Some thoughts on Sarah Palin
I have read many takes on Palin this weekend, but this one sums them up best.
In Cindi McCain’s interview with George Stephanopolous she now-famously mentions that Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is near Russia. Stepping to the side of this face-palming stupidity, I was more intrigued by her initial reaction to the question of Palin’s experience (you have to watch the short video clip to hear it), which was an emphatic "She is heavily experienced," followed by a pause, then, "in, in what she has done." And I thought, well, jeez, I’m "heavily experienced" in, in what I’ve done, how come I’m not on the GOP ticket?
This I think gives a longer view of the situation.
It honestly looks to me that Rove/McCain made up a list of all the qualities they needed in a VP pick, in order to pander to whatever demographics they thought would bite, including "creationist," "anti-science," "in the pocket of Big Oil," "young," "female," "rabidly pro-life," etc, and fed that list into a computer, and Sarah Palin’s name came out. Just like with the Bush administration, qualification for the job was never considered.
I know I have a few conservative readers out there. I’m curious, are any of you overjoyed at this choice? Did any of you, when you heard the news, say "Awright! We’ve got this thing all sewed up! Get ready for Hurrican Palin! Ya-hooo!" Does this make any sense to you at all? Step forward, I would honestly like to hear your thoughts.
Earthquake damage — exclusive photos!
As reported earlier, the individual hardest hit by the 5.4 quake‘s ferocity was this 12″ Hawkgirl figurine. The plastic figurine plunged over 15″ off the top of my computer monitor to land in this supine position on some papers. Top-heavy due to her large, unposable wings, she has always been a special risk in times of earthquakes. She is expected to be put back on top of the monitor later today.
Hawkgirl’s longtime companions atop the monitor, 7″ Wonder Woman and 6″ Trinity, were unharmed.
In Sam’s room, the body of a Sandtrooper lies face down on the floor, while a Darth Sidious Pez dispenser collapses nearby. Only the providence of springy, wall-to-wall carpeting saved these 4.5″ toys from possible scuff marks.
The mantises were unharmed.
Untouchable Obama
Before I forget, let me just mention that it did not escape my notice that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama quoted Alcott-fave-author David Mamet the other day in a speech somewhere to someone.
I don’t know if the Untouchables reference was lifted with Mamet’s knowledge or permission (not that it would be required), nor do I know if Obama, an Illinois senator, was intentionally co-opting the line understanding that it was written by our nation’s pre-eminent “Chicago author” (although, in the movie itself, the line, spoken by Irish Cop Jimmy Malone, is in support of what the character Malone refers to as “The Chicago Way”). Nor do I know if the quote is meant to be a dig at Mamet’s recent conversion to conservatism (although I can’t imagine what the point of such a dig would be). I do know that Mamet once wrote a speech for Dukakis back in the day that went unused — could he be moonlighting for Obama now?
What is clear is that Obama, by taking on the rhetoric of Jimmy Malone, positions himself as a moral man taking on a cabal of amoral gangsters who hate families, law and fair play, against absurd odds, and in that regard I totally get it. And I hereby vow that one day, as God is my witness, a presidential candidate will one day quote a line from Antz in his or her pursuit of power.
Mace Windu for Chancellor
Say what you want about the Star Wars prequels, they are excellent tools for teaching a six-year-old boy about the basics of democracy.
Yesterday I was in a post office with my son Sam (6) and he saw a big cardboard standup for the HBO John Adams bio-pic, and he said “Who is that guy? I’m seeing this poster everywhere!” So I started to explain to him who John Adams was and what he did and what his role was in the formation of the United States, and that necessitated an explanation of monarchy vs. democracy, and at that point Sam chimed in and said “Yeah, like in Episode III, Chancellor Palpatine is supposed to be the leader of the Senate, where people are supposed to get together and talk about what’s best for everyone, but instead he’s just making everyone fight each other and sitting back and laughing at them all because he’s really controlling everything.” Then I blinked a few times and decided Sam didn’t need to know that much more about John Adams for a while.
Anyway, we were watching Revenge of the Sith the other day, and if you ever need to explain what is going on in this country right now to a six-year-old boy, you could certainly find worse teaching tools than this movie. All the players are there and the political delineations are as clear as could be. Palpatine is a corrupt, cynical politician scheming to become an emperor, starting a war to give himself expansive executive powers, controlling the Senate and the courts to make sure no one can oppose him, et cetera ad infinitum. This is not news, it’s pretty obvious that the movie is intended as a criticism of the Bush/Cheney doctrine.
