Archives for 2008

The estimable Maureen Dowd on Palin:

You know what I’m thinking, because you’re thinking it, too . . . It’s delicious imagining the Debate of the Century between Big Mama, as Bill’s male aides called Hillary, and “Hottie Granny,” as People magazine will doubtless dub Sarah. ESPN will want in.

Pushing aside the ‘Pulitzer Prize’ winning MoDo’s sorority girl cattiness, Ms. Steinem tries for this smackdown:

Republicans may learn they can’t appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.

And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can’t be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

This could be huge.

Uh, yeah, whatever. Pretty amusing how Steinem can even write that somehow a larval, centrist Republican host organism can emerge after a 2008 loss rather than be the strawman blamed for the car wreck. She must not get out much.

Democrats have a challenge on their hands not too dissimilar from what the Boy King presented to his rivals. How to go after someone without being seen as ‘going after someone’ — avoiding the fatal ‘ism’ charge. Most never figured it out; hence the Denver coronation.

A more interesting column, along the fake internal monologues Safire used to do, would be to imagine HRC’s musings right about now. ‘What to do? What to do? (smiling)’.

A surprisingly effective evening. Palin we believed delivered a triple blow to the Boy King and his loquacious Man At Arms. First, she showed up and didn’t crumple under the most brutal, hateful vindictiveness that Kool Aiders at Huff Post et al. could muster; no Quayle frozen in the headlights. She solidified her base and leveled the intensity gap between Dems and Repubs.

Second, she proved to be a charismatic mixture of professional accomplishment, commitment to family and her Movement connections. Legendary rock promoter Bill Graham once said in another context: “there are a handful of bands that on any given night are the greatest rock n roll band in the world. For that night.” All but Olbermann, Maddow, Campbell Brown and others at MSNBCNN knew a great performance when seeing one. Especially when surmounting a failed telepromptor. (Axyl Rose used to throw temper tantrums and cause riots when that happened to *him*). And her performance enraged them.

Third, Palin told the Dems ‘Your Kung Fu is weak.’ She is going to meet them head on. One wonders how Biden will handle that without coming across as a horse’s ass. We’ve always been fascinated by the misogyny of the Left while hiding behind feminist ideals. Our graphics here are designed to be fun or provocative. But the Left is away putting her on Playboy and Vogue covers, and in even more appalling circumstances. The dissonance, it burns! It burns! An attractive woman doesn’t yearn for a frappuccino on the Upper West Side. (Wait till they learn how conservative sexual icons like Jessica Alba are, etc.)

In-the-tank MSNBC team keeps asking if it is possible she can ever get up to speed on foreign policy. Questions they never dared ask the Boy King. Apparently, a white woman with conservative views goes in one murderous box and an inexperienced ‘community worker’ black candidate gets lauded even when he forgets the U.S. has 50 states instead of 57. Hilary truly and deservedly must be shouting in a mirror “I just can’t believe it !”

And how odd for the Left to say today that Sarah Palin can’t be VP because she can’t be Cheney. Just now, one of those idiots said ‘Sarah Palin would not be able to give the order to shoot down a terrorist plane heading to another target like happened in 2001’. We want a VP who can fill Cheney’s shoes?

The whole Dem spin machine at the moment seems stalling with too many feet pushing the clutch trying out different narratives. It’s all temporary and the ‘sweet sport’ of political boxing will settle down into defined strategies. Sarah Palin surely did knock the Dems off stride. Let’s see how the Dems come out of their corner with some eye-cutting.

She also had strong warm up acts. The chirping Carly Fiorina is dismissible for a variety of reasons, most prominently? She ran HP into the ground and was fired. Meg Whitman, however, showed basic skills which might position her future political opportunities. And then Rudy. He galvanized the base with electric humor and almost inverse Darth Sidious lightening. The Rudy we knew and worked directly with is gone. We felt disconcertingly inert watching him. No empathy or lingering memories remain. Yet he did ‘raise the roof’.

In the end, Sarah Palin began to take back her narrative from the mocking media and blistering Leftist blogs. Will it work? Watching last night, Bill Graham’s one night comment resonates. It’s possible – she may galvanize the base and keep Dems on their heels long enough. Along shot but possible. Something we did not expect as late 2 days ago.

Still, if the Dems blow this election they should be disbanded, their leadership hunted down like dogs and sent for rehabilitation working chicken farms. Maybe even for the Guangze Shengnong Enterprise Ltd.