Peggy “Elián González Was Saved By Magic Dolphins” Noonan, this morning:
Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Abstract Theory feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough, as Time magazine put it; because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing — who is really one of them and who is not — and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy.
She could become a transformative political presence.
She could, Nooners! Unless the media keeps tearing her down. Like, say, Peggy Noonan, this afternoon:
Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys — this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work. And —
Peggy Noonan: It’s over.
MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.
Chuck Todd: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.
PN: Saw Kay this morning.
CT: Yeah, she’s never looked comfortable about this —
MM: They’re all bummed out.
CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?
PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this — excuse me– political bullshit about narratives —
CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.
MM: I totally agree.
PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.
MM: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.
CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.
MM: Yeah.
Damn media. They forgot the most important thing — those microphones can record things.
because she is a feminist not in the Yale Gender Studies sense but the How Do I Reload This Thang way,
Yeah, that is bull. From what I’ve been reading, Gov. Palin would be teaching how to reload that thing, not asking.
Fred Thompson gave a great speech last night. He was channeling the whole Chuck Norris joke thing. My favorite: “Gov. Sarah Palin once beat a moose to death and used it’s bones to drill for oil.”
Should be a REAL interesting speech tonight. Too bad I’m going to be at choir practice. Ah, well, it’ll probably be on YouTube.
Wow. You’re really behind this Palin nomination. I guess you were enthused about Quayle, too. I just can’t get behind the partisan, win at any cost mentality.
The Palin nomination is problematic to the country and to McCain and to Republicans on so many levels. But you’ll never get a Republican to admit it (knowingly).
The Republican strategy is clearly limited to “attack all dissenters” at this point in time. That’s encouraging.
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I don’t know if I’m behind her yet for her positions, etc. – I need to look into that a lot deeper. From what I’ve seen she’s to the right of at least some of my positions. But she sure as hell has livened up the campaign, and just for that I kind of like her. At first glance there are a couple of things about her that are problematical, but I’m waiting to see the full story before making a judgment.
This is not the reaction of others, though – it seems a lot of people are more interested in tearing her down quickly than getting their facts straight first. That’s what I’m defending against. It been interesting to see some of the reactions too, like Democrats (and I’m talking partisans, not Sen. Obama’s official campaign organization) saying “how is she going to do the job with 5 kids” and Republicans taking the opposite position. That’s when you know that people are reacting on a partisan basis instead of out of principles. I’m expecting to look out the window and see pigs fly by.
One thing that I think is bordering on sexism; the presumption that she was chosen mainly because she’s female and with an idea that she’ll attract disaffected Sen. Clinton supporters. While I believe that’s certainly a part of it, it’s also true that she’s not an Washington insider, which plays to the theme of “Change” – as does the fact that she’s female. Judging from last night’s speech, I also called it right a few days ago when I said that she’s going to fill a job that VP candidates have traditionally held; attack dog. I suspect that’s how she won her current job. There are plenty of other reasons for selecting her than “She’ll attract the Hillary voters”, and a presumption that this was the primary reason she was selected is just that.