When I was a boy growing up in south Alabama the passion of my life was quail hunting. (And when I say quail, I mean the classic American bobwhite quail, of course.)
It was, and I suppose still is, a sport characterized by ritual and clearly defined rules for all participants — hunters, dogs, and birds. The dog or dogs find the birds, creep up on them as though walking on egg shells, and then point. The birds can run from the dogs (though they are not allowed to fly away once the dogs had their scent) until the dogs pointed, sometimes only inches away. Then they freeze in place. Sometimes, if the dogs point far away from the hunters, this tableau can stay in place for long periods of time. After the point (sometimes, as I say, well after), the hunter approaches from behind the dogs, walks into the covey of hunkered down birds, at which time the whole covey blasts off the ground with an almost explosive roar of beating wings. If you are a good shot, keep your nerves about you instead of firing blindly at the sound of the covey taking flight, and are lucky enough to have relatively open lines of sight (not usually the case), you can down two birds as they rise and before they get too far away or dodge behind a tree or brush.
But “away” was not usually very far. Bobwhites are more runners than flyers, and the rules called for the covey to spread out in a nearby field (though woods were also allowed) and begin regrouping. The job of the dogs at that point — after first retrieving your two downed birds, of course — was to find these “singles” before they regrouped, point them one or two at a time (same rules as before), allowing the hunter to take a few more birds out of that covey before moving on to find another. Moving on, leaving that covey behind, was required, because it was clearly against the rules to take too many birds out of one covey (the number being dependent on the size of the covey). Not doing so, shooting the covey down too low, was rightly regarded as being as despicable as shooting them on the ground.
These “rules” had evolved over generations, even centuries, and were clearly understood by all communicants in the quail hunting religion. But rules are often broken by those of little faith (as well as by backsliders of even great faith, not to mention visiting Yankees who didn’t know better), and Mother Nature doesn’t always co-operate. Thus, whether for reasons of human or natural malfeasance, there came a time when the Alabama quail population became dangerously low.
In its wisdom the state game and fish department responded to this deepening crisis by fatefully deciding to import a large number of Mexican quail, who were smaller, wirier, tougher, to interbreed with the locals, both to increase their number and, so it was thought, to strengthen the locals, toughen them up, make them better able to adapt and survive.
It worked, sort of, but as with most experiments in social engineering there were some highly unanticipated consequences, most of them flowing from the obvious fact that these recent immigrants simply did not know, and hence did not play by, the rules. Before long not only they but their new hybrid cousins and half-breed descendants almost ruined the sport. Coveys would fly instead of run when the dogs approached. If pointed, they wouldn’t wait for the arrival of the hunter before taking off. Once flushed (or more-often, self-flushed) they would fly into the next county instead of flying a short distance and waiting to be hunted as singles. Or they would actually land in trees instead of on the ground! (Until the arrival of the Mexicans a quail in a tree was, to convert an old feminist line, rather like a fish on a bicycle.)
Well, you can imagine how this lawless, almost anarchistic behavior upset the natural order of things, turning good people bitter and good dogs crazy. One time I actually heard a frustrated old hunter (really; this is not apocryphal), sitting in front of a wood stove in a country store, complain about how “stupid” the Mexican birds were. Worse was the creation of a whole generation of guilt-ridden, neurotic dogs who blamed themselves for the birds’ bad behavior.
I was reminded of these “stupid” Mexican quail, and how they violated all the rules about how quail are supposed to behave, by the frustrated, angry response of our cultural betters to Sarah Palin’s nomination, and especially to her conservative Christian supporters. Listen, for example, to Alan Wolfe (actually an old friend, and an impressive scholar of American religion and politics), writing on a New Republic blog:
It may seem like ages ago but during the Clinton administration, conservative traditionalists were everywhere. The nuclear family is sacrosanct. Women should shun the workforce and become full-time moms. Kids should obey their parents and, if they choose not to, discipline, including harsh measures, ought to be applied. Sex outside of marriage is strictly forbidden. Our culture is spinning wildly out of control, and sexual liberation, the worst byproduct of the God-awful 1960s, is the cause. And, by the way, abortion is murder and should be forbidden.
All that is left, if the Palin controversy is any indication, is abortion. Palin’s defenders, far from being traditionalists, are moral relativists. We should not rush to judgment. It is important to understand the pressures that families face. Love is all you need. Forgive in order to forget. People are entitled to their privacy, even, if not especially, in the bedroom. The state should not be in the business of telling people what to do. It sounds like the language of the left, but it has also had long resonance on the libertarian right. When the McCain campaign said that Bristol Palin had a choice, it was correct. These days we all have choices. The fact that we do has always bothered conservative traditionalists.
