I'm, like, unhealthily obsessed with Sarah Palin right now.
I keep scanning feeds hoping to find breaking news along the lines of "Palin found to be doing something incredibly illegal; VP candidacy dropped."
There's something heartbreakingly, mindbreakingly wrong about the way in which she is being embraced by her party. Forget her family drama; forget the gun-toting and the abstinence-teaching; forget the fact that we saw Levi, last night, smacking a big wad of gum as he joined his new family on the Xcel Energy Center stage.
She's unqualified. She's so unqualified.
And we live in a country where her claim that she can be Vice President because she was a mayor and a hockey mom is embraced.
What's difficult is that it's a variation on the same narrative that Obama fans love to love about Obama: a person rising out of obscurity, against all odds, shattering barriers at every step.
So I can understand why Palin fans love the same story.
But she's so unqualified.
She admits she knows nothing about the world outside America and has, in fact, left the country only once in her life.
And sure, she's down-home, just like us, drives a minivan, doesn't stand on ceremony. Future son-in-law chewing gum on the national stage? No big deal, we're all friends here.
(Side rant: that one thing -- that stupid little wad of gum -- strikes fear into my heart. It speaks to a lack of attention to detail and nuance. No one; not Sarah, who, to be fair, probably didn't know about it beforehand, not Todd, not Bristol, not even the assistant stage manager standing in the wings with the family before they went onstage; no one told Levi to get rid of the gum.
Which means they didn't notice, which is bad, or they didn't care, which is worse.)
And she's so unqualified.
Even if she hadn't lied about her policies and past decisions, even if she hadn't exploited her daughter to cover her ass, even if she hadn't delivered a nasty speech insulting her opponent... even if she were kind and sophisticated and intelligent... she's completely unqualified.
She's never been part of the world; only part of America. And that is not what we need in a Vice President right now.
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7 comments:
I live in India and even to an uninvolved spectator of the the US election, Palin appears extremely unqualified?
She kills animals for sport.Being a super mom is her only claim to fame , yet she didn't even do that properly & her teenage kid ended up pregnant. What sort of super mom is so concerned about her kids that she's going to drags her little son whose barely 4 months old & has DS on the campaign trail across America?
Talk of values.This woman only uses her kids.
Agreed.
But the flip side of the argument is "Women who bear children should put their families ahead of their careers," so it's a slippery slope...
And, truth be told, she doesn't have to drag Trig anywhere (he could stay at home in Alaska), but you know she'll bring him along.
I'll admit, I'm confused about one of the last points... in what way did she exploit her daughter to cover her own ass?
Also, she might have brought the baby with her because she's breastfeeding. She can't really pump and freeze from now until Election Day, right?
She released the news of Bristol's pregnancy not as an item in itself, but as a way to stop rumors that Trig wasn't her baby.
Your point about breastfeeding is well taken.
OK, I can see what you mean now. I still think your wording is a little strong, since
(a) The governor’s announcement about her daughter was neither untrue nor unkind. She would have had to make it in the next few weeks anyway, even without the rumors -- and given the circumstances, making it last week had to be the best way to handle a hard situation. If you had to choose between announcing your teenage daughter’s pregnancy, or keeping it a secret while people went on speculating that she had already had the baby and her whole family was covering up the truth – wouldn’t you choose the first option? Rather than being exploitation, wouldn’t that actually be in your daughter’s best interests?
(b) It seems safe to say that the assertion that Gov. Palin lied about being Trig’s mother was not true. When someone is not at fault, “clearing her name” or even “clearing her daughter’s name” is probably more fair than “covering her ass”.
Anyway, just wanted to offer a different view, since my guess is a lot of readers prefer your take. ;) Hope you’re enjoying the new apartment!
Honestly, the woman drives me nuts. It is unbearable - her performance with Couric was even worse than her performance with Gibson.
It is an embarrassment to women that the first woman to be put on the ticket in 25 years is incompetent.
And it should be a huge dent in McCain's credibility.
If you are searching for stuff on her - the first place to look is HuffPo. It is clearly biased, but it is entertaining :)
"Honestly, the woman drives me nuts. It is unbearable - her performance with Couric was even worse than her performance with Gibson."
In what respect, Shripriya? ;)
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