I might as well throw my thoughts into blog vortex along with the rest of you.
What I don't fully understand is the near 80% dedication of emotion toward Sarah Palin. On one side, there are those who just love her to death, and want her to be president or something.
On the other, are those who just love to want her dead.
Not much middle ground between the two.
Thing is, not many know who she really is, policy wise.
Is she more like a John McCain, willing to talk one way while running to the other side, eagerly selling himself to make new friends while stabbing his party in the back? If so, the left should love a Republican like that.
Or, will she be more of a Reagan, drawing the middle toward the right through force of personality and convictional courage? If so, the left should fear her, but at least then they would have a logic behind it.
It's hard to say, as she's shown a measure of both. I discount most of what she's said during the VP run since her job was to sell somebody else's candidacy. And her work in Alaska doesn't prove much.
Personally, I like the babe, and for reasons that have nothing at all to do with what I think she would or wouldn't do policy wise. And to be honest, I have little idea what these things even are.
What I'm witnessing among the right is a type of ideological transference: Where one assumes somebody holds certain views like their own because they are so enamored with the personality that they fill in the blanks with their own laundry list of policy positions. Especially among men, who are congenitally attracted to pretty ovulaters with large tits.
Thing is, this doesn't work. Ask the GOP Right, who thought they were getting someone more akin to Reagan in W, when all evidence pointed to the fact that they were not.
Or the Democrat Left, who thought they were getting Jesus in O, and are waiting for the rivers to flow with wine (just as soon as he finishes saving the planet.)
What I'm seeing from the Left is an unexplainable visceral hatred. There is no reason to hate this woman, and her family, on such a personal level. So much so, that her downs syndrome child is considered fair game. What the fuck is wrong with you people?
Even among the women of the northeast establishment in her own party, she is hated.
And I'm not buying that it's because that she's not educated enough, or she's not of Harvard or Yale, not sophisticated...yadda,yadda,bullshit.
No. None of that is it.
These cotillion bitches hate her for the same reason women have always hated other women: Jealousy.
Women hate competition. And more to the point, they hate the bitch they can't compete with.
She's better than them. She has a solid marriage to a handsome man, a large family, a fulfilling life, and, deep into her forties, she's still the chick all the men in the room would rather be with.
And, they can't be her 'friend', because plainly, she doesn't need them. Her life is different. Foreign to them, actually.
While they're sitting at the opera wearing their fancy dress, Sarah's shooting caribou or harvesting salmon. She's such the barbarian. The cotillion girls could never dream of living that life.
They were taught to go to the right schools, behave a certain way, do the ladylike things, hang with the cool kids and speak the right dialect so they can marry a man of status and have a happy life.
Sarah didn't do things that way. Yet, her life seems happy, fulfilling. It's not supposed to be that way. Sarah was supposed to want to be like them. And she doesn't.
She has no right to be happy, to attract the adoring crowds while wearing a skirt. She's just so common. So not good enough.
But still... who would the men rather be with?
26 comments:
I think that pols who inspire irrational adoration from their side generally tend to inspire irrational hatred from the other. The comparison to Obama is apt. I would say the same is true for W, Clinton (both of them), and Reagan as well.
By contrast, you don't see the same passions raised by Bush I, Carter, or John Kerry.
Gino...oh, there are so many things to say. I will not be able to put it all into a comment.
- Plenty of men - yes, even straight men! - hate Sarah Palin.
- Women do not hate Sarah Palin (on the whole; I can't account for all the of the crazy people in this country) because they're jealous of her. Believe me, my own feeling toward her is much more nuanced than some immature high school bullshit, and aside from that - she's in her FORTIES.
- Her handsome husband is - by all accounts - a total douchebag.
- And I think most people, including women, admire a woman who can do outdoorsy things. BELIEVE ME - that ain't it. What you refer to as the cotillion sect - if it exists - is a very, very small number of people.
Although you have very neatly explained that you only like her for her physical attributes. And hunting skills I guess. But this isn't a very safe way to choose a leader for our country, in my opinion.
She'd be great if only she wasn't such an airhead.
Interesting take, Gino. There's no doubt in my mind that she's been shat upon in some simply unbelievable ways -- the Peggy Noonan piece that ran in last week's WSJ was darned near psychotic -- but I worry that there's a cult of personality developing around la Palin. It's the same thing I feel about some Obama supporters.
I'd feel a lot better about Palin if I sensed that she was willing to call b.s. on some of her more, ahem, ardent supporters.
amanda: i'm not choosing her for a leader, but a pinup. i'm being honest here. (and i didnt vote last time, so i'm not even guilty by association)
but flowery speeches devoid of fact and logic is no way to choose a leader,either.
RW: i think she's pretty damned smart. but what passes for smart in our political realm is usually pretty rediculous.
brian: carter was a prime personality for a cult following. dont know why it didnt materialize. maybe RW knows the era better than i?
mark: on a smaller level, there was cult around W as well, mostly among the flag waving,'jesus first' crowd.