Sarah Palin’s nomination is a public service. No longer will we hear lectures from the likes of Newt Gingrich telling poor women on welfare how to conduct their sex lives. Focus on the Family will have to focus on a different kind of family. William Bennett has no virtues left to write about. At long last our national nightmare over sexual hypocrisy has come to an end, and we can all thank John McCain for that.
And that is not all. In rushing to Sarah Palin’s defense, the leaders of the Christian right have made it abundantly clear how they define a Christian. We don’t care if you sin. We are not bothered if you put your ambition ahead of the needs of your children. If you have lied or broken the law, we will look the other way. It all comes down to your stand on guns and fetuses. Vote the right way, and you have our blessing. If any proof were needed that James Dobson is a political operative rather than a spiritual leader, his jumping on the Palin bandwagon offers it.
Those damn Christian conservatives! You just can’t rely on them any more to play their assigned role.
I’m not the only one to notice our cultural elite’s discomfort. Here is William Kristol in the current, or upcoming, Weekly Standard:
By the end of the week, after Palin’s tour de force in St. Paul, the liberal media were so befuddled that they were reduced to complaining that conservatives aren’t being narrow-minded enough. Thus, Hanna Rosin–who has covered religion and politics for the Washington Post, and has also written for the New Yorker, the New Republic, and the New York Times–lamented in a piece for Slate: “So cavalier are conservatives about Sarah Palin’s wreck of a home life that they make the rest of us look stuffy and slow-witted by comparison.” I suppose it was ungenerous of conservatives, in our broad-mindedness and tolerance of human frailty, to have let Ms. Rosin down, just when she was counting on us to bring out the tar and feathers. But she gives us too much credit when she suggests we make the liberal media look stuffy and slow-witted. They do that all by themselves.
And here is the always reliable Michael Barone, observing the same phenomenon:
As I was leaving the convention, a liberal reporter noted something I didn’t notice: that Palin made little reference to abortion and other cultural issues (and, though he didn’t mention it, none to same-sex marriage). Instead, she spoke in coded language. “But we are expected to govern with integrity, good will, clear convictions, and…a servant’s heart.” But she didn’t have to talk about these issues. She’s lived them. She gave birth to a son with Down’s syndrome she could easily have aborted. She has endorsed her 17-year-old daughter’s decision to give birth to a child conceived out of wedlock. She and, on the airport tarmac, John McCain embraced the father of the child. Liberal MSM journalists imagine that evangelical Christians cast out girls who have become pregnant without being married. Factually wrong: They provide counseling and support to them. And, as Sarah and Todd Palin’s statement shows, tell them that they will have to grow up and take on responsibilities sooner than they expected. The convention is cool with that. MSM has been trying to spin it as intolerance. They don’t understand. But the viewing public sees religious conservatives with a happy face.
Religious conservatives with a happy face? How can that be? Don’t they know they’re supposed to be the ones who are scowling, dour, vindictive, (“judgmental,” as the elite would put it), and mean-spirited? Instead, it’s the MSM journalists and other cultural arbiters who are the one sputtering and spewing vitriol.
I almost (but not quite) feel sorry for them. For as soon as they finally come to grips with the fact that not all conservatives, Christian or otherwise, are busybodies gleefully rounding up sinners to throw in a fiery pit they will have to confront the even more disturbing and unsettling fact that many whites are going to vote against a black candidate for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with his race.
That might push them right over the edge. But whether it does or not, and even whether McCain wins or not, we conservatives already owe a large debt to Sarah Palin, our very own Mexican quail.
John I actually think you’re on to something. For example, take this person’s reaction:
>>>”I’m stunned – couldn’t the Republican Party find one competent female with adult children to run for Vice President with McCain? I realize his advisors probably didn’t want a “mature” woman, as the Democrats keep harping on his age. But really, what kind of role model is a woman whose fifth child was recently born with a serious issue, Down Syndrome, and then goes back to the job of Governor within days of the birth?
I am haunted by the family pictures of the Palins during political photo-ops, showing the eldest daughter, now pregnant with her own child, cuddling the family’s newborn. When Mom and Dad both work full-time (no matter how many folks get involved with the children), it becomes a somewhat chaotic situation. Certainly, if a child becomes ill and is rushed to the hospital, and you’re on the hotline with both Israel and Iran as nuclear tempers are flaring, where’s your attention going to be? Where should your attention be? Well, once you put your hand on the Bible and make that oath, your attention has to be with the government of the United States of America.”
http://www.drlaurablog.com/2008/09/02/sarah-palin-and-motherhood/
Now, of course Dr. Laura, a self-proclaimed “religious conservative”, prefaces all of this by saying she will still vote for Sen. McCain, but I find it a very interesting slant on this subject.