And then, about 2/3 of the way through the movie, Sam, apropos of nothing, says “I think Mace Windu should be elected Chancellor.” Which kind of created a moment of clarity for me. Mace Windu (the “stoic” Jedi, according to starwars.com) is a wise, well-spoken, incorruptible warrior-priest, who sees (eventually) what Palpatine is and seeks to remove him from power. He fails, and dies, but Sam is correct — none of this would have happened if Mace Windu had been Chancellor. Which inspired me to make this:
click for larger view.
Inspiration here.
UPDATE: Sam just walked in, saw this entry on my computer, and said “That guy with ‘HOPE’ on him? Is either Mace Windu or God.”
Oh, and honestly, I am going to do a post on 1941, and it honestly will be worth it.
Jack endorses Clinton
Fascinating. One of the great living movie stars endorses Hillary Clinton, delving deep into his extensive filmography to find representative clips of himself showing support. “Who do you trust?” exhorts the psychopathic clown with the machine gun, backed up by the axe-wielding family-killer, “When you’re right, you’re right” sighs the sleazy private detective, and the deranged, autocratic army colonel explains the candidate’s experience and sex appeal. Just the kind of message Clinton needs to turn this thing around.
I wonder if Tim Russert will be moved to ask Clinton if she accepts or rejects Nicholson’s endorsement.
Hmmm
Senator John McCain, in addition to being a liar, panderer, cheat and moral vacuum, apparently has a problem with eligibility.
Hailing, as he does, from the great state of Panama Canal Zone, there is some genuine concern as to whether or not McCain can legally run for president. The law, for reasons that apparently remain obscure, states that only “natural-born” citizens of the US may become president. To me, the phrase “natural-born” is vague in the extreme. Does it mean that only Americans born on US soil can become president, or does it mean that only citizens who have received a “natural birth” may become president? Is it foreigners who are being kept from achieving the highest office in the land, or babies delivered by caesarian section? Were the founding fathers concerned about Hessians taking over the white house, or McDuff, from his mother’s womb untimely ripp’d?
The media likes McCain, for some reason, and I’m guessing he will be allowed to run for president because there’s enough gray area in the law to make people say “well, the Panama Canal Zone, on a US military base, it’s practically the same thing, why are you splitting hairs?”
My theory: the GOP has already wadded up this election and hung it out to dry, they know McCain doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance, and they’re using his quasi-legal candidacy to create precedent for Schwarzeneggar to run in 2012. You read it here first.
Today’s headlines
ITEM! Bush has a 19% approval rating. Nineteen. That’s a one and a nine. Richard Nixon, if memory serves, was at 23% percent on the day he resigned. But my favorite statistic is theone about the economy. Just about everyone seems to think it’s not going well. How many people think it’s going great? You’ll never guess: 1%. This is because, of course, the economy is going great for 1% of the country, the same 1% who make more than several million dollars a year and get all the tax breaks.
ITEM! In Guantanamo, a bunch of probably innocent people, after years of incarceration, will be tried and executed, so that Bush can justify their illegal arrest and detention. The money quote: “I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process,” Davis continued. “At which point, [Haynes’s] eyes got wide and he said, ‘Wait a minute, we can’t have acquittals. If we’ve been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can’t have acquittals, we’ve got to have convictions.'”
ITEM! Bush visits a museum in Africa and learns a valuable lesson. This is the man whose supporters are saying that Obama is unelectable because he has no foreign policy experience.
ITEM! Retailers, feeling the pinch of recession, decide to go ahead and simply extort money from innocent people. This is, of course, a great idea. You have lawyers, what are you paying them for? Make them earn their keep by sending them out to shake down customers! As far as I know, Best Buy has not yet resorted to sending armed thugs around to local fruit-stand owners to demand “protection” money, but I sense that is coming.
ITEM! Obama Smear of the DayTM: The National Review notes that, as Obama has mixed-race parents, they must certainly have been Communists. Communists! Note to my conservative brethren (and sistren): Communists have not been considered a national threat since 1953 (and were a big fake threat even then). The median age of a voter who is likely to be swayed by the smear that Obama was raised by Communists is Dead.
