Category Archives: Elections 2008

Update III: Sensational Sarah

Barack Obama, Conservatism, Democrats, Elections 2008, John McCain, Republicans, Sarah Palin, War

An excerpt from my new WND column, “Sensational Sarah“:

“With the Liberty Bell on the big screen behind her, Sarah Palin was the Belle of the Ball at the Republican National Convention. The governor of the State of Alaska was more than picture perfect, she was pitch perfect. She’s a pit-bull with lipstick, alright—lipstick, and sharp stilettos. A potent mix of style and substance. …

Palin has what Washington harpies, Democrat and Republican, lack: authenticity, character and a personality. She’s a mensch. There are plenty of plastic people doing the Republican Party’s biding—vicious, vacuous, vain men and women who’ll embrace her and try and change her. Consider the consummate Court Courtesan, Peggy Noonan. This Washington insider, lapdog to the powerful, was caught on an open mike trashing Palin, decrying her appointment as ‘political Bullshit’ and ‘Gimmicky.’ Palin is not a member of Noonan’s claque—not yet. ‘The permanent political establishment’ Palin decried is a bipartisan plague. Let us hope she remains on the outs with “the Washington elite,” Democratic and Republican alike. …”

You can read the complete column, “Sensational Sarah,“ on WND. Comments are welcome.

Update I (September 6): An interesting analysis from Gerard Baker of the Times is “Sarah Palin: it’s go west, towards the future of conservatism.”
I must say Sarah Palin is sounding a little repetitive today as she regurgitates her Convention speech on the campaign trail. Perhaps most Americans can’t remember it by now.

Update II: “‘I think the best thing about Todd Palin, he’s a man’s man,’ family friend Kristan Cole told ABC News. ‘He knows how to fix the boiler or the toilet or the sink or whatever,’ Davis agreed. ‘It’s very common in Alaska. We don’t have the luxury of calling the Roto-Rooter guy. We just do it ourselves.'” That reminds me of someone I know. As I said in my column, “Sensational Sarah,” “Real women who’ve raised children with good men know exactly what Sarah Palin means when she speaks about her man.”

Update III (September 8): Did I read somewhere in the comments to this post that Sarah Palin was masculine or “manly”? That’s insane. Take it from a feminine female (who happens to wear spectacles too); Palin is feminine alright. Her attire is feminine; the hair classic and soft—unlike Hillary’s hardened helmet—the mannerism the direct opposite of … Ann Coulter’s. Ditto the voice—although it’s not soft, it certainly is much less shrill than your average female foghorn on Fox News. Palin is very feminine. Men who are not hip to her womanly wiles are probably not very masculine themselves.

Excerpts From Palin’s Speech at the Republican National Convention

Conservatism, Elections 2008, John McCain, Republicans, Sarah Palin, War

The following are excerpts provided by the Republican National Committee of Gov. Sarah Palin’s speech as prepared for delivery at the Republican National Convention (via the New York Times):

“I had the privilege of living most of my life in a small town. I was just your average hockey mom, and signed up for the PTA because I wanted to make my kids’ public education better. When I ran for city council, I didn’t need focus groups and voter profiles because I knew those voters, and knew their families, too. Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown. And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a ‘community organizer,’ except that you have actual responsibilities.”

***

“I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment. And I’ve learned quickly, these past few days, that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But here’s a little news flash for all those reporters and commentators: I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion – I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this country.”

***

“Our opponents say, again and again, that drilling will not solve all of America’s energy problems – as if we all didn’t know that already. But the fact that drilling won’t solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all. Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we’re going to lay more pipelines…build more nuclear plants…create jobs with clean coal…and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources. We need American energy resources, brought to you by American ingenuity, and produced by American workers.”

***

“Here’s how I look at the choice Americans face in this election. In politics, there are some candidates who use change to promote their careers. And then there are those, like John McCain, who use their careers to promote change.”

***

And here are excerpt from Mitt Romney’s speech. Listen to how Court Courtesan Peggy Noonan, a consummate Washington insider, trashes Palin HERE.

Update V: Sarah Who?

Conservatism, Elections 2008, Free Speech, John McCain, Sarah Palin, War

Well, John McCain’s VP pick is certainly pretty.

Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin is an outsider alright. Liberals, to whom beauty is a liability (unless it’s Michelle Obama’s kind of Amazon-Woman appeal), are already making light of her beauty-queen pedigree. Check this condescending Newsweek article title: “Pageants and Politics.” Isn’t this an attempt to diminish the woman?

Palin is a hunter and a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. Unlike her boss, she favors drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But, and as Obama intends to do, she already has raised taxes on oil company profits.

She’s from Idaho, which, I am told, is where extremely conservative Real America escapes the depredations of the creeping left.

A nickname that has stuck with Palin is “Sarah Barracuda”—all good—and she worked as a commercial fisherman. Her husband, a handsome, some-time commercial fisherman (one of the most dangerous jobs), is a Yup’ik Eskimo. I say that the Moron McCain has hit a home run. This family is a nice counterweight to the Obama family exotica.

On the issue of experience, McCain has knocked the stuffing out of Obama in as much as the latter has made all the winning arguments for judgment and wisdom over experience.

From the gushing Republicans are doing over Palin, however, it is clear that it doesn’t take much to please these party loyalists. Republicans are nowhere near a eureka moment—recognizing that without Ron-Paul type fiscal leadership, the US is going down the economic toilet, with a national debt half as large as the GDP.

For that, a pretty face and a feel for fetuses are not enough. Salvaging the country is something only a Paul, perhaps a Bob Barr, could do, with a willing Congress. And here the reader is encouraged to fill in all the clichés of improbability he can conjure. For example: And Britney Spears will grow a voice. Or wear underwear.

