I realize I am a few days late on this. As usual, I have been self-involved and monumentally busy coping with the last three days of my mother-in-law's visit.Let me start by saying, I am no fan of this chick. I was talking to our cousins, Cindy and Sanjiv, over the weekend, and we all kind of agreed the GOP's attempt to ram the "Barracuda" down our throats as a Hillary Clinton replacement never sat right. On one side, I admire Governor Palin, slightly, I say slightly, for her rep as a loose canon. Anyone who gives old Republican stalwarts a headache warrants an occasional chuckle from me. But Palin proved herself an overmatched chowderhead on the 2008 campaign trail. This rather stymying resignation does nothing to change my opinion.
It would be one thing if I were able, somehow, to chalk up the coming end of her reign as a savvy political move. But to announce this the day before a holiday weekend, a virtual media blackout? And call me crazy, but if you do intend to run for higher office, like say, the presidency, doesn't it help to have a steady job while doing so? Ask Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson if not holding an office did them any favors when they went after the brass ring. Why would a person repeatedly pelted with the label "inexperienced" so oft last year, pull the plug on the only avenue she currently has to gain knowledge?
The possibility that her resignation pre-empts some shocking scandal that was about to come out has been thrown around. But I really don't like this either. If the juice is any good, we'll find out anyway. John Edwards anyone?
So I return to my initial question: What is up? And moreover, do any of you care what Sarah Palin does next? For the meanspirited of our readers (like me), are you enjoying the summer movie implosion of the GOP favorites?
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The implosion is amusing, considering how the stereotype of dysfunction was pinned on the Democrats for so long (and still is). Moralizers getting caught is always good fun, and really a lot of my contempt for the modern GOP started with their moralizing and grew into contempt for their economic policies.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Palin herself, well, color me shocked that the woman who attended six colleges in five years decides to stop being governor when it stops being fun. During the election, she always struck me as George W. without the pedigree. She's not remotely a thinker and seems very proud of that fact. She never ever admits she was wrong about anything, and takes any criticism personally. As a result, she tends to surround herself with sycophants and cronies. And she seems to view government in part as a way to help her friends out. She embodies in herself all the qualities of the GOP base at the moment, which is the reason she was selected in the first place. The religious nuts were not comfortable with McCain, and needed one of their own to come to the polls. And it might have worked, except for those pesky kids. (And the "minorities," who suddenly aren't looking as minor.)
More broadly, Palin exemplifies GOP tokenism as the idiocy that it is. They saw that a bunch of Democrats who were slightly more to the right than Obama (who is himself considerably more to the right than, say, Kucinich or Bernie Sanders) had voted for Hillary and that some loud ones had talked within range of a camera and microphone about how they just couldn't vote Democrat if Hillary wasn't the nominee, etc. So the GOP brain trust reasons "hey, they want to vote for a woman, so here's a woman!" It was kind of the same reasoning that gave us the comedic hip-hop stylings of Michael Steele.
Somehow, the idea that the way to court women voters might be to give them some biological autonomy, and that the way to start courting minorities might be to stop calling them "macaca" doesn't occur to them. Until it does, they could be in the wilderness for a while. Especially if Obama actually manages to fix health care. (I firmly believe that the reason the GOP opposes any health care reform is not because they think it won't work. It's because they're deathly afraid that it will, and that the Democrats will reap the credit.)
As always my good cousin, a very intelligent, thought provoking and amusing take on the issue at hand. I was hoping you'd bite on this post.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you think, Sanjiv.
ReplyDeleteLe sigh. As long as her influence is contained, kind of like putting a bomb in a metal box, I'm okay with whatever she has up her sleeve. She has lost more credibility (is it possible to lose what one never had?) with this stunt. And that is exactly what it is—a stunt. At this point, Palin is the straw(wo)man of the GOP. I used to think it was Rush, but I think he is getting a break from it. I initally typed "richly-deserved break," but I musn't get carried away.