Reporters asked Obama today what he thought of Ms. Mooseburgers attacks. Obama isn't falling for it. He said he isn't running against Palin. He is running against McCain.
McCain and Palin are truly two peas in a pod in one way. They're both lacking. Ms. Mooseburger in qualifications. McCain in marbles.
Ms. Mooseburger rallied the conservatives with her "family values" -- having an unwed pregnant teen, marrying her off, and not aborting her downs syndrome baby, which I argue is not so extraordinary. Many women would choose to keep a special needs baby.
But for wingnuts, that's what government is for -- pushing their family values on everyone else, essentially, imposing their religion on everyone else because they, after all, are the righteous ones.
But their family values aren't going to help govern the country, which is in desperate need of economic and foreign policy leadership.
I'm already bored of Ms. Mooseburger, cause I've done the research and she's flimsy. Somewhere there is a group of men cackling in a room, planning their next move.
I'm convinced Palin's a pawn. She's the great distraction. The bludger in Quidditch, the sleight of hand.
For now, it seems the republican ploy has worked. People are distracted. But it seems, with few qualifications, she could fizzle real fast and that would be the end of McCain's campaign.
Republicans are desperate.
Here's why: Most republicans are well to do, they are the party of business. They fear the tax hike that's coming their way under Obama. They fear not being able to pay their workers low wages. They fear tighter regulations on business. They fear that workers will be able to form unions. They fear not being able to conduct business just the way they like.
Judith Warner hits it spot on:
It’s a smoke and mirrors game aimed at diverting attention from the fact that the party’s tax policies have helped create an elite that’s more distant from “the people” than ever before. And from the fact that the party’s dogged allegiance to up-by-your-bootstraps individualism — an individualism exemplified by Palin, the frontierswoman who somehow has managed to “balance” five children and her political career with no need for support — is leading to a culture-wide crack-up.
Here's more. I recommend the whole read. If anyone has fallen for Ms. Mooseburger they need to slap themselves.
NYT: Palin sounded, at times, like she was speaking a foreign language as she gave voice to the beautifully crafted words that had been prepared for her on Wednesday night.
But that wasn’t held against her. Thanks to the level of general esteem that greeted her ascent to the podium, it seems we’ve all got to celebrate the fact that America’s Hottest Governor (Princess of the Fur Rendezvous 1983, Miss Wasilla 1984) could speak at all.
Could there be a more thoroughgoing humiliation for America’s women?
You are not, I think, supposed now to say this. Just as, I am sure, you are certainly not supposed to feel that having Sarah Palin put forth as the Republicans’ first female vice presidential candidate is just about as respectful a gesture toward women as was John McCain’s suggestion, last month, that his wife participate in a topless beauty contest.
Such thoughts, we are told, are sexist. And elitist. After all, via Palin, we now hear without cease, the People are speaking. The “real” “authentic,” small-town “Everyday People,” of Hockey Moms and Blue Collar Dads whom even Rudolph Giuliani now invokes as an antidote to the cosmopolite Obamas and their backers in the liberal media. (Remind me please, once again, what was the name of the small town where Rudy grew up?)
Why does this woman – who to some of us seems as fake as they can come, with her delicate infant son hauled out night after night under the klieg lights and her pregnant teenage daughter shamelessly instrumentalized for political purposes — deserve, to a unique extent among political women, to rank as so “real”
