Tuesday, September 02, 2008

All You Liberals Start Praying for Palin...

...to stay on the ticket. And that means, among other things: hoping for the torrent of weird information to ease up a bit. Sadly, the bad, alarming, and just plain weird news just keeps on coming so fast and so furious that its pretty hard to believe that she'll stay on the ticket. If she'd been a little bit less of a loon, my guess is that it'd have been better for the Dems strategically. If the weirdness had trickled out slowly, we might have made it to October, and it'd have been too late for her to withdraw. As it is, if I had to guess, I'd guess is that she'll withdraw within the week, perhaps even turning down the nomination.

Needless to say, there will be a some loathsomely cynical and manipulative cover story. I guess it's fairly obvious that it will be something along these lines:

Sarah Palin, Republican Vice Presidential nominee, has withdrawn from the 2008 Presidential race, citing personal reasons. "I just realized that being the Vice President would take up too much of my time," Palin said, "time that I need to devote to my family. Now that we are blessed by God with a child with Downs' Syndrome and an unwed pregnant teenage daughter, my family will require even more of my time and attention. It just wouldn't be fair to either my family or my country, The Republic of Alaska, if I were to accept this etc. etc. etc....

Or they might take the opportunity to blame this all on the Dems, perhaps asserting that the original bizarre rumors took too much of an emotional toll on her and her family.

But one thing is certain: the withdrawal, if/when it comes, will itself be spun into a rhetorical weapon to be used against the Dems. There will, as usually, be little or no telling it like it is.

11 Comments:

Blogger The Mystic said...

UGH

I just read on Reuters that McCain's camp is accusing Obama of "sexism" because he said that Palin doesn't have as much experience as he does. Apparently, Obama said:

"My understanding is that Gov. Palin's town, Wasilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2,500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe $12 million dollars a year -- we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,"

The response?

"McCain adviser Carly Fiorina said she was appalled and accused him of sexism, a charge the Obama camp had faced during Democrat Hillary Clinton's primary battle against him.

"The facts are that Sarah Palin has made more executive decisions as a mayor and governor than Barack Obama has made in his life," Fiorina said.

"Because of Hillary Clinton's historic run for the presidency and the treatment she received, American women are more highly tuned than ever to recognize and decry sexism in all its forms. They will not tolerate sexist treatment of Gov. Palin," Fiorina said."

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN1928744420080902?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=10112

I can't take this stuff.

5:45 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Well, just remember that these people aren't even attempting to say anything true. They'd say that every triangle has four sides if they thought it might get votes.

It really is hard to be exposed to such concentrated irrationality.

Actually, I'm afraid it might rip spacetime or something.

6:05 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

The worst part isn't that these people exist, but rather that there are so many people who are susceptible to their ploys that this presidential race is even mildly close.

That truly is unsettling.

7:16 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The reason that people are accusing liberals of sexism is that they assume that Sarah Palin will not be able to give enough attention to her job when she has children (much as the author's original post does).

Obama has children too. Isn't he too busy to be president with two little girls?
John F. Kennedy's wife had a child while he was IN office. Did anyone say he was unqualified because he should be taking care of his children instead?

THAT is why people are saying that the attacks of Palin are sexist - because they are essentially saying that Palin should be home with her children instead of having a job. I'm sure that if she is elected VP, there will be no problem with her husband taking command of the kids, or maybe... GASP... hiring a nanny! I'm sure no president has done that before!

5:57 PM  
Blogger lovable liberal said...

Uh, Anne, sorry to say, that's bullshit. This critique of Palin has nothing to do with her sex or her family. She's a bad pick, without even the experience of a large city or a populous state. McCain picked her rashly, which is how he makes decisions (shades of Duhbya), and this runs counter to his claim of good judgement.

If Palin were the two-term governor of, say, Michigan, liberals would not be criticizing her experience (except maybe on foreign policy). They'd still be on her for her wingnuttery.

7:56 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

Name one liberal who says this.

8:12 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

Man, the conservatives are just going absolutely crazy.

8:51 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm hardly conservative - I don't like Palin.

However, I believe you should criticize her on the issues rather than the fact that she's a woman and won't be home taking care of her kids.

haha I was fooled into coming onto your blog "philosoraptor," believing you might be into philosophy - but after reading a little bit, I've can see that clearly there is no free-thinking here, just regurgitating liberal news media stories.

9:04 PM  
Blogger lovable liberal said...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're not a conservative. Whatever! Is your name even Anne? The only stuff regurgitated here is yours.

Who's criticizing Palin based on her gender? Anyone here? Anyone in the media? Anyone in Obama's campaign?

Where's your beef?

9:08 PM  
Blogger The Mystic said...

I always wonder what it's like to be you, Anne. To be yet another one of those people on the internet who arrives at a place that's actually genuinely devoted to an honest search for truth only to look into it and see her twisted reflection staring back at her; this reflection of a person that she knows doesn't want the truth.

When you look at someone making coherent arguments and astute observations regarding the truth and you realize that you can't stand that, it freaks you out a little. I don't think it's that you have some hatred for truth, but rather, you're too scared to let go of a position that you always hoped was correct and unchanging. You're scared of having to rebuild your belief system. You freak out as you watch yourself scramble to find a way that you can continue to believe that what was just said isn't true. You watch yourself desperately try to find a way to twist things in order that you might keep your simpler, easier, static view.

Yet, I suppose you must think that changing yourself is too burdensome a task emotionally and mentally. But is it really easier to scramble to draw over the image looking back at you? Surely you know you can't ever succeed in convincing yourself that the picture you make is more real than mirror's reflection.

Maybe if you yell loud enough, you'll convince yourself. Maybe if you drown out all the input around you, you'll actually start to think you're right.

It makes me both sad and a little angry at the same time that people like you stew in their fear and misery to the point where it affects an entire nation by doing horrendously irresponsible things like voting Bush into office all for the sake of keeping that view you desperately hope is true. I don't know if you don't realize the effects of this sort of self-blinding behavior, or if you just don't care, but either way, please, for the love of all that is good, stop.

You and those like you are killing the rest of us. Many times figuratively, many times literally.

9:28 PM  
Blogger Winston Smith said...

1.
Again: name one liberal who says what you say they're saying.

2.
How on Earth is asking that question equivalent to "regurgitating liberal news media stories"??? You made an implausible claim that was, in fact, merely regurgitating wingnut talking points. I asked you to support it. Apparently you can't--but, in best winger fashion, you blame everybody else because you were busted spewing BS.

3.
Nobody is pushing the criticism to which you allude. Palin should not be elected because she is unqualified--I haven't given the fact that she has kids a moment's thought.

4.
There are no philosophical issues in play here, so I'm not sure why you'd expect us to be talking about philosophy.

9:30 PM  

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