Thursday, September 4, 2008

A Pit Bull in Lipstick is the Same as a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing; Isn't it?

Gov. Palin, as it turns out, is a pit-bull.  Not only did she herself allude to this, but often times I will employ this term for a person who at first seems passive and reserved to only surprise you with ferociousness when push comes to shove.  My mother for example, standing at all of 5’2, has been called a pit bull before.  Even though I agree with her—Palin that is—politics only about 1% of the time, I have to give her credit for her apparent outrage.

And she sunk her teeth deep into the media and the Democratic campaign last night both of whom supposedly crossed the line in speaking about her home life, despite the fact that it seems the Republicans involved went on the offensive to break the story, and her qualifications as a running mate.  As far as her qualifications go, I don’t think that is an area where Obama really wants to tread considering much of the questioning of his own qualifications is just now starting to die down.  Plus there is the fact that she is a Governor which neither McCain nor Obama can boast as true of themselves and that is usually regarded as one of the stipulations to becoming a viable Presidential Candidate. 

As for the other charge, I contend that going on the offensive with the breaking news on Monday was a clever way of provoking controversy and thereby taking everything that gets said about and saying it is biased and sexist.  This is sort of what conservatives charge liberals with doing, kind of like crying wolf or intimidation in their offended states—i.e. you are just looking for something to make the issue about race or gender or class or what-have-you when it really has little to do with those things in the first place.

That said, the focus of The New York Times today was not on the creepy right wing stuff that Palin said but rather the “melodrama” that always seems to garner so much attention and focus.  As Obama pointed out, I “did not hear a single word about the economy… Not once did they mention the hardships that people are going through.”  The poor, as usual, go uncared for and in their economic plan, which consists of it would seem tax cuts!,  the divide between rich and poor would only be greater. 

Then, of course, there is God’s creation to look at that we are given dominion over.  Too often that call for care is interpreted as making Mother Nature bow to the nature of man, which is complete futile, and ends with destruction.  The energy crisis we are in, Palin says, has a quasi-solution just off Alaska’s shores in untapped natural oil reserves.  What a plan. 

The Doomsday Clock is down to five minutes till midnight and the crowd in Minnesota chanted “Drill Now, Drill Now, Drill Now!”!  She says they are also going to “lay more pipelines, build more nuclear plants, create jobs with clean coal and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative sources,” one can only assume in that order, leaving little time for “moving forward” as we still focus on nonrenewable resources (with the except of nuclear energy of course).

But no one hears about any of this stuff except for just in passing.  It doesn’t sell papers to talk about stuff like this.  It isn’t sexy and no one cares.  So all we get is talk about what order McCain hugged Palin’s family in.  

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