Thursday, September 18, 2008

Political Rant

(Disclaimer: if you don't agree with my politics, feel free to argue back! Should be fun, and we'll still be friends!)

So I have a guilty secret to confess. Ever since her article making fun of Mitt Romney as well as Mormons in general, I keep reading Maureen Dowd's op-eds in the New York Times. I don't know why I do it, because the woman is absolutely ridiculous. Even a fair number of liberals agree that she doesn't say much of anything worth considering seriously, but for some reason I keep reading her anyway. And she manages to make me angry every single time!

So now I'm responding to her most recent article, 'Barbies for War!'

It's supposed to be an attack on Sarah Palin, but mostly it comes across as an attack on Alaska. It's funny, because I know that your average New Yorker doesn't really understand that there's more to America than the Big Apple (and I of course exclude my three sisters from my huge generalization here-- they are neither average, nor average New Yorkers!). But to make fun of Palin because she was mayor of, "a town that is a soulless strip mall without sidewalks set beside a soulful mountain and lake," is just inane. Did she mock Bill Clinton for being from Arkansas, which is basically a soulless state with strip malls but minus the gorgeous scenery? Of course not. She loved Bill! And I'm sure that his experience as a governor more than qualified him to run a country, as has Obama's experience as a senator. The hypocrisy just goes on and on.

She also makes fun of Palin, as well as your average Alaskan, for enjoying hunting. Now, I make no claims to like hunting. But I cannot for the life of me understand why so many liberals feel that hunting is considered so evil/white trash/below the likes of Maureen Dowd, but killing unborn babies is every woman's right. Does anyone else think that's a little weird? Or that society's morals are insane? Because if you gave me the option of killing a moose or a baby, I would have to choose killing the moose. (And I might add that our methods for killing moose are considerably more humane than how we kill babies. I would love to see what PETA would say about sucking a moose's brains out with a vacuum.)

How do the books at Sarah Palin's Pentecostal Church make Palin any less desirable a candidate than the anti-American teachings of Jeremiah Wright? How do Dowd's mean and nasty comments about how mean and nasty Palin is prove anything? (And why is it so terrible if Palin "seems mean," but funny when Obama flips off Hilary and makes comments about lipstick on a pig?) Why is it that Troopergate is worth writing article after article about, but no one seems interested in Biden's plagiarized speech?

Ironically, for all the media's talk that McCain and Palin are avoiding the issues, the media doesn't seem to be too keen on actually talking about the issues, either. Unless by "issues" you mean Bristol Palin's baby. (But Ann Coulter already made that point, so I'm not being particularly original here.)

Anyway. I could go on and on, but those are the main points I needed to make. Next post I'll be back to talking about my kids and stuff, but this needed to be said.

6 comments:

Alanna said...

This is probably my favorite comment on Dowd's article, so I'm cutting and pasting it here:

How is Sarah Palin's church any scarier than Barack Obamas? Why do you assume that the only issue that motivates women is the right to have an abortion? Why do you look down your nose at people who are poor? Why do you imply that you are better than a woman who shops in Walmart with "wrist tattoos"? Rather than put Sarah Palin down and ridiclue her supporters,why don't you investigate what women see in her? Isn't it obvious to you? Barack Obama has moved African Americans from passive bystanders to active participants in the political process. He has made them proud and feel like they are valued. Sarah Palin has done the same for all the hardworking women around the country. Women who raise the children, hold down mediocre jobs, try to help out at school and hold the family together. She feels familiar and she makes them proud and feel like they too are valued. Issues aside the election will come down to who moves more people and who feels more trustworthy in these uncertain times. I have my money on Sarah Palin. Women are the glue.

— Finncooper, Boston

Erin said...

I did the same for a while, but I stopped eventually because I disliked how absurd she was and feeling like I'd wasted my time after reading her articles. One thing that does concern me about Palin - supposedly she's all about ethics, but yet she's being investigated for a violation of them?? I don't know the ins and outs of the case, but it doesn't sound good....

Alanna said...

I agree that things like that are troubling, but whenever I've actually heard details about the ethics stuff, Palin usually comes out on top. Like Troopergate is all about her wanting to get her ex-brother-in-law, a state trooper, fired, but then it turned out that he had tasered his 10-year-old adopted son. I think he deserved to be fired. And she'd fired people who didn't agree with her politics, but that's what all politicians do. (Except George W., and I think that turned out to be a major mistake on his part...) The Clintons fired everyone around when they first got to the White House. It's not nice, but that seems to be how politics works-- you can't have people under you who aren't supporting you in your cause.

Alanna said...

Sorry, just remembered something else-- there's all this hype about Palin wanting to ban books, and somewhere they have this whole long list of books she wanted banned. It is true that she asked the librarian about banning books, but to the best of my knowledge she never actually banned anything and the list that's circulating is completely made up-- it's got books listed that hadn't even been published yet when Palin was mayor! Ah, lies about conservatives... What will they think up next?

Natalie R. said...

All I can say is, hear hear!!!!

Excellent post, and GO PALIN (oh yeah, and McCain, too)!! :0)

Erin said...

Ha! Does it strike anyone else as funny that everyone seems to have forgotten that McCain is actually the one running for president?