What I find much MORE interesting however, is Governor Palin’s policy positions:
>>>”Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee who revealed Monday that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant, earlier this year used her line-item veto to slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live.
After the legislature passed a spending bill in April, Palin went through the measure reducing and eliminating funds for programs she opposed. Inking her initials on the legislation — “SP” — Palin reduced funding for Covenant House Alaska by more than 20 percent, cutting funds from $5 million to $3.9 million. Covenant House is a mix of programs and shelters for troubled youths, including Passage House, which is a transitional home for teenage mothers.
According to Passage House’s web site, its purpose is to provide “young mothers a place to live with their babies for up to eighteen months while they gain the necessary skills and resources to change their lives” and help teen moms “become productive, successful, independent adults who create and provide a stable environment for themselves and their families.”
Palin’s own daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant and has plans to wed.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/02/palin_slashed_funding_to_help.html
John writes:
>>>”But whether it does or not, and even whether McCain wins or not, we conservatives already owe a large debt to Sarah Palin, our very own Mexican quail.”
We liberals already owe a large debt to Sarah Palin as well. Before, she came, we had to do our best to try to merge John McCain with Bush, because McCain isn’t viewed as an ideologue or a prototype for the conservative movement, even though he votes like one.
Sarah Palin, on the other hand is the exact kind of Roe-overturning, book-banning, “gay-converting”, fundamentalist, “God’s-plan-is-for-us-to-bomb-people”, “do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do”, “Footloose-town-elder”-style EXTREMIST that will fire up the Liberal base in this country to unheard of proportions…especially among feminists.
I can’t wait for Biden/Palin debate on PBS October 2nd, moderated by Gwen Ifill. They’ll be no more hiding her true ideology.
That’ll be a popcorn muncher f’sure!
–Cobra
What point are you trying to make, Cobra? Why would you, a self-professed liberal, quote the comment made by Dr. Laura of all people? It can’t be that you agree with her social philosophy. Have you given up on Feminism and believe that women with young children should not be in the workplace? Do you think that Michelle Obama should not be working? After all the Obama’s have two young girls.
What does the fact that she has a daughter who is pregnant have to do with “cutting funds” for a place for teen mother’s to live. Was she planning to send her daughter there and now she can’t because she cut their funds? Now that would be ironic. However, she wasn’t planning to do so and that wasn’t your point. What you and the Washington post are trying to say is that she is a mean person because these poor teens will not have a place to live. However, there is only one little problem with that story. It is a lie. No, she didn’t cut funding for unwed mothers; yes, she did increase it by “only” 354 percent instead of 454 percent, as part of a multi-year capital expenditures program.
Covenant House Alaska is a multi-service agency serving homeless and runaway youth, including teen mothers. The majority of the agency’s annual operating budget is privately raised, with no more than 10 to 15 percent of funds coming from state grants in any given year. We are grateful for the support we have received from Governor Sarah Palin, the Alaska legislature and our Congressional delegation over the years.
Despite some press reports to the contrary, our operating budget was not reduced. Our $3.9 million appropriation is directed toward a multi-year capital project and it is our understanding that the state simply opted to phase in its support for this project over several years, rather than all at once in the current budget year.
http://tinyurl.com/5z33an
It seems to me that socialists and communists have had this routine for at least 20 years of lecturing conservatives that the latter aren’t being properly conservative, and that liberals know what conservatives are supposed to do.
The NY Times has often used this sophism, in trying to rationalize its opposition to conservatives and Republicans rolling back any program or Supreme Court decision promoting the socialist/communist agenda. According to the Times, e.g., a true conservative may not repeal any laws enacted by socialists/communists/whatever, because the conservative way is to accept any sort of madness the Left has heretofore gotten away with. (Come to think of it, that’s the way the National Review crowd has operated for the past 30 or so years).
Your friend Alan Wolfe is playing a similar game. The difference between Wolfe and the Times is that the latter plays the same game all year, every year, but Wolfe doesn’t. He sometimes has his head on straight, but that goes by the boards in presidential election years. During the 2004 campaign he signed off on an article that claimed that the neocons were followers of the fascist German political thinker, Carl Schmitt. All that Wolfe did was show people like yours truly, who had studied Schmitt, that he hadn’t.
http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i30/30b01601.htm
After reading your elegant essay, I came across an incoherent comment. Once I saw that it was by “Cobra,” however, I was relieved. If Cobra started making sense to me, I’d have to get a check-up.