ITEM! Professional clown Bill O’Reilly shows his typical class when discussing Michelle Obama. Note that when he uses the term “lynching party” he’s stressing that he doesn’t want one — unless, of course, there is enough evidence to demand one, then he’s all for it. On a personal note, let me just add that I’m about the same age as Michelle Obama, and you know what, for the first time in my adult life, I’m proud of my country too. The first election I voted in was 1980 (my candidate, John Anderson, lost) and over the ensuing 25 years I’ve watched my country get shoved so far to the right that I don’t recognize it any more. This primary season does show an electorate hungry for change, and it’s only in the minds of the lizard-heads on the right that that is a lynchable offense.
ITEM! Telcom immunity! Here’s how it works. You can’t sue the phone company for spying on you unless you can prove they’re spying on you. You can’t prove they’re spying on you because all the evidence of their spying is protected by the federal government. You can’t get the information from the federal government because Bush owns the Supreme Court.
Swiftboating Obama
Someone named Taylor Marsh has been granted a spot at The Huffington Post (my favorite news site) to try to do her best to make Hillary Clinton the Democratic nominee for president. There’s nothing wrong with that — Marsh is pretty open about who she supports, she’s not posing as an objective journalist in this regard.
What I object to is that Clinton and her supporters will do, apparently, anything to get elected, including adopting the tactics of Karl Rove to attack their opponents. The Rove doctrine says: don’t attack an opponent where he’s weakest, attack him where he’s strongest. If a man does important, high-profile work with children, start a whispering campaign that says he’s a child molester. If a man has the compassion to adopt a homeless minority child, tell all the bigots of the nation that “he has a black baby.” And if he’s a certified war hero (and your own candidate is a proven rich-boy draft-dodger) call him a coward and a traitor.
In the case of Obama, since the man is a gifted orator able to move millions of people with his soaring rhetoric of hope and change, call him a plagiarist and say he’s a con man. Obama’s foes, who have spent the past eight years intently studying Rove’s techniques, have little else to go on. They tried at the beginning to do the “attack him where he’s strongest” game, putting out memes like “Is Obama Black Enough?” and “He Has No Ideas Behind His Rhetoric,” both of which are utter hogwash. Now this. A couple of weeks ago, there was a conservative columnist who couldn’t help wondering aloud if Obama could speak so well if he had no teleprompter. That’s right, a man whose hero, George W. Bush, cannot string two words together under any circumstances without sounding like a complete idiot, is worried that Obama might not be so great an orator as he seems to be, and therefore should not become president.
And I keep waiting, but I’m not seeing the Obama camp coming up with crap like this. There’s plenty a crafty, cynical politician could do to smear Clinton and McCain, but I don’t see Obama or his staff doing that. Which I think accounts for a lot of why Clinton isn’t doing as well as she’d like to be.
(For what it’s worth, at least at HuffPo they let other columnists answer ridiculous charges.)
Today is Super Tuesday
Which means that if you, like me, are a citizen of the United States, there’s a good chance that you live in a state with a presidential primary. If you, like me, are a patriot, I urge you to perform your civic duty and vote. If you, like me, are a registered Democrat, I urge you to vote for Barack Obama.
I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the campaign. I don’t listen to the speeches, I don’t watch the debates. I know from long experience that a candidate will say and do whatever it takes to be elected and that the various media outlets will spin all that to their own ends. I know it’s all a big circus, so I don’t pay it that much attention.
I’m voting for Obama tomorrow because, of everyone who has stepped forward to claim their place in the spotlight, he’s the only one who doesn’t make me sick to my stomach when I look at him.
McCain and Romney have given the United States their solemn oath to continue down the disastrous trail that George W. Bush forged, and Clinton, although more in my ideological arena, has run a brutal, vicious campaign that, to my mind, has shown her to be an oily, cynical political animal, willing to stoop to whatever level necessary to gain power. I think we’ve had enough of that.
Finally, if you, like me, can occasionally be influenced by a cheesy, sentimental music video, I urge you to watch this:
Heath Ledger: the internet responds
I am, of course, saddened by the loss of Mr. Ledger, whose work I have enjoyed many times, most recently in I’m Not There. I feel unqualified to honor the man’s memory or reminisce about his affect on culture, so I offer these links instead.
Harry Knowles has a mature, sober appraisal…
Variety takes a more hard-headed, businesslike approach…
While I Can Has Cheezburger offers a touching tribute of their own.