danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

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 »

So there will be a debate tonight after all.  I predict good watchin’.

Filed under: Current Events, Politics, Television on September 26th, 2008 | No Comments »

Last night was the season premiere of SNL–which Sara and I watched while Miriam slept on the couch–and though the rest of the show was rock bottom unfunny, the opening was an instant classic that will be talked about for years to come.

UPDATE: Yes, this video will probably not work when you go to play it.  That’s copyright for you.

Filed under: Comedy, Politics, Technology on September 14th, 2008 | No Comments »

Why do I think politicians who tell outright lies and base their campaigns on said lies can get away with it?

Well, they’re probably counting on the common practice in the news media of being “balanced” at all costs. You know how it goes: If a politician says that black is white, the news report doesn’t say that he’s wrong, it reports that “some Democrats say” that he’s wrong. Or a grotesque lie from one side is paired with a trivial misstatement from the other, conveying the impression that both sides are equally dirty.

They’re probably also counting on the prevalence of horse-race reporting, so that instead of the story being “McCain campaign lies,” it becomes “Obama on defensive in face of attacks.”

You can believe the media is biased because Keith Olberman is obviously liberal.  But if you have read a paper, or watched a national newscast you have seen exactly what Paul Krugman is talking about above.

Filed under: Current Events, Politics, Rantings on September 13th, 2008 | No Comments »

Perhaps you read this webpage but dislike politics.  If that is the case you may want to take a break and come back in late November.  Meanwhile…

John McCain has been one of relatively few politicians whom I have respected as an individual.  I haven’t generally been on his side of the issues, but sometimes I have, and even when I wasn’t I could respect his simple, unaffected manner and, for lack of better expression, “straight talk”.  I regretted that he got shafted in 2000 in South Carolina.  I couldn’t understand why he would have supported George W. Bush in 2004 without assuming one or the other of the following was true:

1. John McCain really did believe that George W. Bush was good for America (in which case his advertisements now saying that we are “worse off than we were four years ago” suggest he has terrible judgment), or,
2. He knew that if he didn’t actively campaign for Bush he’d never get the chance to gain the Republican nomination in any future election.

Neither of those reflects very well on John McCain’s integrity, in my opinion.  But Senator McCain didn’t really lose my respect until recently.  It wasn’t picking Governor Palin as his running mate. No, I don’t believe her qualified to be vice president, and yes, I do think his choosing her was much more about securing a particular segment of the electorate that he needs in order to win.  But, that’s politics, for better or for worse (worse), and if he wanted to have any chance of winning he needed to make sure he got the cultural conservatives on his side, since he was never their first choice.

No, what lost my respect was when Senator McCain chose to surround himself with disciples of Karl Rove, who have no scruples, and for whom the ends justify the means, no matter how despicable those means are.  These are people who have no qualms about lying and cheating to get what they want.  Now there are those who claim that politicians have always lied and cheated.  This isn’t about taking a kickback on a deal to bring some pork barrel project to a district.  (I don’t begrudge Governor Palin trying to bring home money to her state; I just object to her telling bald-faced lies now, claiming she never did.)  No, what I find offensive is the way John McCain’s campaign is putting out advertisements and press releases that contain demonstrably false information.  They know it isn’t true, but they also know that the media is lazy, and that big claims get headlines, and the inevitable retractions will be buried.  The sheer number and intensity of the lies–and it’s important to call them what they are; they are not mere exaggerations or “distortions”, they are lies, pure and simple–has exceeded what a man of John McCain’s character should be comfortable with.  But there was McCain on a stage a week or so ago saying explicitly that Governor Palin sold her state jet on eBay and made a profit.  That is demonstrably false, but they used it to try and further their claim that they are reformers.  They knew that by the time the press looked into and saw that a) the plane sold through a broker, and b) it sold at a loss for the state, the correction wouldn’t make the national news, and their next lie would be the headline of the day.

The paper today highlighted how some of the more recent lies have played out:

First the McCain campaign twisted Mr. Obama’s words to suggest that he had compared Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, to a pig after Mr. Obama said, in questioning Mr. McCain’s claim to be the change agent in the race, “You can put lipstick on a pig; it’s still a pig.” (Mr. McCain once used the same expression to describe Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s health plan.)

Then he falsely claimed that Mr. Obama supported “comprehensive sex education” for kindergartners (he supported teaching them to be alert for inappropriate advances from adults).

Those attacks followed weeks in which Mr. McCain repeatedly, and incorrectly, asserted that Mr. Obama would raise taxes on the middle class, even though analysts say he would cut taxes on the middle class more than Mr. McCain would, and misrepresented Mr. Obama’s positions on energy and health care.

A McCain advertisement called “Fact Check” was itself found to be “less than honest” by FactCheck.org, a nonpartisan group. The group complained that the McCain campaign had cited its work debunking various Internet rumors about Ms. Palin and implied in the advertisement that the rumors had originated with Mr. Obama.

So those are some pretty outrageous lies.  And what, to me, makes Senator McCain look like scum is that he has a spokesman who says the following (from the same article): “We stand fully by everything that’s in our ads,” [Brian] Rogers said, “and everything that we’ve been saying we provide detailed backup for — everything. And if you and the Obama campaign want to disagree, that’s your call.”

Then he provided no proof, no evidence, even, that any of their claims were true. And he’ll get away with it.  Later I’ll explain how.

Filed under: Current Events, Politics, Rantings on September 13th, 2008 | No Comments »