I see that the DNC has gotten tremendous mileage out of the talking points memo that went into that fraudulent WaPo article.
http://24ahead.com/blog/archives/007980.html
Am I mistaken, or did Sara Palin announce that her daughter is pregnant out of wedlock, because the DNC’s opposition researchers in the MSM had discovered it? In any event, when did it become cricket to make nasty comments about a candidate’s relationship to her children? Only when the candidate is a Republican?
Speaking of cricket, it makes perfect sense to waste so much research, air-time, and ink on Sara Palin’s pregnant, unmarried daughter. I mean, faced with the alternative of reporting on the most corrupt mayor in America, who was then desperately fighting to hold on to his job and avoid jail time, and whose thuggish, most loyal supporter created a disturbance in her Denver hotel during the Democratic convention, or on the pregnancy of the GOP VP candidate’s daughter, you of course report on the pregnant girl. Forget the millions of tax dollars that had disappeared in Detroit, and the dead hooker. After all, no one’s interested in tales of sex, embezzlement, cover-ups and murder, right?
Cobra – You may not care about this, since it is not only a fact but a fact that does not fit your prejudices, but Sarah Palin did not “slash funding for a state program benefiting teen mothers in need of a place to live” — unless what you mean by “slash” is reduce the proposed budget increase from 454% to 354%.
See this authoritative list of Palin rumors, numbers 37 and 38, as well as the Vick Verdane comment (Sept. 6, 7:50 AM) to the sloppy and incorrect Washington Post article you cite. Covenant House’s grant income from the state of Alaska increased from $1.2 million in 2006 to $3.9 million in 2008.
Some slash.
Cobra, you favor Obama for one reason, and one reason only: he’s black. Actually, he’s half white, but you believe ardently in the one drop rule.
I saw Obama on O’Reilly, and I liked the Senator. Of course, he’s back pedalling like crazy from his radical leftist past. He’s abandoned his rigid antiwar policy, and I can no longer tell the difference between his foreign policy and George Bush’s.
Apparently, few agree with your belief that Palin’s nomination hurts McCain. I was pretty skeptical of McCain, particularly his immigration stance. Palin is a great addition to the ticket. Nothing scary about her.
Sen. Obama is tacking hard to the center, abandoning the radicalism and Mau-Mauing that you still cling to. The reason: he wants to get elected. This is a good thing. The most favorable thing I can say about an Obama victory is that it will probably cause most blacks to abandon the wild demagoguery you exemplify. If you own the presidency, why threaten to burn down your own cities?
Obama wants to get elected. You aren’t helping, Cobra, by clinging to the 60s radicalism and wild Mau-Mauing. That’s the last thing the senator wants to be associated with, now that he’s got the nomination. So, if you want to help your candidate, I’d suggest that you go into hiding until after the election.
Your belief that politics offers salvation is nonsense. We’ll survive and prosper no matter who wins the election.
I’m intrigued by the idea of the VP of the United States having to take a sick kid to the emergency room at midnight. Don’t you think such a person could get a house call? Would Obama not be distracted if Michelle had to take one of their girls to the ER at midnight? since we’re assuming that mommies have to do that all by themselves, apparently.
On the other hand, I raised my daughter to age 21 without ever having to take her to the ER once, or at midnight anywhere. What did I do wrong?
“Sarah Palin, on the other hand is the exact kind of Roe-overturning, book-banning, “gay-converting”, fundamentalist, “God’s-plan-is-for-us-to-bomb-people”, “do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do”, “Footloose-town-elder”-style EXTREMIST that will fire up the Liberal base in this country to unheard of proportions…especially among feminists.”
Hysterical. Great stuff as usual. Thanks for reminding us of the great strides Gauleiter Palin has made in Alaska. As we all know abortion is illegal, you can’t read anything by not approved by the state government and dancing is punishable by the stocks/30 lashes…
both sides are being somewhat dishonest. if chelsea got pregnant or if obama had a teenage daughter who was pregnant, conservatives would say it showed the moral laxness of liberals. on the other hand if palin was a liberal, liberals would be hailing her as a wonderful example of how to combine motherhood and career. it is funny as cobra has said that conservatives are now hailing unwed motherhood.
