About Palin

There's a nasty misogynist air about the criticism of Palin in the "liberal" blogosphere, and this commentary is spot on. Part of the reason for picking a candidate so horrible is to make it all about Sarah, making it a contest between Palin and Obama, allowing McCain, a small man who should not even dream of being the president, to rise above it and pretend to be the bipartisan dream, rather than the mean hack who has thrown everything he once claimed to stand for overboard and adopted the right's memes so that he can get this close.

Yes, you read me right. I think Palin is a horrible candidate. I can imagine the leaders of the rest of the Western world going WTF at the thought of this woman becoming president. She is the embodiment of the frothing-at-the-mouth right, ultranationalist (although her nation seems to be Alaska, not the States), antichoice, proabstinence, creationist, a science denier. I don't care about her fucked-up family but she is clearly a ruthless shithead in her political dealings. Her much-vaunted "experience" has mostly consisted of exercising power without regard to ethics or decency. And running up debts. Which Republicans, purportedly fiscal conservatives, seem to love to do. (The whole thing about experience is bullshit, of course. It's just another way of saying he's "uppity": this nigra just doesn't have what it takes--yeah, we get it; what it takes is a white skin.)

The worst of all this is that McCain chose this woman. Okay, it's a bit like someone ate all the good chocolates, leaving him with the hard ones that no one really likes and a strawberry cream, which he plumped for. But still, he should be, and hopefully will be, slammed for his utter irresponsibility in choosing someone so unfitted for it. And she is. Picture those leaders with their heads in their hands, going WTF. It's not because she's unknown. If she was extremely talented, no one would care about that. But this is a woman you doubt could even find Iran on a map, and is still puzzled how the Russians got the tanks through Alabama without anyone stopping them. A liar, a cheat, a nobody. (And lest I be taken to be attacking her for her womanhood: I wouldn't be impressed if he'd picked a man whose claims included running up a $23 million debt as mayor of a village of 5000 and lying his way to the top in a state that even the hicks think is where the hicks live.)

McCain has burned all his bridges and shoved all his chips into getting his base out. It's slightly scary how many dumbarse women I've seen on TV, in the press and in blog comments saying how impressed they are with this woman who would, given her druthers, rob them of their equality and their rights over their own body, but I suppose the chick done good meme is powerful enough to blind some to what kind of chick we're actually dealing with.

This is the real McCain on view here: not an honourable, straight dealer. Not a hero, not a man who bucks the trend. A small man, a weasel, who when faced with the defeat of his candidacy, pulled out a joker that showed total disregard for honour, for his country, for anything but winning.

Well, no surprises. He's a Republican. Any shred of decency that party harboured they've long burned away. The worst you can say about Palin, really all you need say, is that she's a fine representative of the Republican Party.

posted by Dr Zen @ 6:43 pm