I really still have no idea how to react to the Palin pick.
On the one hand, I am beyond enraged at the hypocrisy and misogyny of McCain's pick. On the other hand, I feel completely unsettled, like we have all been duped or hoodwinked, and that there is another shoe waiting to drop that will snooker us all, and put another out-of-touch, bellicose Republican in the White House for four more years. On still another hand (I'm in a Durga mood this morning), I marvel at the continued audacity of the Republican party to basically stick their fingers in the eyes of actual, engaged and intelligent Americans. Still, another hand slaps me and says: 'Wait - the American people cannot POSSIBLY be so totally gullible as to fall for this pick,' which consoles my mind, until yet another hand grabs the TV remote, flips to a "news" channel and sees everyone raving about how "bold," and "inspired" and "game-changing" this pick is. A different hand opines that whatever the rationale of the pick, it totally had its presumably desired effect: after a truly historic speech - that was, by general acclimation extraordinary in content, delivery, and oratory - absolutely nobody is talking about that, consumed with learning more about this teen-beauty queen picked to back up a septuagenarian of suspicious health and vitality (skin cancer, prisoner of war).
My last two hands are trembling with fury as I write this.
So what to do? How to process this pick? How can you attack somebody who is, apparently a decent person, and a mother of five without seeming like a TOTAL monster?
I am very interested for other viable suggestions, as I can really only see one, two-part strategy.
- RIP MCCAIN APART over this pick
- Let Palin self-destruct.
To elaborate on this strategy in reverse order:
Let Palin self-destruct: Alaska, despite its dominant geographic size, is like Kansas, and "Sarah," as she introduced herself yesterday, is Dorothy. I believe, or at least hope, that she will quickly realize, as Dorothy did, that she "isn't in Kansas anymore" and that the scrutiny, glare, tension, rigor and pace of a national campaign - SHE IS THE FUCKING VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE!! - is absolutely nothing like running for Mayor of Wasilla, or even Governor of Alaska, with its 47th rank in population. Interesting note: the population of the ENTIRE state is barely 100,000 more than the CITY OF BOSTON. And as much as I do love our Mayor, "Hizzonah" "Mumbles" Menino - who has been Mayor of the Hub since 1993 - if HE were named a VP candidate, I'd be equally petrified because of his fundamental lack of foreign-policy experience as first in line in the Presidential Succession.
So will she wilt under the glare of scrutiny? One can hope - but that makes me uneasy.
Nobody knew who Palin was yesterday (I even heard a caller to the Howie Carr show - Howie is a conservative wanker - refer to Palin as a "nobody from nowhere"). In the coming weeks, her record, such as it is, will get a tremendous amount of scrutiny, her policy ignorance will be exposed, her positions stated, debated and examined, and her lack of experience made public. Assuming, OF COURSE, that the media does its job.
I don't know about you, but I have ZERO confidence in the media doing that. They've let McCain slide on his bullshit for the last year; why should it be any different for a pleasant, attractive, personable young mother of five?
So the second prong of that strategy seems weak, shaky, and makes me very nervous. Progressives, liberals and Democrats may recognize the disaster-in-waiting, but I do not expect, nor even realistically hope, that this recognition will spread beyond our rational, sane bubble. So it is a non-starter.
Which leaves us, really, only with option 1, to rip McCain to shreds on his "judgement" in making this pick. And on this, I guess I am a little more hopeful.
How would we achieve this goal? I think there are several avenues.
McCain had previously spoken, in several interviews, that his primary metric for choosing a VP was "I think about whether that person who I select would be most prepared to take my place. And that would be the key criteria." Earlier this year, particularly in April, he ran out several variants of this theme.
The strategy then becomes to confront him on this, basically asking or raising the question (or some similar iteration): "Senator McCain said that he wanted someone whose experience will enable them to assume, if it were, heaven forbid, necessary, the office of the President on day one. Senator, how do you foresee Gov. Palin being able to learn to fill that role in the six months to inauguration day?" Or, to question his judgement as to Gov. Palin's ability to fill that role. He is being WIDELY panned, at least by the rational chattering class, on this, with many pointing out (Andrew Sullivan is dead-on here): this reflects a TOTAL lapse of judgment. Even David Frum (National Review) knocks it as an INTENSELY risky, shaky choice.
Now, with the debates coming up, on October 7 in Tennessee, the debate is structured as a Town Hall gathering. Progressives and Blues simply MUST get someone to pose a question along these lines:
"My question for both candidates regards their process of selecting their Vice Presidential running mate. Certainly as you both know, it is a very important choice. My question is, on the day of your announcement, as you retired to sleep at the end of the day, how did you assess your job in making your choice?" (Again, something along those lines - not making them defend their pick, but asking them how they regarded the choice they had made.)
This seems an advantageous question for two reasons: 1. I think it highlights that Obama made a superior pick. Selecting a VP candidate is widely regarded as the first real "Presidential" choice a candidate makes. So it allows Obama to stress that, to highlight what he thought was important and relevant in the qualities of his running mate and second in command. 2. It effectively, at least it seems to me, traps McCain. If he defends his pick as "ready to step in at a moment's notice" - then he is exposing his judgement to be highly problematic. Again, Gov. Palin may be a wonderful, sharp woman, but for someone who as admitted that she a. knows very little about the situation in Iraq, b. claims to have foreign policy experience because Alaska is close to Russia, c. is basically now undergoing a crash-course in foreign-policy, McCain's ability to argue that she is ready to be President is exposed as not only an outright lie, but a terrifying joke. If he responds that she will be his "partner" in decision making, again, her TOTAL lack of experience shows that McCain has no real intention of seeking counsel or advice; that he basically chose an echo chamber or someone that he can dominate, brow-beat or intimidate into toeing the (his) party line. And if he explains that he was confident and certain that he made the best choice possible, well, obviously that shows that HE IS INSANE. Additionally, it raises the possibility that we get to see another POW-play. Perhaps: "Well, in fact, when I was a POW, I used to coax myself into sleep by thinking about a decision just like this, so I had 5 1/2 years to think about this pick." That would be the best result, I think, if for no other reason than sheer unintentional comedy.
Also, and I mean no disrespect to females, but somebody has got to raise the issue of TOKENISM here. If McCain wanted a woman to run with, there were other women with actual qualifications he could pick - a poster on Right Wing News laid out, in a list of 22 potential selections, five females (including Palin), and Palin is the least experienced of them all. I have seen the reaction from many women that this pick is a total affront to them. (Again, Sullivan at the Atlantic has some good threads; Sarah Selzter at HuffPo has a good column too, titled "A Feminist Appalled by Palin" - seething rage in the comments as well).
McCain didn't want a female Vice Presidential candidate. He wanted a pair of boobs to distract the non-rational classes. He presumes that women support women because they are women. His view, it seems, is Vagina=vagina votes. Joseph Palermo, again at HuffPo, has a good piece titled "John McCain Telegraphs His Misogyny." I don't find it surprising that a man who disrespects his wife in public would perceive women in an "essentialist" frame - meaning that women, by virtue of their anatomy, must all be the same in thought and attitude - but I find it deeply, deeply sexist.
Since I have been able to think rationally and for myself, I have never been a Republican. I can't ever imagine being a Republican. I am also not a Democrat. This is not about "party" - as Obama said, I am more worried about my COUNTRY.
Yet I am deeply worried about the state of this election. We need a strategy - a viable, effective strategy - to ensure this out-of-touch, entitled, sexist asshole and his eye-candy trophy running mate come NOWHERE near 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.