Not liking it at all
Maureen Dowd has a very entertaining piece in the NYT about the chick flick she is watching. She doesn’t like it at all, but can’t turn away:
It’s easy to see where this movie is going. It begins, of course, with a cute, cool unknown from Alaska who has never even been on “Meet the Press” triumphing over a cute, cool unknowable from Hawaii who has been on “Meet the Press” a lot. Americans, suspicious that the Obamas have benefited from affirmative action without being properly grateful, and skeptical that Michelle really likes “The Brady Bunch” and “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” reject the 47-year-old black contender as too uppity and untested.
Instead, they embrace 72-year-old John McCain and 44-year-old Sarah Palin, whose average age is 58, a mere two years older than the average age of the Obama-Biden ticket. Enthusiastic Republicans don’t see the choice of Palin as affirmative action, despite her thin résumé and gaping absence of foreign policy knowledge, because they expect Republicans to put an underqualified “babe,” as Rush Limbaugh calls her, on the ticket. They have a tradition of nominating fun, bantamweight cheerleaders from the West, like the previous Miss Congeniality types Dan Quayle and W., and then letting them learn on the job…
Obama may have been president of The Harvard Law Review, but Palin graduated from the University of Idaho with a minor in poli-sci and worked briefly as a TV sports reporter. And she was tougher on the basketball court than the ethereal Obama, earning the nickname “Sarah Barracuda.”
The legacy of Geraldine Ferraro was supposed to be that no one would ever go on a blind date with history again. But that crazy maverick and gambler McCain does it, and conservatives and evangelicals rally around him in admiration of his refreshingly cynical choice of Sarah, an evangelical Protestant and anti-abortion crusader who became a hero when she decided to have her baby, who has Down syndrome, and when she urged schools to debate creationism as well as that stuffy old evolution thing.
Palinistas, as they are called, love Sarah’s spunky, relentlessly quirky “Northern Exposure” story from being a Miss Alaska runner-up, and winning Miss Congeniality, to being mayor and hockey mom in Wasilla, a rural Alaskan town of 6,715, to being governor for two years to being the first woman ever to run on a national Republican ticket. (Why do men only pick women as running mates when they need a Hail Mary pass? It’s a little insulting.)…
As she once told Vogue, she’s learned the hard way to deal with press comments about her looks. “I wish they’d stick with the issues instead of discussing my black go-go boots,” she said. “A reporter once asked me about it during the campaign, and I assured him I was trying to be as frumpy as I could by wearing my hair on top of my head and these schoolmarm glasses.”…
The movie ends with the former beauty queen shaking out her pinned-up hair, taking off her glasses, slipping on ruby red peep-toe platform heels that reveal a pink French-style pedicure, and facing down Vladimir Putin in an island in the Bering Strait. Putting away her breast pump, she points her rifle and informs him frostily that she has some expertise in Russia because it’s close to Alaska. “Back off, Commie dude,” she says. “I’m a much better shot than Cheney.”
Question: is the scriptwriter and director of this film Karl Rove? (One observes a lot of orchestration in the background. For example, Mr. Limbaugh was evidently given advance notice of the VP selection, or at least seemed to claim as much; clearly the Palin selection was the last and best opportunity for the Republican talker to suspend his feud with Senator McCain and get with the program until November. Mr. Limbaugh’s instant, over-the-top, wild enthusiasm for Governor Palin seemed orchestrated and explicitly designed to help heal the breach between McCain and the GOP base. A scripted event perhaps — but by whom?)
August 31st, 2008 at 2:37 pm
And, most importantly, “Sarah” is the way for “John” to revise and extend his pristine views of ANWR.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:23 pm
We all had the same advance notice as Rush did when McCain said “She” and went through her bio. Also, several hours before the official announcement, AP and others had mentioned that Sarah Palin and her family were seen boarding a private jet.
So when Rush says “Everybody knows who it is. Bring her out there!” it does not imply any special advance notice.