Update I (September 1, 2008): Sarah Palin’s unmarried daughter, aged 17, is expecting a baby. I disagree with all the Republicans and “conservatives” who’ve suddenly detected in this event another sign of Palin’s conservative bona fides. Palin’s press release reveals the woman’s liberal parenting style with respect to an issue her conservative cohorts are helping to normalize:

“Our beautiful daughter Bristol came to us with news that as parents we knew would make her grow up faster than we had ever planned. We’re proud of Bristol’s decision to have her baby and even prouder to become grandparents. As Bristol faces the responsibilities of adulthood, she knows that she has our unconditional love and support.”

Spoken like a true liberal, who supports and, no doubt, will subsidize irresponsible—some conservatives would say immoral—conduct.

Update II: cultural conservatism has become an unknown quantity in fin de siècle America, in which a conservative candidate for office publishes a letter practically celebrating her unwed daughter’s pregnancy. There is not a hint of disapproval in the Palin press release. A reader has asked what I think Palin ought to have said about the affair. Apparently that’s a mystery. So here’s the conservative version of Palin’s press release:

“As conservatives can imagine, my husband and I are deeply disappointed in our beautiful daughter, Bristol. Her actions flout the upbringing and the values we thought we had instilled in her. Our daughter is well aware of our disappointment. In addition to the enormous responsibilities she will be forced to shoulder due to her reckless behavior, she has her parents’ disapproval to deal with. As this is a private and very difficult matter for our family, we ask that the media respect our privacy and keep its distance.”

Update III: From ABC News: “A meme is developing out there among liberals that Gov. Sarah Palin was a supporter of Pat Buchanan in the 1990s, a charge that the McCain-Palin campaign strongly denies.”

Why deny? So a pregnant daughter is not a liability, but supporting Pat Buchanan is?

Update IV (September 2): The responses so far to my comment about Gov. Palin’s perfectly liberal parenting style is to point out that getting knocked up and having bastards is simply the way of the world.

I see moral and cultural relativism is another twisted tenet conservatives have adopted. For that is what this mounts to: because everyone does it, certain conduct becomes part of the cultural repertoire. Judgment is suspended. Understanding extended, and the undesirable behavior then multiplies.

Furthermore, my comment pertained not to what the girl intends to do—or will be compelled to do—but to the lack of any opprobrium in Palin’s gushing press release. As I say, her daughter’s conduct is depicted rather positively, even praised.

Actually, when my girl was a little younger than Bristol, I had The Talk with her. Let me put it this way, the options I presented her with should she conceive were not as appealing as the Palin plan for unwed mothers. Nowhere did “pride and support” feature in our little conversation. It broke my heart to be so harsh, but it worked, to the benefit of my daughter’s wellbeing. Young girls are not ready physically or mentally to have babies. Babies born to young girls, moreover, are not as healthy. In fact, complications and abnormalities abound in the young cohort as they do in the older age group.

Question: Palin’s kid is five months into her pregnancy. Why on earth did she not get married earlier?

Naturally, this is an interesting conversation in itself. Note: nowhere have I intimated that this matter should–or does–have any bearing on Gov. Palin’s abilities.

Update V: Lew Rockwell on what’s in the offing for this feisty woman:

It is perhaps possible to be the governor of a small state such as Alaska and not be part of the machine. It is not possible to be vice president of the United States and not enter into the deeply immoral arena that values the burying of all principle, and saying and doing whatever is necessary to bolster power.

Part of the purpose of campaigns is to socialize the candidates in this mold. Sarah will be slapped around if and when she openly disagrees with McCain’s politics. When they win the election, she will immediately be required to take on the role of an apologist for all that the administration does.

Updated: Michelle Obama Takes Center Stage

Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Democrats, Elections 2008

Michelle Obama will headline the 2008 Democratic National Convention. In a remarkable bit of dissembling or stupidity, Chris Wallace of Fox News—who is nowhere near the journalist Wallace Senior was—found no particular significance in the event. This is the first time a candidate’s wife will front a convention.

I think this is a matter of considerable portent. It speaks to the position this woman will assume in the White House. It’s a legitimate supposition. But Fox News is now fawning over Obama—probably in fear of being snubbed by the royal couple and their fans who want to see them in action all the time. Wallace, for Fox, simply spun Michelle’s surprising prominence as the campaign’s attempt to entrust her with rehabilitating Barack’s life story and giving it the American patina it lacks. Michelle Obama is so obviously the wrong person to do so.

The Obamas will be welcoming on stage “Barack Obama’s sister Maya Soetero-Ng and Craig Robinson, Michelle Obama’s older brother; [and] Jerry Kellman, mentor and long-time friend of Barack Obama.” A real tribal affair.

How I wish Jeremiah Wright would write a tell-all about The Child.

Update (August 26, 2008): One word for Mrs. Obama’s speech: pure schmaltz: “maudlin sentimentality.” But the Obama Nation was slobbering and spluttering. The “parrot press” too. You can read her remarks in the New York Times.

I have a question about Michelle’s claim that her “story” is the story of an average, working-class American (her family was middle-class):

“And thanks to their faith and their hard work, we both were able to go to college, so I know firsthand from their lives and mine that the American dream endures.”

Mrs. Obama, in all likelihood, was accepted to Ivy League schools based on the robust program of affirmative action that poisons those places. This means that with test scores lower than those of other candidates, likely whites and Asians, she would have gotten a placement; and her betters would have been rejected.

Is this what is meant to share the experience of the majority that dare not speak its name?

The theme the woman kept reciting—changing “the world as it is” to “the world as it should be“: now that was telling. She has the blueprints to the central plan—she and her central planner husband have decided on the shape your world should take under their tutelage.