Palin’ in Comparison: Part II

12:08 EST  Post debate. 

Not the bloodbath I had hoped for, but as the pundits dissect the debate, something more awful (but admittedly less entertaining) is dawning on me:  Apparently he litmus test for Palin as a potential VP is that she didn’t screw up too badly…again.  What has happened to our standards?

 Are we seriously talking about a supposedly legitimate female VP candidate as if she were a little girl who finally remembered the steps in her tap dance?

 Tonight, Geraldine Ferraro speaking to Brian Williams after the debate, mentioned that she was glad that her granddaughter could watch this debate and see a woman “hold her own.”

 Hold her own, Geraldine? Granted I was too young to even know about voting when you were on the historic democratic ticket (two decades before the Republicans got around to it, I might add) but I remember that you were supposed to be “setting a stage”, “crashing a ceiling”, “establishing a new standard” so that in my future, women weren’t just a surprise quantity if they could “hold their own” against any man.  Rather, in that future (today, supposedly) women could be expected to be able to regularly surpass our male counterparts with no surprise or shock, but rather with regularity and admiration.

 You are hardly the vanguard of feminism anymore, but you did work for a woman who is, and who is one of the finest women ever to serve in politics, no matter what you think of her politics — Hillary went toe-to-toe with Joe Biden and many others dozens of times and didn’t just “hold her own” but used her intellect and experience to wipe the floor with their remains.

 In contrast, why do you… how could any woman …uphold Sarah Palin as a role model for women when she set the bar so low that all she had to do was remove the dunce cap and smile to exceed expectations?  Is that all the farther we’ve come since your historic run?  Is that how far expectations of women have fallen since Hillary left the race? 

Golda Meir didn’t just smile and memorize lines; she attended synagogue in Stalinist Russia and led Israel through war and massacre when none would aid.  Margaret Thatcher didn’t just not screw up against Brezhnev and Andropov; she dominated and defied them and helped bring about the end of the Soviet Union.  Benezir Bhutto didn’t just hold her own against her deterrents in Pakistan, she sacrificed her life for the future of her country.  In no way can Palin even begin to compare favorably with such women. Palin pales in comparison to such laudable models, and even lipstick doesn’t disguise that fact.

 

Russian to Judgement

Laughed until I cried during last week’s Colbert Report when they started quoting the Russian Newspaper, Pravda.  I just had to know if it was true. Turns out the Report was pretty kind to Palin by not divulging the extent of the slander. For next door neighbors, the Russians were astoundingly critical!  Check it out here: Good thing she spent the day shaking hands at the United Nations–trying to ‘catch Foreign Policy experience like a rhinovirus,’ as Maureen Dowd says.

 

Palin—The Devil in Disguise  (Reprinted from Pravda English-boldface added)

 

by Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

The candidate for the Vice Presidency of the United States of America, whose experience in small town politics, mothers´day dos and the local hockey club is her claim to fame, threatened to open the gates of Hell by attacking Russia in the event of another invasion of Georgia in a televised interview on ABC (shown today). One question for this self-opinionated upstart: Do you know what a nuclear holocaust is?

Sarah Palin, Mrs. Nobody know-it-all shrieking cow from Alaska, the joke of American politics, plied with a couple of vodkas before letting rip in front of incredulous audiences while McCain coos in the background, cuts a ridiculous figure as she strives to be taken seriously.

How can anyone whose husband is a member of the Alaska Independence Party and who is running for the Vice Presidency of the Union be taken seriously? How indeed can the Republican Party be taken seriously for not vetting this female, or have they not yet discovered the skeletons in her closet? We have.

So Sarah Palin, Mrs. Hockey Mom housewife-cum-small-town gossip merchant and cheap little guttersnipe, suppose you shut up and allowed real politicians and diplomats to do their work? Threatening Russia with a war is perhaps the most irresponsible thing anyone could do at this moment in time. Have you any idea what a nuclear holocaust is? Have you any notion of the power of Russia’s armed forces? Did you know that Russia has enough missiles to destroy any target anywhere on Earth in seconds?

And have you not forgotten, you pith-headed little bimbo from the back of beyond, that small detail about the slaughter of Russian citizens by Georgians, which started the whole debacle? So next time suppose you keep your mouth shut and while you’re at it, make sure the members of your family keep their legs shut too. Your country has enough failed mothers as it is.

