I hate politics. What should be the stewardship of the public interest is so often merely a thinly veiled exercise in personal enrichment and aggrandizement. What should be the best of humanity is usually its worst.
To wit, Sarah Palin.
According to the McCain Campaign, Fox News, and Rush Limbaugh, Ms. Palin is the maverick governor of Alaska, a reformer who battles against earmarks, hockey mom, exemplary proponent of family values, faithful Christian, and all-around Great American. The saddest part of all this blather is that so many people are swallowing it whole, without the slightest questioning or intelligent thought. But then, this is the Republican Party we’re talking about, so self-righteous flag-waving is more important to their followers that actually paying attention to anything.
So let’s pretend for just a moment that Sarah Palin is a Democrat. Let’s view her through the lens of the Replublican attack dogs, rather than Republican boosterism.
Hmmm . . . . Okay, here goes.
“Just who is this Sarah Palin? Had anybody even heard of her before they started Photoshopping her in next to McCain? Apparently she was the governor of Alaska for a while. A very short while, in fact, less than two years. She spent more time in high school than she did in the governor’s office. She claims to be a maverick who bucked her party leadership. What she doesn’t tell you is that she’s a blatant opportunist with no sense of loyalty. Sure, she ran for office when her party didn’t want her to, but that was when she had nothing to lose and everything to gain. If she were really a maverick, she’d have run as an independent, instead of just shoving around the party machinery that ended up having to support her.
“And what kind of record does she have as governor? Aside from very short. Well, she’s pushed through . . . um . . . nothing. She burnished her ‘maverick’ credentials a bit more by vetoing legislation that her party supported, but it usually involved legislation supported by both sides of the aisle. Apparently being a maverick has less to do with being a tough-minded politician who does the right thing, and more to do with being a snide bureaucrat who can’t work with anyone, even her own party. Don’t believe me? She vetoed a bipartisan budget compromise and added a signing statement, “Somebody has to be the grown-up.” This isn’t a woman concerned with consensus-building.
“In fact, she hasn’t pursued any actual programs or initiatives of her own. Easy to be a maverick when you’re not trying to get anything done. Well, she did sign off of ethics legislation, taking the very brave step of saying that taking bribes is bad. Of course, that particular bandwagon was well under way when she jumped on, though, since the Justice Dept. already had pending indictments against pretty much everybody in Alaska.
“Of course, there are her mythic battles against earmarks and pork-barrel legislation. Except that she was battling for earmarks and pork-barrel legislation. As a small-town mayor, she hired a high-powered lobbying firm that brought in stellar amounts of pork for her constituents, to the tune of $20,000 per resident. As governor, she has made a point of vetoing pork-barrel projects . . . if they didn’t go to her hometown. She routinely approves the ones that do. So her mythic battles against pork-barrel legislation are, in fact, a myth.
“She did, famously, say she wouldn’t meet lobbyists in her office, and she stuck to her guns on that. She never said she wouldn’t meet with them, just not meet them in her office. So they have lunch instead. Being a maverick apparently involves a lot of empty gestures.
“And then there’s her much-vaunted cancelling of that Bridge To Nowhere project, when she said, “Thanks, but no thanks,” to Congress. In fact, she touted her support for the Bridge To Nowhere when she was running for governor, and loudly supported it during her (very brief) time in office . . . up until she found out that she could oppose the project and still get the money. Tough-minded maverick or shameless opportunist? Three guesses, and the first two don’t count.
“Not that anyone would suggest she would use the governor’s office for personal gain. Except that she claimed travel allowance reimbursements for months that she was living at home. Does her husband charge her rent? And she tried to have her brother-in-law fired during her sister’s divorce and custody battle. Since her brother-in-law was a state trooper, his job was actually controlled by the state’s Safety Commissioner, who refused to fire him. So instead she fired the Safety Commissioner. Apparently, she doesn’t like other tough-minded mavericks who refuse to yield to political pressure.
“Actually, we shouldn’t bring up Palin’s sister, because a candidate’s family should be off-limits. Never mind that Ms. Palin herself is bringing up her family, like her eldest son, whom she’s proudly sending off to die fight in VietnamIraq. And her youngest child, who has Down’s Syndrome, which proves that Sarah Palin is a caring, loving mother . . . who will pay for her child to have the best possible care while she’s off in Washington. Yep, Ms. Palin is a devoted mother of five and a hockey mom.
“What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? According to Ms. Palin, lipstick. She doesn’t say which wears it. She does, however, suggest that her parenting skills are no better than the family dog. And, much like a dog, she has her nose up McCain’s ass.
“But back to her family. She chose to put them on display as a testimony to her devotion to Christian family values. Yet she insists that her teenage daughter’s unplanned unmarried pregnancy is a personal and private matter that should not be brought into the campaign. The difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull apparently involves hypocrisy.
“Ms. Palin is a proud supporter of abstinence-only programs, such that she has ensured that they are taught in Alaska schools to the exclusion of sex education programs on the use of contraception. To be perfectly and painfully clear, Ms. Palin supports only programs that explain to teenagers that they should not have sex until they are married. Her daughter is not married, yet is pregnant, which suggests that her daughter had sex before she was married. That’s the kind of tough-minded maverick Sarah Palin is: she’ll vocally support a program that her own daughter has proven to be useless.
“To be fair, maybe her daughter skipped school that day.
“Ms. Palin’s supporters have lauded her support of her daughter’s choice to have the child. As if her daughter had any choice at all. After all, Ms. Palin is a very loud Pro-Life advocate and wants to overturn Roe v. Wade. This means that the teenage mother-to-be has no option but to carry the child to term. Consequently, Ms. Palin’s supporters are really lauding her support of her daughter’s choice to have unprotected sex. After all, once her daughter was pregnant, there were no other choices to make. Is this Sarah Palin’s idea of Christian family values?
“Of course, we don’t know precisely what particular brand of Christianity she practices. If the clips of her on YouTube are to be believed, it involves snake-handling, cursing homosexuals, and praying for oil pipelines. That’s probably not an accurate portrayal, though. After all, if we’ve learned anything from Palin’s brand of tough-minded maverick, it’s that what she says has very little to do with what she means or does. Likewise, her attendance at the Alaska Independence Party’s convention means nothing about her devotion to our great country. After all, it was her husband who was a registered party delegate, not her, so her patriotism was in no way compromised by her open support for a secessionist agenda.
“Is this the kind of woman we want in the White House? Is this the kind of woman we want to be one thready, irregular heartbeat away from the Presidency? A woman whose credentials combine shameless opportunism, crass personal politics, self-righteous preaching, and trailer-trash family values? An unholy combination of Jimmy Swaggart, Yosemite Sam, and Britney Spear’s mother?
“In short, Sarah Palin is the worst possible choice for a vice-presidential candidate. So what does it say for McCain that he made this choice? It says that he doesn’t have the judgment to know any better. Or perhaps that he’s so desperate to win that he’s making a horrific choice simply out of naked political greed. And America doesn’t need four more years of that.”
There you have it, the Republican attack on Sarah Palin.
This message has been brought to you by People Who Are Not Stupid, proudly serving the American people since it became obvious that they just weren’t paying any attention at all.
http://pileoflaundry.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/poly-ticks-the-many-ways-that-sarah-palin-bugs-me/
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