September 2, 2008

The week ahead in conservatism

How much more entertaining can the John McCain campaign get this week? Recent revelations will be hard to top.

Senator McCain, who once upon a time famously denounced Religious Right leaders as "agents of intolerance," has apparently acceded to their desires by setting aside his favored running mates for an unknown quantity whose main selling point seems to be her "social conservatism."

Unknown, as in unknown even to John McCain.

While Sarah Palin's private family life is her business, her public policy pronouncements are decidedly not, and it's more than a little ironic that an abstinence-only educator currently has an unwed teenage kid with a bun in the oven, while adding unintended new meaning to her own self-description as a "hockey mom."

She's certainly in no position to dictate her ineffective public sex-ed curricula to anybody else's children.

Then of course there is the McCain campaign's trumpeting of talking points that simply aren't true. She opposed a bridge construction when she supported it. She fought Senator Ted Stevens when she helped raise money and campaign for him. She eschewed federal earmarks while she lobbied Congress for them.

She rallied against corruption while she and her "first dude" fired administration officials to appease their feuding in-laws. She's a foreign policy expert by dint of the Aleutian Islands.

Now she's touted as ready from day one to take over the office of Abraham Lincoln while she's been playing at being Jefferson Davis.

Chuck Kopp, who Sarah Palin appointed as Alaska's top police officer after firing his predecessor and who she also had to get rid of two weeks later when she found out that Kopp had been reprimanded for sexual harassment, probably summed up the conservative devotion to Palin best when he testified, "While I have been portrayed in a negative light, my personal worth is found in the person of Jesus Christ, and not on the one who accepts or rejects me."

Quite so. Welcome to the faith-based public official.

9 comments:

Tom said...

I think it's safe to say that the Republican Party has imploded. For the life of me, I don't know why he didn't pick Romney. Romney gives them half a fighting chance. If they snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat, especially after they've seemingly tried to give this one away ... I'll be amazed.

At this point, I'm just looking to keep my job and house. If one of the candidates can assure me of those two things, they can have my vote ... because for all the cries about change ... I see nothing but the same old bullshit for the next four years regardless of who gets the Presidency.

illusory tenant said...

I don't know why he didn't pick Romney.

I don't know why the party didn't pick Romney in the first place. It seems to me Romney would have cruised to the White House.

Tom said...

It seemed that way to me as well. Given his success in business, as an economy guru, he would have been much more of a plus than Biden is for Obama in his role of foreign relations/national security guru.

I think I know why McCain didn't pick Romney though ... his ego. I hope his ego can suffer a blowout come November though. I have a feeling more than a few southern states will go Obama's way this year. Which also was a reason to pick Romney ... Romney gave him at least a shot at a couple of states in New England. Alaska was already a shoo-in for the Republicans without Palin on the ticket.

illusory tenant said...

What's amazing is how Palin could put her family through this. She had to have known the scrutiny would be unrelenting.

As Mick Jagger said of Madonna, "She's a thimbleful of talent on a sea of ambition."

Tom said...

Some of those soccer/hockey moms can be scary. I've met a few already in my time as a school board member. The word "driven" doesn't really do their attitudes justice. The word "wrong" isn't in their vocabulary either.

Display Name said...

Maybe Palin steps down and McCain gets to pick again.

illusory tenant said...

It's possible -- and it's happened before -- but I think it would be a pretty devastating blow to McCain's much-vaunted "judgment."

illusory tenant said...

Interestingly, it was conservatives who forced Harriet Miers's withdrawal.

Anonymous said...

It seems to me Romney would have cruised to the White House.

I think back to how strong a fakery vibe Romney was giving off, there, during the primaries. I don't think the Republicans had anyone better than McCain, all things considered.