It’s a rather odd feeling to be watching my hometowm team, the Rays, play in the post-season, and see them winning. Also strange is to see Tropicana Field sold out. I’ve been to a bunch of games there and never seen it more than a quarter full. It pays to win.
Filed under: Sports on October 3rd, 2008 | No Comments »
Like everyone else in America, I watched the vice presidential debate last night, and here are my thoughts:
Senator Biden did a decent job limiting himself to brief answers, and not blabbing on and on forever as he is wont to do. (This was actually something we can credit to the McCain campaign, since each candidate, when arranging for the debate was allowed some concessions. Senator Biden asked that the candidates speak at lecterns; Governor Palin requested that response times be short.)
Governor Palin didn’t answer half the questions she was asked. She seemed instead to use the opportunity to recite campaign talking points about change and “the American people”. I understand completely why she did this, since there is no doubt that she wasn’t going to do well talking distinctly about issues. While I found it annoying to be spoken to as though I were retarded, I suppose studies show that people like candidates that speak their language. I just despise anti-intellectualism for its own sake.
I guess the consensus is that neither candidate made any blunders, so, as the media would have it, it’s a tie. But I don’t really think that’s fair. Yes, everyone knows Senator Biden can put his foot in his mouth and sound pompous. But he is universally acknowledged to know what he’s talking about. Governor Palin, on the other hand, is so outside her element, and has done so poorly in the few appearances she has made outside of a campaign-controlled setting, that all she had to do was not embarrass herself and she’d be considered a success. This is a distinction worth exploring. The media spent days pondering how Senator Biden needed to avoid sounding too condescending or appear to patronize Governor Palin. In fact, I heard several replays of the famous 1984 George H.W. Bush / Geraldine Ferraro debate, where Vice President Bush said something to the effect that he would explain to her some difference between Iran and Lebanon, and Representative Ferraro shot back that she was offended by his patronizing attitude.
But think about it this way: if Congresswoman Ferraro had been a man, that exchange would not be remembered at all. Likewise, if Governor Palin were not a woman, Senator Biden wouldn’t have been cautioned to tread so softly, and he wouldn’t have practiced for weeks against Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm to avoid that sort of George H.W. Bush blunder. Sarah Palin got off very easy. Joe Biden could have made her look like Dan Quayle. Don’t get me wrong, I think it served Biden well not to sound menacing. But I think that the double standard ought to be acknowledged. Governor Palin had a very low bar to reach. She made it over it, “God bless her”, but I don’t think that’s saying much.
I have no problem admitting that Sarah Palin seems approachable. Her family certainly looks all-American as far as I can tell. I think some of the folksy language is an affectation, and one that ought to be unnecessary, but that’s for the people to decide. I don’t like some of the things I know about her: the book banning is un-American, and the firing of an official for not pursuing her vengeful motives is ugly, and bears all the hallmarks of our current vice president’s methods. Ultimately it comes down to this: I don’t think she’s smart enough. (That isn’t a sexist remark; I’d think that even if she were a man.) And I cannot conceive of voting for a person who is so apparently unsuited for the office of president of the United States, which, though I know is not the office for which she is campaigning, is one that, God forbid, a vice president is sometimes called to occupy.
Filed under: Current Events, Politics on October 3rd, 2008 | 2 Comments »