Palin Problem
She’s out of her league.
September 26, 2008
By Kathleen Parker
If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream — away from Sarah Palin.
To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president — and possibly president — is to risk being labeled anti-woman.
Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.
Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick — what a difference a financial crisis makes — and a more complicated picture has emerged.
As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.
Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan’s president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)
And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she’s had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).
Finally, Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain’s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood — a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.
Palin didn’t make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.
It was fun while it lasted.
Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”
When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”
If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.
What to do?
McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.
Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
— Kathleen Parker is a nationally syndicated columnist.
© 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
Friday, September 26, 2008
Republican's For Obama
Palin Problem
She’s out of her league.
September 26, 2008
By Kathleen Parker
If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream — away from Sarah Palin.
To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president — and possibly president — is to risk being labeled anti-woman.
Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.
Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick — what a difference a financial crisis makes — and a more complicated picture has emerged.
As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.
Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan’s president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)
And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she’s had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).
Finally, Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain’s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood — a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.
Palin didn’t make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.
It was fun while it lasted.
Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”
When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”
If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.
What to do?
McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.
Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
— Kathleen Parker is a nationally syndicated columnist.
© 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
She’s out of her league.
September 26, 2008
By Kathleen Parker
If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream — away from Sarah Palin.
To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president — and possibly president — is to risk being labeled anti-woman.
Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.
Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick — what a difference a financial crisis makes — and a more complicated picture has emerged.
As we’ve seen and heard more from John McCain’s running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn’t know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.
Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan’s president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)
And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she’s had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).
Finally, Palin’s narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain’s running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood — a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.
Palin didn’t make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.
It was fun while it lasted.
Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I’ve been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I’ve also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there’s not much content there. Here’s but one example of many from her interview with Hannity: “Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we’re talking about today. And that’s something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this.”
When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama’s numbers, Palin blustered wordily: “I’m not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who’s more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who’s actually done it?”
If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.
What to do?
McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.
Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
— Kathleen Parker is a nationally syndicated columnist.
© 2008, Washington Post Writers Group
Monday, September 22, 2008
Sarah Palin - The Frightening Truth
Eve Ensler, the American playwright, performer, feminist and
activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following
about Sarah Palin.
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she
was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the
claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have
a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness
or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I
have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact
that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the
polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life
trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence
against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the
Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people
who made this choice count on the goodne ss and solidarity of
Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical
to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving
the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls
options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence
and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous
choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those
candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in
so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally
disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the
world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have
seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the
presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets
better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The
melting of the arctic , the storms that are destroying our cities, the
pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is
fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The
earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves
and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to
be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As
she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women
who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should
have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or
not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I
imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many
babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she
has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense
with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an
environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who coul d
and might very well be the next president of the United States. She
would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting
rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot
hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private
right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when
war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in
his name, t hat is the end of separation of church and state and the
undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this
election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the
future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine
whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever
uninh abitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards
dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether
we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in
alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It
will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or
whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine
whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of
fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your
power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the
hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of
teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of
destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises
that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis,
doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the
floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between
nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing
we call life?
Eve Ensler
activist best known for "The Vagina Monologues", wrote the following
about Sarah Palin.
Drill, Drill, Drill
I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she
was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the
claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have
a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness
or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I
have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact
that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the
polar bears.
I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life
trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence
against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the
Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people
who made this choice count on the goodne ss and solidarity of
Feminists.
But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical
to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving
the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls
options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence
and war.
I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous
choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those
candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in
so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally
disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the
world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have
seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the
presidency with regularity.
Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor.
In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets
better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The
melting of the arctic , the storms that are destroying our cities, the
pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is
fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The
earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves
and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to
be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As
she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."
Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women
who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should
have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or
not.
She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I
imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many
babies that makes.
Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she
has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense
with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an
environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who coul d
and might very well be the next president of the United States. She
would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.
Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting
rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot
hundreds of wolves from the air.
Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private
right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when
war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in
his name, t hat is the end of separation of church and state and the
undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.
I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this
election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the
future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine
whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever
uninh abitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards
dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence
through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether
we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in
alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It
will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or
whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine
whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of
fear, fundamentalism and aggression.
If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your
power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the
hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of
teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of
destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises
that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis,
doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.
Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the
floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between
nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing
we call life?
Eve Ensler
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Sara Palin Dangerous For America
I haven't seen Sara Palin address the nation yet. What I've learned from articles I've read so far, she frightens me though. Anyone who is so religiously fervent should not be in control of a significant political administration. We need leaders who's views can embrace all thoughts and all walks of life.
There is a fundamental philosophical difference we are faced with in this election.
Do you believe that our best days are behind us or ahead of us?
If you believe that we must regress or remain stuck in outdated ideals then, you should vote for John McCain.
If you believe our potential as American's, as human beings can be greater than what it is, then you must vote for Barack Obama.
There is a fundamental philosophical difference we are faced with in this election.
Do you believe that our best days are behind us or ahead of us?
If you believe that we must regress or remain stuck in outdated ideals then, you should vote for John McCain.
If you believe our potential as American's, as human beings can be greater than what it is, then you must vote for Barack Obama.
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