Palin was/is the real life version of that TV show Commander in Chief: this is how we find out all the idiotic, backwards ways people still knee-jerk react to the idea of a personally powerful woman in an actual place of power. (Mostly I discovered that the TV show didn't bring nearly as many of the uglies to light as I'd thought ;). SIGH. )
I agree with your suspicions about women 'who did everything they were supposed to'--hating Palin is only a logical outcome of that, she represents nearly everything women are 'supposed' to disapprove of (not by the overt but by the subvert teachings of America). (Yes, I just adjective'd a verb, sorry.)
Did that movie The Women ever come out? I think it was due out this year. It was a remake of a 1930(s?) play that has a checkered past in the tomes of feminist literary critique because an awful lot of women really are as awful and backbiting as the play portrays--so it is sometimes hailed as a painfully honest reflection of women, and sometimes denigrated as a horrifying image of women that should never be published nor read, much less produced. I read it. It was horrifying--but certainly I could see the truth in it.
I liked Palin because she blew open the already thin and tattered public walls of 'what it is to be a feminist.' Long overdue.
Not sure I'd want her in the White House. But given the slim pickins of late, well, who knows. I seriously considered the McCain/Palin ticket. I voted Pacific Green--which not only is a party I often agree with (remembering that no party actually has a socially sustainable platform), but they had the added bonus of covering all the socially hip categories because their candidate was a black woman. Does that make me even cooler than the Obama voters and the Palin voters ;)? huh? huh? because you know my life is ALLL about how hip I am ;).
(It is also especially hip to use emoticons. All the time, incessantly. lu ;). )
Anyhow, all the fuss and bother is just stupid fluff if folks don't learn to shut up and think a bit instead of just reacting. Trouble is, a reacting person isn't usually amenable to being told they are making themselves look the idiot ...
kr nearly agrees with my critique/observation of women.
what am i doing wrong?
Actually, if you go by her financial statements, she was clearly the smartest person on either ticket. Lowest income, but incredible savings. Clearly a better choice to be working with a large budget than, say, two guys who can only save a dime when they get windfall income.
If you want to talk about airheads, let's talk about the guy who can't deliver a speech without a teleprompter, and a guy who is hardly allowed to make a speech even with one due to his constant gaffes.
gino I don't know about smart as intelligence, but she's certainly smart as is wiley. If we're comparing the relative vacuousness of political candidates available to us in the last election she's at the top of the pyramid.
Whenever she roasted herself on her own spit it wasn't that she was an idiot, it was the media's fault. If her fellow politicians in Alaska from either party couldn't work with her it was the media's fault. Serious questions about real issues involving to foreign policy degenerate into seeing Russia from her house - the media trapped her.
If the Republicans wanted a serious woman candidate for VP with real cred instead of just being a passing gimmick, why didn't McCain tap kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas instead of a trick pony who is now going to milk this shit for everything it's worth.
I recognize that the GOP has become the party of specious phonies, trickbags, knee-jerk Reagan sycophants and hypocrites - because they haven't been able to come up with anything better than a cynical gimmick like Palin and ignore the credible talent because she doesn't look as good on TV.
RW: i'd say she lacks the skills required for the national stage. that would be accurate.
but having that, or not, is not a sign of intelligence.
and the 'russia quip' you attribute to her is a falsehood. i think you know that, but the fact that you would be able to get away with that with most people speaks volumes about her perception problems. in politics, perception is everything.
ask dan quayle.
you know why hutchinson wasnt tagged, dont you?
the GOP problem wasnt at the bottom of the ticket, it was at the top. but its issues as a governing force run even deeper than anybody who sits on their ticket.
personally, i thinks its days are over, with nothing to take its place becuase there is no other philosophy left to promote.
and what they have been promoting sounds good to flag wavers and church goers, but has proven to cause more problems down the road than its solves.
and what they need to return to, but cant, wont be able get them elected anymore. besides, they would have to believe in it themselves firts.
Yeah I know about the Russia quote. the truth is actually scarier.
http://a11news.com/645/palin-russia-war-quotes/
But she and her supporters are a lot like Iran or the Clinton White House in one respect. It's called taking responsibility. People protesting in the streets of Tehran - it's the West's fault. Clinton gets sucked off in the Oval and people find out - it's a vast rightwing conspiracy.
I think you like her because she's a MILF. OK, but I don't want just cleavage or a plumber in or near my White House. Ever.
i didnt say i'd vote for her. and if i ever did,(it is a possibility in the far future if she ever resurrected as a better candidate) it would for the same reasons that somebody else i know voted for the colored guy.
lol.
No actually it was the jacket. You see the jacket last night? That's why I voted for him.
oh, no...
your not getting away with it.
the jacket is at least some substance, although if it was a bears jacket i may have gone along... maybe.
you pimped your blog for a far lesser reason.
Palin is a politician- a Communications major turned news reporter who took a political office. Like any other politician, her talent is supposed to be communicating, not wisdom, or knowledge for that matter.
Women are not as good at bullshitting as men. There, I said it. When your tendency is always to speak from the gut, to throw your body and being into every word, you fall short in rhetoric. Because rhetoric is the science of designating a more or less rigid (or calculatedly fluid) line of argument and collections of facts (usually not truly committed to memory) to which your pathos must abide.
