reason or another. It is amazing to me how tolerant we've become as a society in disregarding shoddy reporting and scurrilous opinion writing. There is a legitimate need-to-know by the American people about Gov. Sarah Palin, just as there still is to know about Sen. Barack Obama. In fact, there is a more urgent and more significant need-to-know about Sen. Obama, as he is running for the Presidency. It would be appreciated if the press would be as vigorous in investigating Sen. Obama's ties with Mr. Ayers and the other key mentors in his life, as they have shown in addressing Gov. Palin.
The typical attacks presented by the opposition in response to Gov. Palin's nomination speak volumes about the character of the left in today's United States........
September 4, 2008, 8:41 pm
The Mirrored Ceiling
It turns out there was something more nauseating than the nomination of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate this past week. It was the tone of the acclaim that followed her acceptance speech.
“Drill, baby, drill,” clapped John Dickerson, marveling at Palin’s ability to speak and smile at the same time as an indication of her unexpected depths and unsuspected strengths. “It was clear Palin was having fun, and it’s hard to have fun if you’re scared or a lightweight,” he wrote in Slate.
The Politico praised her charm and polish as antidotes to her lack of foreign policy experience: “Palin’s poised and flawless performance evoked roars of applause from delegates who earlier this week might have worried that the surprise pick and newcomer to the national stage may not be up to the job.”
“She had a great night. I thought she had a very skillfully written, and very skillfully delivered speech,” Joe Biden said, shades of “articulate and bright and clean” threatening a reappearance. (For a full roundup of these comments go here.)
Thus began the official public launch of our country’s now most-prominent female politician. The condescension – damning with faint praise – was reminiscent of the more overt misogyny of Samuel Johnson.
“A woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hinder legs,” the wit once observed. “It is not done well; but you are surprized to find it done at all.”
Palin sounded, at times, like she was speaking a foreign language as she gave voice to the beautifully crafted words that had been prepared for her on Wednesday night.
But that wasn’t held against her. Thanks to the level of general esteem that greeted her ascent to the podium, it seems we’ve all got to celebrate the fact that America’s Hottest Governor (Princess of the Fur Rendezvous 1983, Miss Wasilla 1984) could speak at all.
Could there be a more thoroughgoing humiliation for America’s women?
You are not, I think, supposed now to say this. Just as, I am sure, you are certainly not supposed to feel that having Sarah Palin put forth as the Republicans’ first female vice presidential candidate is just about as respectful a gesture toward women as was John McCain’s suggestion, last month, that his wife participate in a topless beauty contest.
Such thoughts, we are told, are sexist. And elitist. After all, via Palin, we now hear without cease, the People are speaking. The “real” “authentic,” small-town “Everyday People,” of Hockey Moms and Blue Collar Dads whom even Rudolph Giuliani now invokes as an antidote to the cosmopolite Obamas and their backers in the liberal media. (Remind me please, once again, what was the name of the small town where Rudy grew up?)
Why does this woman – who to some of us seems as fake as they can come, with her delicate infant son hauled out night after night under the klieg lights and her pregnant teenage daughter shamelessly instrumentalized for political purposes — deserve, to a unique extent among political women, to rank as so “real”?
Because the Republicans, very clearly, believe that real people are idiots. This disdain for their smarts shows up in the whole way they’ve cast this race now, turning a contest over economic and foreign policy into a culture war of the Real vs. the Elites. It’s a smoke and mirrors game aimed at diverting attention from the fact that the party’s tax policies have helped create an elite that’s more distant from “the people” than ever before. And from the fact that the party’s dogged allegiance to up-by-your-bootstraps individualism — an individualism exemplified by Palin, the frontierswoman who somehow has managed to “balance” five children and her political career with no need for support — is leading to a culture-wide crack-up.
Real people, the kind of people who will like and identify with Palin, they clearly believe, are smart, but not too smart, and don’t talk too well, dropping their “g”s, for example, and putting tough concepts like “vice president” in quotation marks.
“As for that ‘V.P.’ talk all the time … I tell ya, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me, What is it exactly that the ‘VP’ does every day?” Palin asked host Lawrence Kudlow on CNBC sometime before her nomination. “I’m used to bein’ very productive and workin’ real hard in an administration and we want to make sure that that ‘V.P.’ slot would be a fruitful type of position.”
And, I think, they find her acceptably “real,” because Palin’s not intimidating, and makes it clear that she’s subordinate to a great man.
That’s the worst thing a woman can be in this world, isn’t it? Intimidating, which appears to be synonymous with competent. It’s the kiss of death, personally and politically.
But shouldn’t a woman who is prepared to be commander in chief be intimidating? Because of the intelligence, experience, talent and drive that got her there? If she isn’t, at least on some level, off-putting, if her presence inspires national commentary on breast-pumping and babysitting rather than health care reform and social security, then something is seriously wrong. If she doesn’t elicit at least some degree of awe, then something is missing.
One of the worst poisons of the American political climate right now, the thing that time and again in recent years has led us to disaster, is the need people feel for leaders they can “relate” to. This need isn’t limited to women; it brought us after all, two terms of George W. Bush. And it isn’t new; Americans have always needed to feel that their leaders were, on some level, people like them.