I hope palin’s daughter does get married. a shotgun wedding is better than none and I am sure many such marriages have been happy or as happy as non shotgun weddings. unwed motherhood is bad for the entire culture. there is a big difference between cultures where people marry and a man knows a child is his and is expected to own it and father it and societies where marriage is not so common and children don’t automatically have fathers. The latter kind of society do not produce prosperous liberal democracies.
there is one way to discourage girls from getting pregnant, apart from locking them up and honor killings, make it socially disgraceful. But those days are long gone in the US, so what could Palin do. Frown and disapprove and risk her own daughter hating her? Throw her out of the house and sent her to live with distant relatives or in a home? We don’t do that anymore. I am looking at this realistically and asking myself if I had a girl and she did that what would I do? I am assuming of course that Palin told her daughter not to get pregnant, but her daughter did not listen, because sometimes they don’t. I look at my own community where 70% or more are born out of wedlock. I have no solutions.
I’m not sure how the “slashing”, however erroneously asserted, is relevant. Liberals may take it for granted that government should spend money on every perceived ill, and that more spending is better.
I see no analysis that the higher amount was necessary. Nor any regarding the tradeoffs between other spending or the economic impact of the taxing methodology. Just the assumption that more government spending is better than less. This is horrible government policy and thankfully why liberals lose elections.
Cobra – I don’t again understand any number of your rather elliptical points.
The blunt truth is that Obama will likely lose. And while in my view that will be caused by the fact that he simply too far to the left to be elected, the reality is that the Palin nomination may have an equal amount to do with it.
And her appeal touches on none of the issues you relate (some of which I am of the same mind as you are). To people not wedded to the concept that Government can or should fix every identified problem, she is simply a breath of fresh air. She got into politics to play a part in her community, and rode it all the way to the Governor’s office, becoming a whistleblower to boot, a position that for most guarantees isolation and misery as opposed to success. She is not a career politician, is not a nuancy Ivy League educated wonk, and pays at least some attention to the idea that taxpayers’ money is indeed just that – their money. People also distrust and like many quarters of the media for reasons beyond its bias or slant. They are constantly spinning, being nuancy and dodgy – skills their culture and schools have taught them. It doesn’t work with Palin, and people really like it. And it doesn’t work with women these days – they will react negatively if the perception is Palin is being picked on – a tough thing for Obama because while I do not think he is a misogynist, many members of his campaign staff are (as will be evidenced by Hilary’s lukewarm or non-support in the next two months). I have not seen anyone like her in politics in my forty years of watching them – she is unique, despite having any number of flaws and weaknesses. So I am not sure you are being honest when you relate that liberals love the Sarah Palin nomination – they are in fact scared to death of it – and I don’t blame them. There is no political playbook to run against a true outsider who is every bit the tough working class person liberals profess to protect. I really am not a fan of McCain – but am so impressed by his willingness to take risk and roll the dice with his VP pick.
“if chelsea got pregnant or if obama had a teenage daughter who was pregnant, conservatives would say it showed the moral laxness of liberals.”
Anita, you’re right. It’s why I try never to assume that my side is the good guys, and that anything the other side gets less than ideal is a result of them being WRONG about stuff. That blows up in a person’s face real fast. But you’re right, if Obama had a pregnant unwed teen daughter that would be one more example of how black people just don’t have morals, tsk tsk.
When I gave my kid the birds-and-the-bees talk at about age 12 I told her that I hoped she’d wait until marriage, and why, but I also said that if she didn’t, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. I said that b/c my kid sets sky-high standards for herself, and has a very tender conscience, and if she slipped up I didn’t want her to hate herself or feel like a failure or be afraid to tell me. I suspect Bristol got pretty much the same message because she’s old enough to have slipped away for an abortion without parental consent if she’d felt she had to.
My oh my. It looks like I touched a nerve here, doesn’t it?
Let me…preface my response this way, and address the two commentors I respect the most on this blog, Laura and Willow.
Let’s step back for a second, take off any partisan hats we all might be wearing, look at the Sarah Palin selection, and remember what BLOG we’re discussing this on.
I want you both, as well as other regular readers of Discriminations to be honest and answer this question:
Given the educational background (5 colleges in 6 years–bachelor’s degree in journalism), professional background, (local TV sports anchor, beauty pagent participant) political experience (won the Mayor’s race of Wasilla, AK with 606 votes–won the Governor’s race with 114,000 votes, in 2006), and virtual anonymity on the national scene, could you seriously see a WHITE MALE with those SAME credentials being selected to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency?
…
Of course you can’t, though I’m sure just for giggles some of you will attempt to make the argument.
On a blog, where for YEARS, John Rosenberg has stridently, vociferously championed not only the philosophy, but BALLOT PROPOSALS to end programs that:
“give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes.”
