RumourNation

The Knee-Jerk Express

So, it's been nearly a month since John McCain's surprise announcement regarding his running mate.  Like a bolt out of the blue, Sarah Palin arrived on the scene:  underqualified, under-informed, and under-vetted.  The last item became pretty clear when the McCain campaign refused to admit that they knew nothing about Palin's pregnant daughter, or to release any information regarding the VP-vetting process in general.  ("Are you secretly gay? Do you have an affinity for airport bathrooms?  No?  Great, you're in.") And, now that Palin's dead-cat bounce is fading, and the Walmart moms are getting to the bottom of things with her -- and finding her a little lacking -- McCain brings out another whopper:  He's going to suspend his campaign, step into a phone booth, and re-emerge in Washington as the Superman of credit crises.  Yes, Mr. McCain is going to Washington to solve all our problems.  And Obama, he says, should be following in his footsteps. Oh, BTW, can we call off Friday's debate, while we're at it? 

Who took McWalnuts off his meds?  Are we really looking for a President who, in every pressure-filled situation, has this kind of a knee-jerk reaction?  I admit a certain level of admiration for his political advisors, who know how to stir the pot, but over the long haul, the outcomes are not good.  Every situation seems to be assessed in terms of short-term gains (meaning:  What will give me a leg up in the battleground states?), rather than longer-term positives (meaning: I really am putting my Country First™). 

Everyone I have polled in my admittedly-small and definitely Obama-leaning circle of cronies has had the same reaction to McCain's announcement:  He's afraid of the debate.   And whether or not this is true, we're all amazed that a man who last week announced that the economy is fine, and who has wrapped himself in a couple of financial debacles in the past, now deems himself necessary in a negotiating process that started, and has proceeded, without him. 

I watched Obama's town hall today, and he echoed what I've been feeling for over a year:  This crisis has been affecting the middle class for quite some time.  Inflationary pressure, declining home values, a deteriorating job market-- it's folks like my nephew, who couldn't even find a job at McDonald's when he came home from college for the summer -- who've been pummeled already.   All they're saying to Wall Street is this:  "Welcome to the party, y'all.  And BTW, we're not interested in funding your golden parachutes in return for all the trouble you've caused us." 

So much for our 30+ years of trickle-down economics (yes, we got a bit of a respite with Clinton, but Dubya trashed those achievements, didn't he?).   We've trickled ourselves right into a New New Deal.  We might as well put a guy with the political DNA to manage it into office.  FDR Version 2.0, if you will.  I don't think that's McCain.  He seems to put about 30 seconds of time into the planning process: rather than decision-making capability, he seems to have some kind of cartoonishly-large hero complex that causes him to leap before he looks.  Great for the headlines, murder on the bottom line. 

Thanks, but no thanks.  I'm voting for the guy who calls Paul Volcker for advice, not the one who calls Carly Fiorina, who got bounced out of her own job for knee-jerk reactions.  Birds of a feather ...  If you buy McCain's story today, I got a Bridge to Nowhere and some AIG stock to sell you. 

(Art adapted from a cartoon by Olle, with my apologies.  Here's a link to the original: politicalhumor.about.com/.../Superman-McCain.htm)

The Britney Spears Candidate

I almost hate to give Sarah Palin more press, since the furor seems to be dying down, but what-the-hell, my 20 blog readers aren't going to make that much difference, anyway.   So, here's the thing:  every educated woman I know between the ages of 25 and 60 is furious about McCain's choice.   Every single one of us has the same reaction when we look at Palin and her dog-racin' First Dude, her pregnant teenage daughter, the baby she keeps toting around like a sack of flour:  Trailer Trash. 

Now, given that I was raised in the South, I know a thing or two about Trailer Trash.  I also know that I, and my family, have worked hard to avoid that label.  To make sure the kids stayed in school, to keep the drag racing to a minimum, to avoid trotting out crazy aunts and differently-abled kids as a kind of circus sideshow.  Even though it almost killed my mother to do so, she talked to us about sex (and according to her teenage grandchildren, she still talks incessantly to them about sex -- and the importance of birth control).  My mother, God bless her soul, even got a midnight paper route to help keep me in my top-notch private university -- which I happily attended for four years straight, earning my degree before trotting off to another college for an MBA.   Despite a familiarity with, and perhaps an affinity for, humble things, Trailer Trash we were not.