But in the past, it was possible to fill that need through empathetic connection. Few Depression-era voters could “relate” to Franklin Roosevelt’s patrician background, notes historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. “It was his ability to connect to them that made them feel they could connect to him,” she told me in a phone interview.
The age of television, Goodwin believes, has made the demand for connection more immediate and intense. But never before George W. Bush did it quite reach the beer-drinking level of familiarity. “Now it’s all about being able to see your life story in the candidate, rather than the candidate, with empathy, being able to relate to you.”
There’s a fine line between likability and demagoguery. Both thrive upon manipulation and least-common-denominator politics. These days, I fear, this need for direct mirroring — and thus this susceptibility to all sorts of low-level tripe — is particularly acute among women, who are perhaps reaching historic lows in their comfort levels with themselves and their choices.
Just look at how quickly the reaction to Palin devolved into what The Times this week called the “Mommy Wars: Special Campaign Edition.” Much of the talk about Palin (like the emoting about Hillary Clinton before her) ultimately came down to this: is she like me or not like me? If she’s not like me, can I like her? And what kind of child care does she have?
“This election is not about issues,” Rick Davis, John McCain’s campaign manager said this week. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” That’s a scary thought. For the takeaway is so often base, a reflection more of people’s fears and insecurities than of our hopes and dreams.
We’re not likely to get a worthy female president anytime soon.
MORE....
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Judith Warner is an American writer.
Warner is the author of a range of nonfiction books, among them You Have the Power: How to Take Back Our Country and Restore Democracy in America (with Howard Dean) and the bestselling biography Hillary Clinton: The Inside Story. A former special correspondent for Newsweek inParis, she reviews books for The Washington Post and has written about politics and women’s issues for magazines including The New Republic and ELLE. She also writes the The New York Times blog "Domestic Disturbances". She lives in Washington, D.C., with her husband and their children.
Her writing was recently parodied in an article by Justin E. H. Smith for 3QuarksDaily.About Judith Warner
Judith Warner's book, "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" (excerpt, NPR interview), a New York Times best-seller, was published in February 2005. "Domestic Disturbances" appears every Friday.
Photo by Jean-Louis Atlan
JOHN PODHORETZ - 09.05.2008 - 1:11 PM
America’s most embarrassing online columnist, whose work appears Fridays on the New York Times website because God has a sense of humor, has outdone herself today with a column on the outrage of the Sarah Palin selection:
Palin sounded, at times, like she was speaking a foreign language as she gave voice to the beautifully crafted words that had been prepared for her on Wednesday night.But that wasn’t held against her. Thanks to the level of general esteem that greeted her ascent to the podium, it seems we’ve all got to celebrate the fact that America’s Hottest Governor (Princess of the Fur Rendezvous 1983, Miss Wasilla 1984) could speak at all.Could there be a more thoroughgoing humiliation for America’s women?…Why does this woman – who to some of us seems as fake as they can come, with her delicate infant son hauled out night after night under the klieg lights and her pregnant teenage daughter shamelessly instrumentalized for political purposes — deserve, to a unique extent among political women, to rank as so “real”?Because the Republicans, very clearly, believe that real people are idiots.
Well, Judith, that depends on whether you qualify as a “real person.” If you do, then you’ve hit the nail on the head. Only it really doesn’t take being a Republican to understand this.
Sally Quinn Recants
JENNIFER RUBIN - 09.05.2008 - 10:07 PMNo one in the mainstream media had been harsher on Sarah Palin than Sally Quinn. In a blistering piece in the Washington Post earlier in the week she wrote, among other things:
Is she prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job? She is the mother of five children, one of them a four-month-old with Down Syndrome. Her first priority has to be her children. When the phone rings at three in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make? I’m the mother of only one child, a special needs child who is grown now. I know how much of my time and energy I devoted to his care. He always had to be my first priority. Of course women can be good mothers and have careers at the same time. I’ve done both. Yes, other women in public office have children. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children, but she didn’t get heavily involved in politics until they were older. A mother’s role is different from a father’s.
But now Quinn has seen Palin with her own eyes and is singing a different tune. On Fox today with Bill O’Reilly, Quinn had this to say:
I thought that she was amazing. in her speech. She was funny and smart and poised and confident. She gave a great speech, beautifully delivered. I think she is going to be a formidable opponent. all of that I think is — I was wrong about her. and I didn’t know anything about her. I probably didn’t know any more than John McCain did a few days before he picked her.
(Well, perhaps McCain knew plenty and chose her on this basis, but that’s a quibble.) O’Reilly went on to ask her if ”your column and other columns like yours rallied the folks to her side and actually helped the McCain-Palin ticket dramatically.” Quinn answered “I think you’re absolutely right.”
Oh my. A couple of thoughts come immediately to mind. First, kudos are in order. How often do mainstream media outlets and their columnists ever say “I blew it”? It is not easy to acknowledge error, let alone a gross and mean-spirited one. Quinn did. (My suggestion is that Palin’s first serious print interview should be with her. ) Second, could others follow? If the MSM beats a hasty retreat in the Palin Inquisition, the Obama camp will have no choice but to directly take her on or ignore Palin-mania and let it the McCain-Palin ticket ride the wave of popularity. Either would mark a sweet vindication for McCain personally and his team more generally.