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Fire up the Calliope and Get Some Lipstick on the Pig!

September 5th, 2008 · 4 Comments

Places everyone! Places! We’ve got a show to run here.

Barbara Curtis over at the Christian Science Monitor is ginning up a real life controversy over the Sarah Palin hullabaloo. Unfortunately, Barbara is missing the “real life” part of the controversy:

Sarah Palin can have it all

Bluemont, Va. - The five children. The newborn diagnosed with Down syndrome. The pregnant daughter. Sarah Palin’s life – chock full of challenge – confronts her opposition with some formidable challenges of its own.

Oh really? And those would be … what? The intelligent design advocacy? The burning banning of books? The secessionist rhetoric? The abuse of power? The flagrant dishonesty on the “Bridge to Nowhere”? Please, tell me what those “formidable challenges” are.

Hint: To present a “formidable challenge” in the political arena means that you have to have ideas that are better than your opponents’. Sarah Palin has yet to present one single idea for how to approach governing the U.S.

After decades of pushing equal rights and treatment for women, the Left is backtracking.

Yes, pay no attention to the 18 month campaign of Hillary Clinton and all the insults and abuse she’s had to put up with over the years from the far right cast of Looney Toon characters like Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, etc. Hillary secretly doesn’t give a shit about equal rights for women. Nor do the 18 million Democrats that voted for her. I think her campaign slogan was “Misogyny now, Misogyny tomorrow, Misogyny Forever!”

Suddenly motherhood – well, at least too much motherhood or too-complicated motherhood – is incompatible with executive responsibility.

Says who? Can you name someone who has said that? Please, I’d really like to know.

The skepticism about Palin’s ability to juggle responsibilities has been punctuated with below-the-belt punches.

POW! Right in the ovaries! Down goes the Fetus! Down goes the Fetus!

Seriously, who has provided the “below-the-belt punches”? Who? Name names. Please! Because I haven’t heard anyone say anything about Palin’s juggling of responsibilities. If you can’t name names, or at least provide some sort of citation, then I’m inclined to think you’re just making up a bunch of bullshit.

In 2001, Jane Swift of Massachusetts became the first governor to give birth in office – to twins. Her maternity leave included a governor’s council teleconference from her hospital bed. And while Ms. Swift was rebuked for using aides to babysit her daughter, Palin’s record of eschewing the trappings of power – selling the governor’s jet on eBay, for example – suggests she wouldn’t make such mistakes. So what to make of the fire and brimstone raining down on Palin?

Fire and brimstone? Ummm … are you talking about James Dobson? The only criticisms I’ve heard of Palin thus far are related to her inability to govern. And that is a pretty substantive criticism given every legitimate analysis of her record in governing, from Wasilla to the AK Governor’s office. From the “Bridge to Nowhere” lie, to her obstruction of the Trooper-gate scandal.

One of the things I find most amazing about Barbara’s utterly fact-free paean to Sarah Palin is that she’s been able to use the “some say” straw-man tactic so frequently without actually having to say “some say.” That alone proves that Barbara is a professional writer.

“The personal is the political” was a feminist mantra I still believe. Which leads me to a qualification for office that sets Palin apart from her peers: Consistency.

Yes. That would be the same consistency that was shown when she campaigned for governor of Alaska while advocating for the “Bridge to Nowhere,” and then allowed her to turn right around and tell the GOP convention that she gave taxpayers their money back for the “Bridge to Nowhere” because it was a taxpayer boondoggle.

Yes. That kind of consistency.

The kind of consistency that allows her to say that she gave the money back to U.S. taxpayers, but actually kept the money in the coffers of Alaska.

The kind of consistency that allows her to say that she sold the governor’s jet on eBay when in reality, she actually didn’t. Listing something is not the same as selling something. And selling something at a loss is not the same thing as selling something for a profit. Most business majors should be able to clarify, if there are any questions.

Of course, none of this has to do with the fact that as mayor of Wasilla, AK (pop. 6000), and the governor of the 47th largest state (by population), Palin has little to no experience running something as massive and critical as the federal government (serving a population of 300 million people).

Meanwhile, the GOP is screaming, “Sexism! Sexism!”

News flash: It’s not sexism if your candidate is just a pissed-off fucking idiot in lipstick. Kind of like Dan Quayle in drag … after taking steroids.

If you want to swim in the deep end of the pool, then you better fucking learn how to swim. You want to play in the big leagues? Then stop bitching and whining when you get treated like you’re playing in the big leagues. To date I haven’t heard sexism present itself once in the criticisms on Sarah Palin.

It isn’t necessary.

Palin is a fucking ignorant, neophyte, political hack, a one-trick pony, and an homage to the fundamentalist looney-bin wing of the GOP. Is she going to ride her vapid convention speech all the way to the election? Or will she eventually bring some facts to the public discourse? Because thus far, the only thing she’s provided is a truckload of insults, a public ass-kissing of John McCain, and masturbation material for a bunch of young Republicans.

Of course, as always, Jon Stewart does more to summarize the faux nature of the unfair treatment of Sarah Palin in five minutes than most political pundits can do in an entire show.

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Tags: Politics

4 responses so far ↓

  • 1 alphabitch // Sep 5, 2008 at 18:22 pm

    “Kind of like Dan Quayle in drag … after taking steroids.

    *choke*

    Fucking beautiful. :-)

  • 2 nerflom // Sep 5, 2008 at 20:07 pm

    The wingnuts only have to SAY that someone said something about Palin’s potential inability to juggle family responsibilites, and they know that it doesn’t matter if they make it up. By the time someone tries to substantiate the rumors, liberals will have already been villified for the non-exisitant attacks and the damage is already done. The people who actually believe this “below the belt” crap, won’t be swayed by any amount of reporting to the contrary at this point.
    What’s most ironic about this, is it has traditionally been conservatives who get up in arms about women who work and have kids. Chances are, if anyone actually did criticize Palin for this, it was probably a conservative anyway. Figures.

  • 3 nerflom // Sep 5, 2008 at 20:32 pm

    And another thing: what kind of idiot is placing feminist mantras and this patriarchal, fundamentalist, non-feminist, moose-dressing oil whore in the same sentence anyway?

    Barbara Curtis’ logic: “Feminists support vaginas. I have a vagina. Therefore I am a feminist.” Oy.

    Attention Barabara: Vagina ownership is not a criteria for feminism. Also, I think she seriously missed the point on the “personal is political” mantra - unless of course she is talking about the politicization of vaginas. And it does appear that Palin is consistent in that regard…

  • 4 shrimplate // Sep 14, 2008 at 20:16 pm

    I support everything you’ve written here, and I believe that any normal person would too.

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