Quick as a Wink

The first time I watched the Palin’s interview with Charlie Gibson, I laughed, I hooted, I wretched, and then I wept for our country. The second time I watched it, I cringed anew. The third time –I know, but c’mon searching her in You-Tube is fun, not to mention revelatory—the third time I just wanted to listen to The Bush Doctrine blunder again.

The uncertain eyes, the constantly shaking fist, the over use of “Charlie,” the…WTF!?!….did she just?….No!!!….Rewind.  Play…OMG!  STOP THE PRESSES!  Sarah Palin WINKED at Charlie Gibson.  Did anyone else see that?

Take a look for yourself (It’s about 42 seconds into this excerpt from Talking Points Memo):

This, THIS is why there is still sexism in this campaign. Not because the Democrats are being sexist, but because the McCain/Palin/Bush campaign keeps using Palin’s gender. Think about it:  The lipstick jokes, the Hockey-Mom comments, the “Shucks, I’m trying to look as frumpy as possible” demurring…

I know. It’s only a wink.  She moistened an eyeball, nothing more.  Probably a nervous tick.

But, no.  Just minutes before in this interview she was making a BFD about how she is not the type to even blink when considering whether she’s qualified to deal with terrorists, or the thought of having to run the most powerful nation on earth.  Nope.  Her blind ambition provides enough moisturizing miasmia so that her eyelids don’t have to bother.

But give her a question for which she was unrehearsed and she retreats into a comfort zone of distracting the petitioner with flirty gestures and non answers.

We all know women like this.  The fake-it-until-you-can-make-it type.  The ex-prom and almost-beauty queens who recite “world view?”…er,. I mean “World Peace?” to every question. The popular girls who learned to handle men and controversy with a smile, a giggle, a glance, a wink.

This isn’t high school anymore, Sarah.  You can’t retake exams, lie your way out of detention, or seduce votes for Student Council. Our nation is in serious crisis and you’re seriously unqualified to help lead it.

 

Palin’ in Comparison

A week or so ago, I received (for the third time, actually) one of those perpetually forwarded messages that circulates the internet like piranhas on KFC day.  It was a reminder to all women to vote mise en scène through a violent history of the Suffragettes detailing the torture and cruelty that remarkable women endured so that we, their descendents,  might one day have a voice in politics—a right to vote. 

It was a provocative reminder that American women died for rights that we take for granted. 

But as I said, I had seen it before.  What caught my eye this time was that, as it meandered around the internet, it had acquired a commentary comparing Sarah Palin to the Suffragettes.

I found myself angrier than I have ever been.  I, too, had just been introduced to Palin and will admit that I reacted negatively from the first moment.  I had tried to listen to her with an open mind, after all I was the demographic McCain had been hoping to secure with this choice of a V.P., but I walked away feeling personally INSULTED!

That insult festered when Palin was compared to the Suffragettes in this email. I replied to everyone who had received the message along with me then forwarded it to everyone I had in my contacts.  This is what I implored:

 To liken the women who were tortured for freedoms to Palin, a woman who would restrict our freedom in what we can read, choices we can make about our bodies, and even harm the environment for our children is a savage way to keep the memory of the suffragettes alive.  We have come far, but I am writing to you today as a woman, as a mother, as a former political scientist, as an Independent, as a Christian, and as a woman scared to loose the liberties that the Suffragettes paved the way for.

Let me be clear: Sarah Palin is the wrong woman for the job!  There are so many amazing women in and out of politics, –SO MANY amazing Republican women and Independent Women to choose from. And McCain chose someone who is utterly ill-equipped to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Palin is undereducated and ill-experienced to run a country–and we must keep in mind that McCain is a 72-year old man suffering from repeated onslaughts of cancer. In my book, that does not influence his capacity to preside, but it should have influenced his choice of a V.P.  In a desperate attempt to achieve a goal, he panders to a stereotyped demographic.  But he has botched his first major decision as a potential leader and moreover failed to count the cost of his actions.

But if you are truly interested in why Sarah Palin pales in comparison to our Suffragette forbears, I encourage you to read Gloria Steinem’s piece from the Los Angeles Times:

If anyone has the right to comment on those 18 millions cracks and speak for our Suffragette sisters of old, it’s Steinem.