The Palin Debate and the 10th Anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death
September 22, 2008 | Filed Under Election 2008, Opinion and Commentary | 1 Comment
UPDATE: Within days of my writing this, Sarah Palin had done her Katie Couric interviews and had demonstrated several times more what a shallow and moronic candidate she is. So the limelight she once enjoyed is finally casting a sickly green pallor, but she has still not been questioned about her Church and it’s extreme views. – September 28.
Governor Sarah Palin is scheduled to debate Senator Joe Biden on October 2. Given the softball interviews that Palin has enjoyed so far, this could be her first and only trial by tough questions. Unlike two of the three presidential debates that will have specific focus–foreign policy and national security, domestic policy and economic issues, the one and only Palin-Biden debate is not set up to be topical. The effort to conceal Governor Palin’s lack of depth extends to a forum that ought to be the place to drill, baby, drill for candidates’ views. Instead, according to the Washington Post, Republicans sought a format that would “limit the amount of time available for their neophyte candidate, Palin, to be questioned on a single topic.”
We have every right to expect, or even demand, that the debate will bring a different sort of attention to the self-proclaimed Hockey Mom who would be VP (or P if you consider the actuarial tables and the extent of her ambitions). Although the Palin idolatry is subsiding, Mrs. Palin has for the most part enjoyed life in the kind of instant and exaggerated celebrity zone usually reserved for the talent-free stars manufactured by record companies and television, in short, a No Time for Questions On A Single Topic Zone. In this zone of silence, she remains a news sensation, and her magazine covers outnumber her answers to serious public questions.
As October approaches, a very different, decade-old news sensation is on my mind. Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998 Aaron J. McKinney and Russell A. Henderson entered a Laramie, Wyoming bar and offered a young gay man a ride in their pickup truck. As anyone who was awake in 1998 and 1999 knows, that young man was 21-year old Matthew Shepard. The full description of what these men did to Shepard is staggering, but the brief version is that they drove him to an open field outside of town, tied him to a fence, beat him so badly that his skull fractures later proved to be inoperable, and left him for dead in near freezing temperatures. Matthew Shepard died five days later without regaining consciousness.
I bring this up because Mrs. Palin hasn’t really been made to answer questions on her extremist views, including her view that homosexuality is so distasteful and sinful that it should not be explained to young people, and has instead enjoyed chats masquerading as interviews with Charlie, Charlie, Charlie Gibson and Sean Hannity. All the while there are enough controversial Sarah Palin videos and transcripts on the Web to start an archive for a Hate is a Family Value Museum. To the best of my knowledge, Palin has not made any public statement endorsing or supporting the ‘pray away the gay’ seminars and sermons at the Wasilla Assembly of God, the church she has attended and prayed in for the past six years. On the other hand, she has not made any statement to counter her church’s messages. (Think of Barack Obama strongly condemning the views of Reverend Wright in front of millions of viewers.)
Even though it is clear that Sarah Palin makes no effort to separate church and state, she has fortunately done relatively little legislative damage with her views. But it doesn’t take anti-gay legislation or anti-choice legislation or anti-evolution legislation to feed fresh victims to the culture warriors. Palin need only be the pretty wolf-killing, gun-toting, pray-away-the-gay, book-disapproving, anti-choice, church-going poster girl. She doesn’t have to take questions about her positions, sequestered from the real press as she’s been. All she has to do is go to Vice Presidential Study Hall, memorize McCain texts, and show up for the cameras.
Unfortunately, the belief that homosexuality is a sin isn’t a showstopper for McCain-Palin voters. If some of her other nut job assertions aren’t going to do it, this one doesn’t have a chance. Even among more enlightened folks it is still okay to marginalize the rights of gays, or to assert that such matters are trivial when we have “real” problems, like an economy to fix.
The Assembly of God can go on praying away the gay, an effort that is, thank anyone’s God, doomed to failure. Sarah can go on questioning librarians about stocking books that foster an understanding of homosexuality. And come October 2, unless Gwen Ifill asks Mrs. Palin about her own or her church’s extremist views, the Republican base’s newest celebrity can go on implicitly getting out the theo-con vote. Worse still, while the Shepard family remembers a different October night, Sarah Palin will get another free ride into the adoring crowd and the bright lights that she seems to love more than moose burgers, snow machining, and the First Dude combined. And in some town in America–maybe even Wasilla–someone will think it is okay to take a kid out into the night and slay away the gay.
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“Please help your children understand diversity without fearing it. Be an example of acceptance and compassion. The consequences of hate hurt everyone. It hurts not only the victim–it hurts their family and friends. It destroys the families of the perpetrators. Lives are lost, lives are ruined and lives are changed forever.” – Judy Shepard, on the seventh anniversary of her son Matthew’s death, October 12, 2005.
