Asked for her thoughts on the $700 billion financial rescue proposal, Ms. Palin responded, “But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health-care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy helping the – oh, it’s got to be all about job creation, too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health-care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans. And trade, we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing. But one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today, we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is part of that.”
I’m not making this up. Or even playing back the transcript of last week’s hilarious Saturday Night Live, whose writers must be daily on their knees giving thanks to the gods of comedy for delivering such a bountiful gift. Nothing doing. This is the real, unvarnished stuff, straight from the mouth of the would-be next but-one-heartbeat-away President.
Careful examination of this partial peroration reveals no less than six major issues all desperate for serious attention. And that’s counting tax reduction and tax relief as the same thing, which they aren’t necessarily.
Poor Sarah. Plucked up from relative obscurity governing a state with the population of a mid-sized lower 48 city, she’s parachuted into the maelstrom of the Presidential campaign and she hasn’t a clue. Coached by consultants, experts, minders, aides, and other hangers-on, she responds to reasonable one-topic questions with the whole laundry list of popular concerns in the hope that at least one will be taken as having some remote bearing on the matter at hand. If the question is of a more personal nature – her getting her first passport two years ago, for instance – the answer is simultaneously aimed at eliciting sympathy and stoking the fires of the culture wars. Hence: ” I'm not one of those who maybe came from a background of, you know, kids who perhaps graduate college and their parents give them a passport and give them a backpack and say go off and travel the world.”
But appallingly enough, this kind of gibberish is currently pervasive in what pretends to pass for political discourse. Shortly after the $700 billion bill of which Ms. Palin spoke so eloquently was defeated in the House and the stock market promptly cratered, Representative Virginia Foxx exalted, “The market may be down, but the Constitution is up!” No doubt shares in the document, were they available, would have soared on this endorsement. And one of Rep. Foxx’s compatriots, the logic-challenged Rep. Paul Ryan explained his vote in favor thus: “This bill offends my principles, but I’m going to vote for this bill to preserve my principles.”
Well said. Now try “Live from New York. . .”
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Friday, September 5, 2008
What They Want To Hear
A Professor of Government I had in college once chided the class for what he described as our unrealistically idealistic view of American politics. This sage, one improbably named Reginald Bartholomew, proposed that the fundamental interest of any politician is to gain, and then hold office. Since the normal means (Florida excluded) to that end is winning the most votes, the politician will be unerringly guided by the majority will of the people, and therefore whatever he or she does, however dubious its apparent wisdom, is actually what most people want. And therefore the right course of action. QED.
This dusty memory was brought to mind by McCain’s remarkable selection of Governor Palin as his running mate. In the aftermath, it emerges that up until close to the last minute, McCain’s preference for a #2 was Joe Lieberman, he of dubious and somewhat confused party loyalties. Reportedly fearful that some of Lieberman’s more reasonable positions would so infuriate the Far Right that they would, instead of the Republican ticket, vote for Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan or Genghis Khan, McCain dropped Joe like a hot rock and offered the job to the Alaskan governor. Since then, of course, at least some of McCain’s fondest wishes have become realities as Obama, the press, and some of the rest of us struggle to find some non-misogynistic way of suggesting the good governor is perhaps not the most qualified person for the job.
Meanwhile, the Republican base is energized, and McCain has at least for the nonce pulled even with Obama in national polls. As Reggie might have said, “What’s wrong with that?”
Here’s what. (And why, perhaps, he saw fit to award me only a C+ in his course.) What McCain’s choice clearly tells us is that he is as cynical, as triangulating as any of the Senatorial colleagues he has recently come to hold in such low regard. McCain, or perhaps his advisors evidently concluded that running against change is a losing proposition – hardly surprising in view of the ruinous results of the serial calamities brought us by the current administration – and that for the faithful, Governor Palin is change personified. As Rick David, McCain’s campaign manager revealingly said, “This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” Mangled syntax aside, this about says it all. It’s not the economy or any other damned thing. It’s the composite view, stupid. Change is now at the top of the needs pyramid and that McCain will deliver it in copious amounts is evidently the core of the new and improved McCain strategy. If enough people buy into this dazzling flimflam, it just might get him elected. Which will be OK because it will reflect the desires of the people for, altogether now, change.
But change, in and of itself, is a journey without a destination. We know where we are, and it ain’t so great. We know change, somehow or other, will be required to get us somewhere else. Identifying that place, and outlining with some exactitude what will be required for us to get there would seem the least we should ask of our would-be next Presidents. It’s called leadership. I think even Reggie might agree.
(Full disclosure: I am, and have been through numerous relocations, a registered Republican. My threadbare rationale for this apparent denial of logic is a desire to help move the party towards the center of the political spectrum and reduce its emphasis on the so-called cultural “wedge” issues. In this, I’m clearly demonstrating the form of insanity Einstein once described as doing the same thing repeatedly, each time hoping for a different result.)
This dusty memory was brought to mind by McCain’s remarkable selection of Governor Palin as his running mate. In the aftermath, it emerges that up until close to the last minute, McCain’s preference for a #2 was Joe Lieberman, he of dubious and somewhat confused party loyalties. Reportedly fearful that some of Lieberman’s more reasonable positions would so infuriate the Far Right that they would, instead of the Republican ticket, vote for Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan or Genghis Khan, McCain dropped Joe like a hot rock and offered the job to the Alaskan governor. Since then, of course, at least some of McCain’s fondest wishes have become realities as Obama, the press, and some of the rest of us struggle to find some non-misogynistic way of suggesting the good governor is perhaps not the most qualified person for the job.
Meanwhile, the Republican base is energized, and McCain has at least for the nonce pulled even with Obama in national polls. As Reggie might have said, “What’s wrong with that?”
Here’s what. (And why, perhaps, he saw fit to award me only a C+ in his course.) What McCain’s choice clearly tells us is that he is as cynical, as triangulating as any of the Senatorial colleagues he has recently come to hold in such low regard. McCain, or perhaps his advisors evidently concluded that running against change is a losing proposition – hardly surprising in view of the ruinous results of the serial calamities brought us by the current administration – and that for the faithful, Governor Palin is change personified. As Rick David, McCain’s campaign manager revealingly said, “This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” Mangled syntax aside, this about says it all. It’s not the economy or any other damned thing. It’s the composite view, stupid. Change is now at the top of the needs pyramid and that McCain will deliver it in copious amounts is evidently the core of the new and improved McCain strategy. If enough people buy into this dazzling flimflam, it just might get him elected. Which will be OK because it will reflect the desires of the people for, altogether now, change.
But change, in and of itself, is a journey without a destination. We know where we are, and it ain’t so great. We know change, somehow or other, will be required to get us somewhere else. Identifying that place, and outlining with some exactitude what will be required for us to get there would seem the least we should ask of our would-be next Presidents. It’s called leadership. I think even Reggie might agree.
(Full disclosure: I am, and have been through numerous relocations, a registered Republican. My threadbare rationale for this apparent denial of logic is a desire to help move the party towards the center of the political spectrum and reduce its emphasis on the so-called cultural “wedge” issues. In this, I’m clearly demonstrating the form of insanity Einstein once described as doing the same thing repeatedly, each time hoping for a different result.)
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