If you haven't already seen it, Garrison Keillor of "Prairie Home Companion" fame, has published a righteous rant over at The Saint Petersburg Times - in that most epic of battleground states, Florida.
As usual, Mr. Keillor pulls no punches when it comes to Sarah Pailin and how she's (mostly, anyway) viewed by the American People as a steaming pile of... well, B.S.
Hop on over as Minnesota's Native Son pulls out his flame-thrower to cook some up and I throw in a few anecdotes and observations of my own...
I've always enjoyed listening to - and admired - NPR's "Prairie Home Companion". These broadcasts are almost always performed live in front of a studio audience and when one considers that aspect, they're even more remarkable. If you're not familiar with his work, take a moment to hop over to his page and show him some love because he really is a smart and talented guy!
Now back to politics. I've known for some time that Mr. Keillor was/is a good Democrat and a man who certainly possesses a way with words, delivering them in a smooth and soothing tenor voice with a unique accent. (He's a great musician too) As usual, he didn't let me down.
Here are a few excerpts from his Palin Skewering which he starts out with an anecdote about how a lot of us are hurting pretty bad:
We are a stalwart and stouthearted people, and never more so than in hard times. People weep in the dark and arise in the morning and go to work. The waves crash on your nest egg and a chunk is swept away and you put your salami sandwich in the brown bag and get on the bus. In Philly, a woman earns $10.30/hour to care for a man brought down by cystic fibrosis. She bathes and dresses him in the morning, brings him meals, puts him to bed at night. It's hard work lifting him and she has suffered a painful hernia that, because she can't afford health insurance, she can't get fixed, but she still goes to work because he'd be helpless without her. There are a lot of people like her. I know because I'm related to some of them.
Indeed there are a lot of people like her. I saw an old friend this weekend - we go way back. I hadn't seen him in about a year and couldn't help noticing that he looked... well, awful. Turns out he was diagnosed with an aortic aneurism. He went to his doctor complaining of chest/back pain and his doctor had to grovel and beg his insurance company for a CAT scan - which found the problem. So I asked him if they could operate and he said that they could but won't because he insurance company won't pro-actively fix that.
(By the way, he said - and I quote - "The damn thing is, I have 'great' insurance!")
It struck me that his insurance company is basically just waiting for him to die. I would imagine if one's aorta bursts there'd be no time to get to a hospital and CPR would be useless. I told my friend that if only he was Dick Cheney, they'd have him on the operating table the next day. By the way, his doctor refused to consider him "disabled" and told my friend to simply avoid "pushing and pulling" anything. So he's still working full-time. Sigh...
But back to Mr. Keillor's tome in The Saint Petersburg Times, where it looks like he agrees with at least one Republican - Peggy Noonan - about Palin's nomination and the last three words certainly summed up how I felt about "Caribou Barbie" -- with a bit of a double entendre':
It was dishonest, cynical men who put forward a clueless young woman for national office, hoping to juice up the ticket, hoping she could skate through two months of chaperoned campaigning, but the truth emerges: The lady is talking freely about matters she has never thought about. The American people have an ear for B.S. They can tell when someone's mouth is moving and the clutch is not engaged. When she said, "One thing that Americans do at this time, also, though, is let's commit ourselves just every day, American people, Joe Sixpack, hockey moms across the nation, I think we need to band together and say never again. Never will we be exploited and taken advantage of again by those who are managing our money and loaning us these dollars," people smelled gas.
Gas, indeed... And I don't think he meant "natural" or "propane". (Of course I remember smelling that exact same smell the first time I laid eyes on George W. Bush but apparently approximately half of the American electorate's noses were stopped up in 2000 and 2004)
Some Republicans think that Mrs. Palin will be political dynamite in 2012 and will return triumphantly to the national stage. I don't agree with them - even though I do think Troopergate won't hurt her a bit. I think Garrison Keillor and I agree about Mrs. Palin's future; I think his assessment is much more realistic:
She is a chatty sportscaster who lacks the guile to conceal her vacuity, and she was John McCain's first major decision as nominee. This troubles independent voters, and now she is a major drag on his candidacy. She will get a nice book deal from Regnery and a new career making personal appearances for 40 grand a pop, and she'll become a trivia question, "What politician claimed foreign policy expertise based on being able to see Russia from her house?" And the rest of us will have to pull ourselves out of the swamp of Republican economics.
Although some of us - like my friend with that aneurism - just might not last long enough to get that chance.
In a battleground state like Florida - with its large senior citizen population - I think Garrison Keillor's editorial will help the cause quite a bit.
Let's also hope that, in Mr. Keillor's home state of Minnesota, that another smart and funny guy - Al Franken- sends Republican Norm Coleman packing too. We need to make this election a rout.
Garrison Keillor is a fine poet too, so I'd like to leave you with one that he penned that does a nice job of summing up his gentle soul. It nicely personifies, I think, the polar (no pun intended) opposite of the rabid, angry, Republican, Palin supporter -- aka "Joe Sixpack":
One more spring in Minnesota,
To come upon Lake Wobegon.
Old town I smell your coffee.
If I could see you one more time --
I can't stay, you know, I left so long ago,
I'm just a stranger with memories of people I knew here.
We stand around, looking at the ground.
You're the stories I've told for years and years.
That yard, the tree -- you climbed it once with me,
And we talked of cities that we'd live in someday.
I left, old friend, and now I'm back again,
Please say you missed me since I went away.
One more time that dance together,
Just you and I now, don't be shy.
This time I know I'd hear the music
If I could hold you one more time.