Well, “my friends”–IMHO:
Sarah Palin is perhaps the greatest single example of Affirmative Action the world has ever seen.
Hey, y’all KNOW I’m a liberal. I’m pretty up front about that. I couldn’t fool you if I tried.
But even Republicans admit why the VP choice was made:
>>>”America’s waited too long for a woman to be on the GOP ticket and too long for all Americans to have a woman vice president,” said County Legislator Mike Sigler, R-Lansing, who is also the Tompkins County Republican Party chairman.”
…”Bob Romanowski, former member of Ithaca Common Council and Town Board, said he was glad to see a woman on the Republican ticket and that her conservative credentials make McCain look like a better prospect.”
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080901/NEWS01/809010322/1002/NEWS17
Now, yes, as I mentioned upthread, she is a right winged, Christian Evangelical, but that ALONE wasn’t the closing deal, because McCain could’ve had Gov.Pawlenty, or even Gov.Huckabee, a Southern Baptist Minister to fill that role.
Oh no.
Governor Palin was chosen because she has ovaries, and in the McCain campaign’s final estimation, that was the NUMBER 1 Requirement.
I’ve had Anti-Affirmative Action types scolding me for YEARS on this blog, braying in righteous indignation about those “less qualified” being undeservedly awarded prestigious positions.
Sarah Palin is simply another glaring example of Cobra Argument #2–
Selective Outrage.
Willowglen writes:
>>>”The blunt truth is that Obama will likely lose. And while in my view that will be caused by the fact that he simply too far to the left to be elected, the reality is that the Palin nomination may have an equal amount to do with it.”
If Obama is “far too left”, what the heck is Sarah Palin? A Moderate? LOL. Do you agree with her stances, Willow? Teaching Creationism in schools? Banning abortion even after rape or incest?
The Iraq War is “God’s Plan?”
Admit the truth, Willow. Anybody with a (D) following their name is “too far left” for talk radio, Fox News and the right winged blogosphere. If you ask the average person on the street what “liberal” actually means, they’d be hard pressed to tell you.
Willowglen writes:
>>>”So I am not sure you are being honest when you relate that liberals love the Sarah Palin nomination – they are in fact scared to death of it – and I don’t blame them.”
No, you don’t understand what I’m saying. Of course Liberals love the Palin choice. Most liberals I know, and believe me…I run in some circles that would even stun Stephen…are all fired up about Palin, and will wail on about it for hours on end, in ways a Romney or Ridge pick never could evoke. The only pick kind of as outrageous in the minds of most of my peers would’ve been Lieberman, but at least we had a heads up on that.
We liberals just don’t fight dirty enough to win most of these national contests, Willow. That’s our problem. We worry about how we come across, or who we might offend. We never go the full Karl Rove.
We on the left wouldn’t tolerate nominating an intellectual lightweight. The right, on the other hand takes pride in offering sound-bite, drive-by bumper-sticker campaigns, even if their candidate is every bit as Ivy Leauge educated. ( ie. Yale/Harvard MBA Bush was transformed into a swaggering, brush clearing cowboy for public consumption).
We on the left try to intellegently debate about issues. Think of those numerous, Clinton-Obama debates where the intricasies of National Healtcare were discussed to exhaustion, and then compare it to this:
>>>”Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain’s presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.
“This election is not about issues,” said Davis. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/mccain_manager_this_election_i.html
–Cobra
“And while in my view that will be caused by the fact that [Obama is] simply too far to the left to be elected, the reality is that the Palin nomination may have an equal amount to do with it.”
I agree with this although the effect is indirect. Very few people vote based on the VP pick. It tends to reinforce leaners who would eventually pick the same side. In this case though the VP selection has highlighted the worst tendencies of the left in a very public forum.
The attacks on Palin show that anyone challenging leftist dogma will inevitable be called an extremist. This understanding both undermines similar charges made of McCain and illustrates just how far left Obama and his supporters are. How far left do you have to be before anything non-leftist is “extremist”? Too far for independent voters.
Let me…preface my response this way, and address the two commentors I respect the most on this blog, Laura and Willow.
Oh that hurts Cobra. Where’s the love ? :)
could you seriously see a WHITE MALE with those SAME credentials being selected to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency
How about a Black male with no executive experience and less government experience (but more educational achievement) being the President? That’s closer than a heartbeat.
Sarah Palin is perhaps the greatest single example of Affirmative Action the world has ever seen.
Really? I would think you of all people would understand the meaning of affirmative action.