If one thinks there are rhetoricians who can avoid that basic mechanism, I'm afraid you are fooling yourself.
I mean this not as a shot against women or against rhetoric, but against the mixing of the two. Can there be an effective feminine rhetoric? Hell yes, and it would most likely be an improvement. But could it stick to a concise series of facts tied together by an argument confining the feminine pathos? Good God, Man, have you ever talked to a woman? To paraphrase one wittier than myself, "To call a woman a rhetorician is like calling an Ox a Bull: The Ox rejoices at the title but would sooner have restored what is rightfully his!
(I recommend Aristophanes comedy Lysistrata as a hilarious example of female rhetoric eclipsing male rhetoric)
Yeah I voted for him because he's black. What was I supposed to do, vote for McCain and Palin because they're stupid? I saw a historical marker and voted for it. So what?
Like the GOP deserved another chance after the "tax cut that will stimulate the economy" didn't work, and "the weapons of mass destruction" weren't there, and we squandered the good-will we had in the world after 9/11, and the GOP controlled the government and spent like drunken sailors, and Dick Cheney did everything he could to subvert the constitution he obviously didn't *get*, and the loudest voice from the Right is a butt-ugly asexual draft dodger with a drug problem, and "family values" means fucking little boys or cheating on your wife. I'm supposed to vote for that shit? No fucking way. They had their chance and they fucked it up royally. Americans may be ignorant but they aren't stupid. They recognized a failed argument and a shell-game when they saw it and promptly put it in the garbage where it belongs. Just because a few recidivists hang around and moan about liberals because they can't stop the electrical circuit that operates their pieholes doesn't mean the GOP's point of view is valuable. It was repudiated, and then bounced.
My vote for a historical footnote made more sense than a million votes cast for the GOP. The GOP's only talent was to get Joe 6-pack to defend their elitist bullshit by appealing to his xenophobic sense of drunkass patriotism. That was their greatest achievement. Now even that's deserted them. Bwa haha!
Palin is a one trick pony. At least the asshole I voted for has some intellectual fucking curiosity, instead of BEING one.
lol.
Tully--I seem to recall having to remind you THREE TIMES, over about that many months, that I was a woman, before the information stuck in your brain. I object to your ridiculous blanket assertion.
Wouldn't it be better to have someone who actually spoke truth (as they understood it), anyhow? Bullshitting is only an 'advantage' if we the public allow it to be.
If women are inherently less able to bullshit, as you present (I won't call it arguing), perhaps they are inherently more apt to be valuable, worthwhile, honest, honorable leaders.
(and, to "throw my body behind every word": I thumb my nose at you, sir.)
PS Gino--it's OK to be right sometimes ;).
PPS It should be noted that since I don't agree with Tully's initial assertions, the logical conclusion drawn from them is not an assertion I agree with, either. I think being that kind of a leader is a severe challenge for any human being.
this is evidence of how i knew, day one, that kr was a women.
a man would just call bullshit.
a women needs to explain why she's calling bullshit.
gotta cut tully some slack. that was way back when he was still in high school, and hadnt had as many adult interactions as he does now.
i'd say he's getting it.
(i'm preparing for the onslaught)
Because otherwise noone takes her seriously, Gino.
I think during (nearly) day one we had an argument about cunts, didn't we? Pretty hard to miss my feminine perspective on that one ;).
Nah, Tully was at some levels right, I was coming on strong enough to be read 'masculine' ... but that just proves that one shouldn't generalize about it.
I think he was baiting anyhow; the comment was very sloppy.
And, of course, you are baiting me. And I am exhausted and not going to go there, sorry. Plus I'm just not that angry anymore about most things. (No fun for you, I know.)
It's time to stumble upstairs and hope the depth of my about-to-be sleep is enough to make up for the short duration ...
G'night!
sweet dreams. :)
KR, I don't actually think my comment was sloppy. Perhaps a little incendiary, but I wouldn't have it any other way. The last thing I want to do to you, at such an hour of night, is to lull you to sleep. If you read it through, the point is that female rhetoric would probably better than male rhetoric, but that for a woman to use talking-points style rhetoric is an absurdity. The sloppiness you're sensing is intentional. I was aware, while writing the comment, that there's a glaring absurdity to saying that 1) Rhetoric is bullshit 2) Women can't bullshit therefore they can't do rhetoric 3) Anyway if women could do rhetoric, it would be better than bullshit. Why shouldn't I put the argument in this way? Why shouldn't I play with the argument, and with the reader?
Surely you're not expecting me, a woman, to embrace your phallocentric discourse as my own!
(Perhaps this argument doesn't work if I am not a woman (which I AM), but in that case you must reconsider whether anyone's sexuality is so strictly confined.)
tully: did you have a sex change?
Ah, I was taking the absurdity for sloppiness ... it was clear you weren't actually trying to seriously bring anyone along. Glad to know your standards haven't dropped ;).
Tully, you would be so ridiculous as a woman! Good grief!
I have such mixed feelings about her. I don't want her in the White House at all, but I think that she's wonderful for local politics and perhaps even a lobbyist (in the good sense.)
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