But there's sexiness in being Trailer Trash these days, I suppose.  After all, Britney Spears has made a career of it.  But Cheetos, cut-offs and bare feet in gas station bathrooms are not the stuff of thoughtful folks.  And I can imagine Ms. Palin, for all her lipstick and her carefully-coiffed hair, wandering into the truck stop loo, moose gun and cigarette in hand.

I, for one, can't help noting the irony that McWalnuts, after lambasting Obama as an empty-headed celebrity by comparing him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, picked the political version of Britney Spears as his running mate.  Way to go, John.  You proved pretty definitively that publicity, not policy, drives the Straight Talk express.  Even Paris showed you up with a humorous -- and intelligent --riposte.  Who's the empty-headed celebrity now?

Bring out the moose-hunter huntin' gun, Obama.  Those of us who have abandoned the cutoffs, the Marlboro's and the First Dudes in favor of careers, families and lives of respectability are behind you 100%.  Even Britney's cleaning up her act.  Maybe we should give her an "Obama" sticker for her truck, and put her on the Dem ticket in a few years:  "Britney in 2012.  If you liked Palin, you'll LOVE her!"   

Defying Conventions

So, those of us who care about the Presidential election (hopefully that's most of us) were obviously shocked when John McCain announced his choice for Vice President. It took the shine off of Obama's hopeful and moving speech, delivered on the anniversary of MLK's legendary "I Have a Dream" oration.  McCain was either inspired or insane, and I spent a few days trying to make up my mind.  I dutifully watched Palin introduce herself -- complete with infant, pregnant teen and baby daddy -- on national television; I dutifully sat through Foghorn Leghorn and Droopy Dog, and I tried to convince myself that this all made sense. But all I could think about what this:  the Republican Convention looks like the America I came from, but it doesn't look like the America I live in now.

The Republican audience was suspiciously bereft of color.  Most of the women were blonde.  (I'm blonde, at the moment, but now I'm thinking that Palin's rocking the brunette with glasses thing, which was my look!  Maybe I should go back, and run for national office.)  There was the occasional black or brown face, lovingly caressed by television cameras looking for anything -- anything -- to break the monotony.

Contrast that with the color of the Democratic Convention, which virtually shone like a rainbow.  And the color of my neighborhood, which happens to be old, well-established and affluent.  Diversity is not the bailiwick of the poor in Ell-Lay!  We border Koreatown, where we often shop bakeries for yummy French-Korean goodies and occasionally hit a galbi restaurant.    Being of that age, my daughter just attended her current best friend's Bat Mitzvah.  The girls arranged in the front rows came from all ethnic backgrounds - Black, Asian, Middle Eastern, Latino.   Another close friend, adopted from China, will celebrate her own Bat Mitzvah next year.  And they're just a sampling from one mid-size all-girls Catholic school in the city. 

When we order out for dinner, we are just as likely to choose an Indian restaurant (there are several nearby) as we are to choose sushi, Thai or Italian.  While my daughter was on a vegetarian kick, we used to lunch at the local vegan joint.  I've been lucky enough to have a series of well-educated, gracious au pairs help me raise my child (none of them sporting infants or baby-daddies).  The languages spoken in our household have included German, Italian, Czech, French and Spanish.  The streets in my neighborhood are quieter on Saturdays, because when you're an Orthodox Jew, you leave your car in the driveway and walk.   

No, I don't pretend for a moment that we are typical, at least not generally.  But when I was watching the Democratic Convention on television, I didn't feel atypical -- I felt grateful.  (And I'm not even a Democrat.)  Grateful that, for once, I could find my own tribe in the crowd, that despite the fact that I'm blonde (sort of) and white, I don't have to believe in a world where everyone looks, thinks and talks like me. 

Where does the current Republican worldview come from?  Is it fear?  I don't find the emphasis on stopping the tide of progress--creationism, abridging medical research, ignoring global warming--to be congruent with our country's reputation for ingenuity, determination and leadership.  It is totally at odds with those "Country First" placards they kept waving around, fanning their blonde headpieces.  It makes us look backwards, and stupid.   

Nor do I understand why they would reject the waves of diversity that have always powered these United States.   My family actually showed up here around 1653 (and proceeded to steal a lot of land from the previous inhabitants, BTW). If anything, I should be shooing out the blonde helmet-heads, asking them what they're doing here.  As a matter of fact, I might just do that, and replace them with far more interesting folks, who are willing to work hard at crappy jobs, pay taxes, and are not worried whether my lover shares my gender and what god or God I worship. 