She was elected Governor by opposing the Republican Party bosses. That is just the opposite of affirmative action. The reason she was put on the national ticket was to balance McCain’s weaknesses in the same way that Biden was put on the Democrat ticket to balance Omaba’s weaknesses. If you want to call it crass political expediency fine, but it has nothing to do with affirmative action.
We liberals just don’t fight dirty enough to win most of these national contests, Willow. That’s our problem. We worry about how we come across, or who we might offend. We never go the full Karl Rove.
You’ve got to be kidding Cobra. Democrats are too nice? Explain that to Judge Bork and to Clarence Thomas. Thanks to the nice Democrats the term Borking (To defeat a judicial nomination through a concerted attack on the nominee’s character, background and philosophy) is now in the dictionary.
.We on the left wouldn’t tolerate nominating an intellectual lightweight.
Ahem … Al Gore, John Kerry.
Yale/Harvard MBA Bush was transformed into a swaggering, brush clearing cowboy for public consumption
So his Crawford ranch is just a Potemkin village?
We on the left try to intellegently debate about issues.
Is the Left’s chant of BushHilter what you call an intelligent debate?
Please Cobra, keep making these types of posts. I can always use a good laugh.
Cobra – your perceptions are tremendously skewed. This is the problem of seeing every issue through the lens of race and gender and victim’s rights – it is just so harmful to the public discourse. There is no greater antithesis of affirmative action than Sarah Palin. She took on an incredibly corrupt culture – one not just mired in Alaskan political culture but really mired in her own party! And she mostly took on – since race so often matters to you – connected and wealthy white men. And she rode it all the way to the Governor’s house the old fashioned way – by winning votes! And voters didn’t vote for her because she was a woman – they did so because she was a doer rather than a nuancy gummed up politician. Look, I have my issues with Palin (particularly social ones), but her story is a highly interesting one – and it has nothing to do with affirmative action. She damn well earns her moniker Sarah Barracuda – and in fact that may cause her a lot of problems – but she is where she is because she earned it.
And by the way, I think you are off track if you think the reason that Dems don’t win national elections is that they don’t fight dirty enough. Politics is a dirty business – always has been. There’s no prescription for winning these intensely competitive, expensive contests – but surely the best way to is stay on message and be disciplined – something that in particular the Democratic primaries – focused as they are on generating excitement and enthusiasm, probably does them no favors. And besides, the not dirty enough stuff doesn’t make any sense – if Dems can be beat that easily by just going negative, what does that say about the vibrancy of their platforms? There’s only so much you can run down the other party before it reflects back – poorly in fact.
Cobra, I’m too lazy to look up what I said about Obama when John quoted Ferraro about his only being the front-runner because he’s black, so I’ll paraphrase it.
I said that it wasn’t fair for her to say that because he is black, for good and ill. It’s not like he decided to be black when he started to run for President. Was he supposed to step aside and not run because, as a black man, he might have an advantage?
I actually see some things I like in Palin. But also, I was kind of wishing that McCain would be thinking about somebody to bring along in the party to line up for running for President later because I’m tired of everybody. We know too much about everybody. And lo and behold, he did pick a fresh face. I’m thrilled. She’s pro-life; I’m doubly thrilled. I think she’s a great role model for women on my side of the aisle who are in danger of buying into that old crap about mothers not being supposed to do anything out of the home when their kids are little. It’ll be easier for them to cast that off, with Palin being a Republican, conservative, pro-life, Bible-believing Christian, and a dynamic achiever even as she is a mother to small children.
Would she have been picked if she hadn’t been a woman? I don’t know. You don’t either.
Richard writes:
>>>”How about a Black male with no executive experience and less government experience (but more educational achievement) being the President? That’s closer than a heartbeat.”
There’s a difference between EARNING something, and having it HANDED to you. Think what you wish about Sen. Obama, but he WON over 18 million votes in an historic Presidential primary race.
That’s the system we have in America, Richard.
Richard writes:
>>>”The reason she was put on the national ticket was to balance McCain’s weaknesses in the same way that Biden was put on the Democrat ticket to balance Omaba’s weaknesses. If you want to call it crass political expediency fine, but it has nothing to do with affirmative action.”
Oh, c’mon Richard. John McCain is self-admittedly weak on economics. How does Sarah Palin shore that up?
Conservative credentials? Why not Fred Thompson or Rob Portman?
No No No…this is McCain the Magician, using a Parlin-Parlor trick–distracting America by holding up a FEMALE VP candidate on one hand, while pushing forward the SAME Bush/Cheney policies with the other. The only REAL “change” about this Republican ticket vs. the one from 2004 is that at least–as far as I know–ONE of the candidates breast feeds.