Scientists link McCain campaign to “Gilligan’s Island”
September 18, 2008 | Filed Under LOL Feature Stories (satire) | 1 Comment
According to a study leaked today by the Institute for Socio-Political Reverberations, political scientists have found a nearly one-to-one correspondence between the 2008 McCain campaign and the famous castaways of “Gilligan’s Island.” In particular, the study notes that the principals in the McCain campaign have been identified as having their roots in, or even a quasi-twinship with, the characters of the legendary 1960’s sitcom.Just as intriguing, according to the unpublished report, the entire premise of “Gilligan’s Island” seemed to presage the McCain campaign as it is today. The researchers have even unearthed a copy of lyrics (at right) that pre-dated the ones that were finally chosen and that became famous during the show’s three year run.The Skipper himself is indisputably John McCain according to the study. After announcing his candidacy on the Letterman Show in February 2007, McCain has led a crew of bumblers on a “two year campaign, a two year campaign,” and the final verse of the theme song includes the trademark McCain invocation of “my friends.”  Gilligan can only be Tucker Bounds, the hapless McCain spokesman who lands on the Skipper’s head every time he attempts a feat beyond his skills, such as climbing a palm tree or being interviewed on cable news.”That Sarah Palin has her roots in Ginger,” said the study, “is a truly remarkable discovery, given that Palin was born during the show’s first season.” The study was funded by earmarks attached to a Senate appropriations bill for a bridge between Alaska and Hawaii, a state that you can actually see from the “uncharted desert isle” of Gillian fame. According to one cultural analyst, “If you didn’t know any better, and, of course, most Americans don’t, you would think that the entire sitcom was meant to implant the idea of a McCain campaign in the American psyche decades ago. And certainly McCain has been around long enough to have played a part, even that of Skipper Jonas Grumby.”
Only segments of the report were leaked, so it remains to be seen what other counterparts can be identified among the castaways. There is suggestive data pointing to either Lynn Forester de Rothschild or Carly Fiorina as Eunice “Lovey” Wentworth Howell, the rich, spoiled socialite, married to Thurston Howell, III. However, Lovey’s kind side would seem to rule both campaign surrogates out. Speculation has tied Cindy McCain The one dissonant note in this otherwise compelling ‘parallel universe’ theory is that not one of McCain’s current staffers has the chops to be the Professor. Students of “Gilligan’s Island” will recall that the Professor was adept at science, well-versed in literature, social sciences, and the arts, and the only one on the island who kept his head in the frequent crises that beset the castaways, which made him something of an interloper on the island. Could this character have been a hint of things to come with Barack Obama? At the very least, the character of the Professor highlights the possibility that the castaways and their twins in the McCain campaign, and, indeed, the entire American “isle,” would be likely to blunder around for an indefinite period of time were it not for the Professor. Perhaps then as now, the Professor remains everyone’s only hope of getting in touch with the mainland. |
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The leaked study included compelling photographic evidence. Click any image for a larger view.
Above: McCain is the Skipper. Below: This draft of lyrics pre-dated the ones ultimately used by the show. Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, A tale of a fateful trip That started from the Letterman show Aboard this tiny ship. The mate was a mighty military man, The skipper brave and sure. Five passengers set sail that day For a two year campaign, a two year campaign. The weather started getting rough, The tiny ship was tossed, If not for the courage of the fearless crew McPalin would be lost, McPalin would be lost. The ship set ground on the shore of this uncharted desert isle With Gilligan The Skipper too, The millionaire and his wife, The movie star The professor and Mary Ann, Here on Gilligans Isle. So this is the tale of the candidates, They’re here for a long, long time, They’ll have to make the best of things, It’s an uphill climb. The VP candidate and the Skipper too, Will do their very best, To make the others toe the line, In the tropic island nest. No phone, no lights no motor cars, Not a single BlackBerry, Like Robinson Crusoe, As primitive as can be. So join us here each week my friends, You’re sure to get a smile, From seven stranded castways, Here on “Gilligan’s Isle.” Is the smart and capable Professor linked to Obama? He certainly organized the Island community, and was the only one with the skills to reach out to the mainland. |
Tony Sachs on why it is smart to be dumb
September 11, 2008 | Filed Under Election 2008, Seriously/Real Stuff, Uh-oh | Leave a Comment
Tony Sachs has a great post on Huffington Post
The issue is deeper than Sarah Palin’s lack of knowledge about the Bush Doctrine, which Sachs makes cleverly clear, but he starts there:
It’s one of the most cringe-worthy moments in recent American political history:
“Do you believe in the Bush Doctrine?”
The awkward pause, then the smug, patronizing comeback.
“In what respect, Charlie?”
Charlie Gibson, taken aback, perhaps realizing that this is The Moment for which he’ll be known for the rest of his career.
“The Bush — w-w-well, what do you interpret it to be?”
And then the painful, filibustering non-answer that I can hardly bear to watch without feeling embarrassed for Sarah Palin, John McCain, and this great nation of ours.
I’m not saying that every American besides Governor Palin knows what the Bush Doctrine is. Hell, I wasn’t sure I knew what it was until Charlie Gibson confirmed it for me. But then again, I’m not a Republican governor who’s running for national office.
Now, if Joe Biden had said this on national TV, the election would be over. Obama would either be calling Hillary Clinton and begging her to take over the #2 slot or he’d be busy getting to work on his concession speech. More>
There were many other gaffes, but Sachs is right. Being smart is a bad thing in America. Nonetheless, one of my favorites remains playing the Alaska card with respect to foreign policy:
GIBSON: What insight into Russian actions, particularly in the last couple of weeks, does the proximity of the state give you?
PALIN: They’re our next door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.
GIBSON: What insight does that give you into what they’re doing in Georgia?
PALIN: Well, I’m giving you that perspective of how small our world is and how important it is that we work with our allies to keep good relation with all of these countries, especially Russia. We will not repeat a Cold War. We must have good relationship with our allies, pressuring, also, helping us to remind Russia that it’s in their benefit, also, a mutually beneficial relationship for us all to be getting along.