The McCain campaign probably did time her appearance to coincide with Rush’s commercial breaks especially since he speaks to so many of the disaffected base. This seems to be a real possibility, which Rush himself pointed out on his website “A flawless event, which even hit the EIB breaks.” His transcript shows the following comments:
“We’ll take our commercial break here, so as not to screw up our affiliates. This applause is going to go on for a while. We’ll come back after the break and JIP her remarks and listen when we get back.”..and toward the end:”Sarah, we got a commercial break.”
I don’t see this as implying that Rush was “in” on the pick just that he and his audience were wisely taken into account for the announcement to have its greatest possible impact.
Rush’s “over-the-top enthusiasm” seemed genuine enough to me. Especially since the McCain campaign had sent out false indications of a prochoice VP pick such as Lieberman, Ridge & others. I had thought that this might be in preparation for announcing Romney as VP - to lessen the evangelical opposition to his Mormon background by getting them to consider “Well, at least he isn’t prochoice.”
Anyway, the McCain campaign showed their ability to toy with everyone’s mind and that they could keep a secret long enough to maximize the impact of the announcement of his VP pick. Perhaps Karl Rove was consulted. But I don’t think see any especially compelling evidence that Rush was.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I like the Palin pick but acknowledge that it’s risky. Things might come out that will change the electorate’s mind, or mine. Still, who’d have thought that John McCain might be the one to resuscitate the Reagan coalition?
The Dowd piece is deranged, as is much of the little MSM scribbling about Palin that I’ve bothered to glance at. So far I’ve only sampled the 275+ comments here; the Palin skepticism therein is left-of-center but sane.
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Keith writes, And, most importantly, “Sarah” is the way for “John” to revise and extend his pristine views of ANWR.
McCain’s acceptance speech would be a great vehicle for that–if it’s done right. The speech should emphasize the domestic & national-security importance of energy and issue a ‘whatever-it-takes’ call to action. An ANWR change of mind (flip-flop if you will) should not be phrased so as to leave McCain open to the accusation that he is a dotard manipulated by the gold-digging Palin. The MSM would say that anyway, but McCain shouldn’t give them free ammunition.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Palin has more executive experience than the other three candidates combined. OK, so nobody has much experience running big things. But her experience has been successful and popular. The Dems’ ticket has zip in this regard. What is left is a clear choice between what philosophy and what kind of personal character we want to run this country. It’s not about Bush or the Clintons or what some partisans in the chattering classes create in the form of cleaver graffiti on the walls of this shinning city on the hill. I glad the average American is more serious and fair minded than those who claim to inform as they attempt to merely influence.
September 1st, 2008 at 9:17 am
I miss Times Select. It was a better world when Dowd was limited to the audience she deserves.
September 1st, 2008 at 11:05 am
Reading the Dowd piece, I think it should start with the preface– Dear Dairy. What a nut job, she sounds like a 13 year old.
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:53 am
Question: is the scriptwriter and director of this film Karl Rove?
There’s plenty to dislike about Karl Rove’s films, but the plots are focused and tightly scripted. This doesn’t seem like his handiwork:
The good news is that Obama has been forgotten for the time being and Palin/McCain are getting all the publicity.
The bad news is that the publicity is about Palin’s 17-year-old daughter’s pregnancy–and about Palin lawyering up for Troopergate and being threatened with a subpoena (some documentation is here and here).
I want to believe that McCain is ready for this. It’s important that he promptly demonstrate control of the narrative.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Unfortunately, McCain can do little to control the narrative when up against both the Democrats and the media. Is that really two different things? (lets just call them collectively “the left”) Although considering how the left is conducting itself concerning Palin, maybe he should just let them narrate away. Kinda like letting a crazed defendant testify, refusing his 5th amendment rights.
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Poor Miss Dowd. So bitter, and she doesn’t even have a gun to cling to.
And she certainly should lay down being angry at the pretty- she has nothing to be ashamed of there. It’s a bit pathological.