By the way, Richard…I DO respect you. In fact, I respect you a helluva lot more than this Palin woman the GOP’s trying to hornswoggle America with.
Richard writes on “intellectual lightweights”:
>>>”Ahem … Al Gore, John Kerry.”
You don’t want to back down this alleyway, Rich:
Al Gore:
>>>”Former Vice President Al Gore is cofounder and Chairman of Generation Investment Management, a firm that is focused on a new approach to Sustainable Investing.
Gore is also cofounder and Chairman of Current TV, an independently owned cable and satellite television network for young people based on viewer-created content and citizen journalism. A member of the Board of Directors of Apple Computer, Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Google, Inc. Gore is also Visiting Professor at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Mr. Gore is the author of An Inconvenient Truth, a best-selling book on the threat of and solutions to global warming, and the subject of the movie of the same title, which has already become one of the top documentary films in history. In 2007, An Inconvenient Truth was awarded two Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature and Best Original Song.
Since his earliest days in the U. S. Congress 30 years ago, Al Gore has been the leading advocate for confronting the threat of global warming. His pioneering efforts were outlined in his best-selling book Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit (1992). He led the Clinton-Gore Administration’s efforts to protect the environment in a way that also strengthens the economy.
Al Gore was born on March 31, 1948, the son of former U.S. Senator Albert Gore, Sr. and Pauline Gore. Raised in Carthage, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C., he received a degree in government with honors from Harvard University in 1969. After graduation, he volunteered for enlistment in the U.S. Army and served in the Vietnam War. Upon returning from Vietnam, Al Gore became an investigative reporter with the Tennessean in Nashville, where he also attended Vanderbilt University’s Divinity School and then Law School.”
http://www.algore.com/about.html
John Kerry:
>>>”John Kerry is a United States senator from Massachusetts and was the Democratic candidate for president in 2004. Kerry graduated from Yale University in 1966 and joined the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War. He won the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Kerry returned to the U.S. as an outspoken opponent of the war, earning national attention for his testimony before the U.S. Senate in 1971. He attended Boston College Law School and worked as a prosecuting attorney in Middlesex County, Massachusetts before jumping into politics.”
http://www.answers.com/topic/john-kerry
Say Rich, do you want me to put up the Clintons next?
Willowglen writes:
>>>”Cobra – your perceptions are tremendously skewed. This is the problem of seeing every issue through the lens of race and gender and victim’s rights – it is just so harmful to the public discourse. There is no greater antithesis of affirmative action than Sarah Palin.”
You know something? That dog might hunt on your average right winged talk radio program.
It won’t hunt HERE with me. I want you to back up your statement, and tell me why she’s more qualified than any other candidate John McCain had to choose from.
She received PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT because of gender, and on Discriminations, that’s an attrocity.
Willowglen writes:
>>>”She took on an incredibly corrupt culture – one not just mired in Alaskan political culture but really mired in her own party! And she mostly took on – since race so often matters to you – connected and wealthy white men.”
Willow, the term “connected and wealthy white men” is practically a redundancy in regards to American politics, but…Sarah Palin was PART of that Alaskan political culture you decry:
>>>”As she introduced herself to the nation Friday as the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin touted her record as a reformer who worked to end the “abuses of earmark spending in Congress.”
But earmarks have never been a dirty word in Alaska, a huge state dotted with small communities that have enormous dollar needs for sewers, roads and other projects.
Instead, earmarks — pet projects that members of Congress fund but that no federal agency has requested — have become a mainstay of political life here, and one that Palin embraced from early on in her career as a mayor of Wasilla to the governor’s mansion in Juneau.
Just this year, she sent to Sen. Ted. Stevens, R-Alaska, a proposal for 31 earmarks totaling $197 million — more, per person, than any other state.
Her presidential running mate, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., does not sponsor earmarks, calling the practice of doling out favors, often with scant oversight, “disgraceful.”
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008154532_webpalin02m.html
I’m holding off on the various scandals Palin has been involved or alleged to have been involved in because that list is growing by the moment. The legislative record alone is clear enough to show that she is every bit as much a player as the rest of them.
Willow writes:
>>>”And besides, the not dirty enough stuff doesn’t make any sense – if Dems can be beat that easily by just going negative, what does that say about the vibrancy of their platforms? There’s only so much you can run down the other party before it reflects back – poorly in fact. ”
Bush vs. McCain, 2000 South Carolina Primary. Care to justify what happened there?
–Cobra