I know the conventions are designed to be love-fests, to showcase a candidate's pandering to the party base, and I clearly saw that in St. Paul.   Pandering to the point of delusion.  Stand up, you Americans, and demand the truth.  Don't sit their with your little blonde hairdon'ts and smile when you hear the lies.  You're better than that.  We're better than that.  Go back out on the street, and take a look at what your country really looks like.  It might break your heart, but there's nothing to fear.  Brown and black folks have infants, pregnant teenagers and baby-daddies, too.  It doesn't make them qualified to be Vice President, but it does make them qualified to be your neighbors, friends and fellow countrymen.  Quit shutting the doors on them:  you might just discover a little extra happiness, and some peace, in your own Christian-God-creationism-believing-immigration-reforming souls. 

How can McCain compete?

Yeah, I was a Hilary supporter, but now I'm definitely voting for this guy. 

Thanks, Wonkette.

JibJab's New Campaign Satire

Pretty rousing ... I'm going to sing it in the shower. 

Send a JibJab Sendables® eCard Today!

Barackula: The Musical

Okay, this is funny.  And more than a little sexy, disturbingly. 

The Truth about American Elections

This is hilarious.  And a little painful.  From our friends at the Onion . ..

Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results Of 2008 Election Early

A Little Snippy, yes?

Geez, I can't believe it's been five weeks since I posted.  Five weeks of listening to lots of blather about golden boy Barry Obama.   So, Hillary makes a comeback, and what happens?  He gets a little snippy.  Barry, I'm glad to see that you're human, but save the Dubya-isms until you actually get in office, okay?
(As Veep, of course.)

Super Tuesday with Agnes and Myrtle

I already mailed my absentee ballot, I'm so excited for this election.  But for the rest of you "declined to state" party members, here are some excellent voting instructions from Agnes and Myrtle for next week's primaries: 

Sin Cojones

I'm wearing my Hillary t-shirt today, in celebration.  I had started a blog post in reaction to asshole Jake Tapper's post on ABC.com (I refuse to link to it) after Clinton's debate appearance in New Hampshire.  For responding firmly and cogently on a question, and refusing to accept the condescension that John Edwards was attempting to hand her, Hillary was dubbed, among other things, "shrill" and "angry."

And the comments . .  woah.  Why is it that it's unacceptable to refer to Obama's race and background in perjorative words, but it's perfectly acceptable to call a woman candidate a "bitch," or even more disturbingly, a "c***?"  (I hate that word so much I refuse to type it.)

Well, trust priestess Gloria Steinem to hit the nail on the head:  It's all about the boys, and the fact that they are scared.  In her Op-Ed piece in the NYT, "Women are Never Front Runners,"  Steinem says "Gender is the most restricting force in American life," and reminds us that black men received the vote 50 years before women did.  American men, apparently, don't have the cojones to support a woman president.

And when Hillary suffered a defeat in a primary that she never really thought she would win, the boys emerged.  They hooted and hollered over the perceived comedown of a powerful woman, one who's consistently been held to higher performance standards on the campaign trail, and who has handled the challenge with grace and dignity.  The worse they've been able to come up with to date?  A few debate missteps on one incident of "tearing up."  Get real, guys. 

Who came to the rescue?  Women.  Out in force.  Even those who previously said they weren't supporting Hillary noticed how unfair her treatment was.  Read Rebecca Traister's excellent article in Salon.   Women are beginning to realize that the calm around Hillary's candidacy was unnatural, that standing back and waiting for "another woman candidate" may mean waiting for a day that will never come.  The glass ceiling seems to get higher and higher, but it never seems to go away.

And look at the countries we revile.  We're smug about Pakistan, aren't we?  And yet the crazies there had the balls to put a woman in office years ago, and then martyr her just to make her story stick.  India. Israel (okay, we don't revile Israel, but most Americans still think we're better than they are).  Even ever-proper Brits thought a chick would do a good job.   But we still keep sticking the Christian white guys in office, even while they become an endangered species.  And if we can't find a white one, well then, we'll take a black or brown one, gosh-darn it.  Anyone but a woman.  (Never mind that we make up the majority of the voting population.)   

Boys, beware.  I think women might be waking up.  I want to send a giant shout-out to all the sisters who marched out in New Hampshire and handed a great big "up yours" to self-appointed pundits like Chris Mathews.  Let's keep up the good work.  Carpe diem, ladies.