Thursday, October 16, 2008

Say it ain't so Sarah and Joe the (unlicensed) plumber

I knew she would finally go there. Speaking at a rally in Maine today, Republican vice-presidential nominee, Gov. Sarah Palin, made reference to Michelle Obama’s statement from early in the campaign, a statement made even before it was clear that her husband was going to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. According to Glenn Adams, writing for the Associated Press:

"Palin also made reference to a remark early in the campaign by Obama's wife, Michelle, who had said that ‘for the first time in my adult life I am proud of my country.’ The governor's comments came after country music star Lee Greenwood sang the ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ and ‘God Bless the USA.’"

"’We believe also that there is a reason we all get teared-up when we hear Lee Greenwood sing about America, because we love America and we are always proud of being Americans,’ she said. ‘And we don't apologize for being Americans.’"

This comes three days after Gov. Palin’s Commissioner for Rural Affairs in Alaska, Rhonda McBride, resigned. According to the Associated Press, her reason for resigning is she thinks "it would help to have an Alaska Native in this position". To be fair Todd Palin is part Yup'ik Eskimo and two of Palin's 13 cabinet members are members of Alaskan tribes. Members of indigenous tribes make up 16% of Alaska's overall population. So, her cabinet seems representative. Of course, numbers rarely tell the whole story. According to the same report, Gov. Palin left the Rural Commissioner "position unfilled her first year in office and ignored Native leaders' suggestions on the selection process".

Roger Cohen, who, in an earlier column, figured that the insurance actuarial tables give Palin a 1 in 6 or 7 chance of becoming president should the Republican ticket win, wrote that "Palin, with her vile near-accusations of treason against Barack Obama, her cloying doggone hymns to small-town U.S.A., her with-us-or-against-us refrain, is really an impostor.

"She’s the representative of a kind of last-gasp Republicanism, of an exhausted party, whose proud fiscal conservatism and patriotism have given away to scurrilous fear-mongering and ideological confusion."


Cohen wrote this column, which appears in today's NY Times, before the Maine speech. It is funny how she didn't mention hubby Todd Palin's membership in the Alaska Independence Party, which advocates for secession from this country we love. Such delicious irony and all before getting to the media circus surrounding Joe the unlicensed plumber, who would actually get a tax cut under the Obama plan and nothing under the McCain plan, and who has apparently never been introduced to the idea of a graduated income tax. He is humble, saying, "I just hope I'm not making too much of a fool of myself." I know how he feels, that thought runs through my mind everytime I click on the PUBLISH POST button. I have no problem with Joe. I would like more voters to step up and ask hard questions. It is the media circus, like the whole lipstick on a pig incident, that I deplore.

I have already leaned heavily on one Jewish guy. So, I'll bring in John Stewart to seal the dealio:



I am adding to my list of notable posts for today Suzanne's far too aptly entitled The moral obligation to vote and other forms of torture.

2 comments:

  1. Palin the vile accuser and impostor? An ideologically confused fear-monger?

    Don't forget the Democratic candidate for VP.
    [claims to]
    Accept Catholic church view that life begins at conception. (Apr 2007)
    [and yet]
    Roe v. Wade is as close to a consensus as we can get. (Oct 2008)
    (Roe v. Wade by the way states that the word 'person,' as used in the [Constitution], does not include the unborn)
    Voted NO on defining unborn child as eligible for SCHIP. (Mar 2008)
    Voted NO on prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion. (Mar 2008)
    Voted YES on expanding research to more embryonic stem cell lines. (Apr 2007)
    Voted NO on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions. (Jul 2006)
    Voted NO on criminal penalty for harming unborn fetus during other crime. (Mar 2004)
    Voted NO on maintaining ban on Military Base Abortions. (Jun 2000)
    Voted NO on banning human cloning. (Feb 1998)
    Rated 0% by the NRLC, indicating a pro-choice stance. (Dec 2006)
    Ensure access to and funding for contraception. (Feb 2007)

    Some answers to the hard questions:
    McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University
    Bishop Robert Hermann
    Bishop Kevin Farrell and Bishop Kevin Vann
    Bishop Finn

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good points all, but, as with Suzanne's posting of the Robert George article, to which you link, it reduces the question down, yet again, to one issue. I do not believe that abortions will increase, or dramatically decrease, regardless as to who gets elected. I want to remind everybody who reads my blog that over the past month-and-a-half I have certainly not been heistant to call Sen. Biden out on these inconsistencies and the immorality of his position on abortion. Let's be careful about seeing the overturning of Roe as surefire way of ending abortion-on-demand.

    It would serve Gov Palin well to articulate the contrast on these issues, instead of being a vile accuser. The tenor and tone of the McCain campaign, a sure hallmark of Turd Blossom, is what will cost them this election. Sadly, Sarah Palin has allowed herself to be their dupe. After all, in the beginning, I believe she was selected to lend the McCain campaign credibility on issues like these and to reassure conservative voters. They did not do their homework. McCain's presidential campaign, at least since picking Palin and the convention, has been sloppy politics.

    Looking proportionally, across the vast range issues facing our nation, even given the fundamental importance of abortion, I am much more comfortable with Sen. Biden possibly being president than I am with Gov. Palin likely becoming president.

    I know my position is a bit of a gamble, but so goes proportional reasoning. It makes me sick to have to compromise, but less sick than going the other way.

    ReplyDelete

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