Friday, September 05, 2008

Backing away from political blogging

With the Palin nomination I was first spitting mad, because I thought that McCain was insulting women by suggesting that we would vote for any woman. Later I concluded that Palin was more about appealing to the base.

I was, and still am, by what this decision shows about McCain's decision-making process. I think I understand the reasons Palin appeals to him. She really did blow the whistle on some unethical behavior. However, it does not look like McCain really vetted her. Certainly sending his lawyers up AFTER she had been announced discredits his claims that he really did know all this before.

The bottom line of course is that McCain and Palin support policies I oppose. So it doesn't really matter what I think of them personally. I tried not to watch the speeches, because they would only make me irritable, but it is difficult if you listen to news at all. What I heard and read gave me flash-backs to junior high, but I don't want to go there, either.

I saw a headline asking "So what if Palin used a speech-writer?" I didn't read it. I'm guessing they will point out that nearly all politicians have used speech writers, that's just the way it is. My impression, which certainly could be wrong, is that normally a politician would tell a speech writer, "These are the points I want to make, now go make it sound eloquent and compelling." In other words, the politician uses the writer. In this case though I understand that the speech was written before the nominee was picked. The writers changed it for her, and she certainly added some lines herself, but it sounds more like she was being used as a mouthpiece by campaign writers and managers, rather than her using writers. That she is being sent off to Alaska and no one knows when (or if?) she will be allowed to talk to reporters, makes it look more like she is being used, although with her permission and cooperation. I feel so badly for the kids who did not ask for all this.

So all this makes me tired. Just really tired y'all.

So I thought I would let you know that unless I find myself so spitting mad that I can't help it, I'm not going to be writing any more political posts for a while.

So...back to our regularly scheduled programming.

1 comment:

  1. My dad pointed me to a few articles claiming the media line that McCain chose Palin because she is a whistle-blowing, corruption-hating, independant maverick 'just like him' is party spin. (I'd read that line in David Brook's op ed myself). He said that according to people who know the facts about the process McCain's campaign went through to choose a vp say ... that McC's strong personal choice was *Lieberman*. He fought for it, but the party wouldn't allow it. Palin was then pulled off an impersonal list of 200 ... whittled to 20.

    I sympathize with your anger ... personally after the last election ... after seeing deadly polished banner ads baiting soccer moms (the ones who don't have time or interest enough to actually check their facts before they swallow the poison) into believing that GW was the candidate who would keep their children *safe* ... I blew my election anger gasket right there and I haven't been able to sink my teeth into investing emotionally in the political game since.

    I listened to some speeches the other night as I puttered around acting casual ... and after a while all of the testosterone-soaked, chest-beating button pushing ... clever words that were pure punch and no heart or mind ... the verbal equivalent of cattle prods for the mooing herd... it just made me ill. Not that I think the other side doesn't play games as well ... but ... gag. One example that leaps to mind was Guiliani ranting about how the liberal puftahs were afraid to label terrorism as "Islamic." As though being thoughtful about the power of words and about who and what truly threatens this country and our children was only for whimps and the people who vote for them. ... I'm past anger, but maybe not tears.

    Apologies if you've already seen these:

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sidney-blumenthal/the-battle-between-mccain_b_123147.html

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sidney-blumenthal/why-palin-mccain-v-rove_b_122841.html

    Cheers,
    D.

    ReplyDelete

Comments will be open for a little while, then I will be shutting them off. The blog will stay, but I do not want either to moderate comments or leave the blog available to spammers.