Hitch can't abide the Republicans, but the liberals are making him crazy with this anti-Palin stuff. Excerpt:
I could well be wrong, but I think something similar is involved in the attempt to paint the Palin family as if it were Arkansas on ice or Tobacco Road with igloos and Inuit. Very well, she possibly has had her Troopergate and even trailer-park moments. But whom exactly did the Democrats drown in moist applause, for two nights running, in Denver? The most dysfunctional family ever to occupy not the vice-presidential mansion but the executive one. It's hard to imagine that there will be any more unwanted pregnancies or shotgun weddings when or if the Palins move to the Naval Observatory on Massachusetts Avenue, whereas with the Clintons, the very thing that made all Bill's friends turn white and pee green was that they made him the president, and he still wouldn't stop. For me, it is astonishing that the Democrats have been babbling all week as if this point isn't just waiting--indeed begging--to be made in riposte to their "opposition research."Walter Dean Burnham, one of the country's pre-eminent Marxists, used to attract ridicule back in the 1960s and '70s by saying that Ronald Reagan would one day be president. He based this on various calculations, one of which was what I'll call the attraction-repulsion factor. Previous candidates of the right, from McCarthy to Nixon, indeed, had expressed powerful dislike and resentment of their foes. That can work, up to a point, but the problem is that if you radiate hostility, you also tend to attract it. Reagan didn't radiate it and also didn't attract it. He went on, in a genial enough way, to destroy the Democratic "New Deal" coalition. I don't think Gov. Palin has quite that sort of folksy charisma, but I am still not sure it's entirely wise to patronize her.
I think Obama and his team get this, for what it's worth.
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And this whole "troopergate" thing is hilarious - the man in question tasered his kid, drank in his patrol car and made death threats!
No, the man in question refused to fire 'that man', who had received a disciplinary hearing and been punished appropriately. (Incidentally, the supposed 'death threats' only showed up after all this was over.) That second man is still, quite correctly, working for the police, because none of his behavior reached a firing offense. He was disciplined and that was that. Nothing else happened to him.
The actual victim of Palin's behavior was a completely innocent person who was asked, illegitimately, to fire that person, and when he refused to do so, was fired himself.
I was skeptical of simon's reference to Obama's referring to Palin as a "pig", so went and googled "obama palin pig"; sure enough immediately got Obama's comment about "lipstick on a pig". I probably will vote for Obama, but it does seem that he and his campaign advisors are going off the deep end! Perhaps his advisors are just young and inexperienced twenty-or-thirty somethings who haven't much common sense! And the reference above to the liberal blogger at Slate who calls Governor Palin's daughter a sl*t is really quite amazing.
Victor Davis Hansen has a good take on this, IMO:
corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjhkNmYzOTVkNDgwNGFmNzEzNjc0ZDVkMDMxNWY2NjI=
Was McCain the stinky old fish? [Victor Davis Hanson]
In all the furor over the Obama "pig" quote, commentators forgot to examine his entire attack:
"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig."
"You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change. It's still gonna stink."
When read in the entire context you can see what he seems to mean with his dual animate male/female references and why he probably evoked two metaphors: most would think that Obama is talking about both on the ticket and his anger how each has expropriated his change motif.
So in that sense he appears both to insult the 72-year old McCain as the "old fish" that is still going to "stink", and to refer to Palin, who had famously evoked the metaphor of lipstick in a nationally televised address, as still the pig despite the lipstick.
The fact that he used two metaphors to attack the two, and used expressions referring both to age and Palin's recent use of "lipstick" don't seem to be accidents and that's why the cooing crowd got the old fish=McCain, lipsticked pig=Palin immediately.
I'll leave it to others to deconstruct the historical use of pig as a sexist term in the recent climate of generic attacks on Sarah Palin.
P.S. The VP nominee was just announced and already Biden has called her "good looking" and now “a step back for women”; most know what he intended, but like most Bidenisms they come out wrongly and confirm a popular perception that he suffers from logorhhea and that there is a different standard of reference applied to Palin due to her sex.
Someone in the campaign has got to manage the ex tempore carelessness.
- - -
This is lower than Bill Clinton's Jesse Jackson reference re: Obama's showing in North (?) Carolina. Obama has "Who, me?" written all over his face.
Pa-thet-ic.
It's hilarious watching the lunatic left complaining about Palin being an unqualified & ridiculous choice for VP when their presidential candidate is the most unqualified candidate in history. If this were really true, they would be celebrating at an easy win. The sad truth is if Obama were white, no one would be taking him seriously. I keep hearing the left complain that he may not be elected due to racism. I have spoken to many people who won't be voting for Obama, but it has nothing to do with race. I do however hear most of his supporters draw a blank when I ask them why they are voting for him, only to finally admit it is because he is black. Racism works both way. Just look at the youtube videos of his supporters admit they are voting for him because of his color.
It's hilarious watching the lunatic left complaining about Palin being an unqualified & ridiculous choice for VP when their presidential candidate is the most unqualified candidate in history. If she were really so unqualified, they would be celebrating at an easy win. The sad truth is if Obama were white, no one would be taking him seriously. I keep hearing the left complain that he may not be elected due to racism. I have spoken to many people who won't be voting for Obama, but it has nothing to do with race. I do however hear most of his supporters draw a blank when I ask them why they are voting for him, only to finally admit it is because he is black. Racism works both way. Just look at the youtube videos of his supporters admit they are voting for him because of his color.
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