Setting the record straight

[unixronin]

There's this meme going around that calls for you to write about a Supreme Court decision you disagree with.  But it didn't start out that way.  It started out just as, "Write about a Supreme Court decision other than Roe v. Wade."  Because, after all, "that's the only Supreme Court decision Sarah Palin's ever heard of."

Except that's not true.  The actual question put to Palin (wording not guaranteed to be exact) wasn't "Do you know any Supreme Court decisions other than Roe v. Wade?"  It was, "Do you know any Supreme Court decisions that you disagree with, other than Roe v. Wade?"

I think we can all agree that's a very, very different question to answer "No" to.

Fer crissake, people, NONE of these candidates are paragons.  Doesn't any one of them have enough flaws worthy of criticism without people just making up extra ones to bash them about?

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I didn't suggest anyone was looking for paragons. I just said that all the candidates have plenty of real flaws, leaving no need to fabricate additional ones that the facts don't support. Doing so just makes the fabricators look bad.

I agree with unix_jedi, though; I don't see how her selection is possibly any more of an insult to the voting public than any other recent candidate for national-level office.

I do, however, think that the oft-repeated suggestion that she was selected solely for being a woman, in order to win over disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters, is insulting both to those voters and to her. I mean, come on ... Democratic voters so hard-core behind Hillary for President that they're mad at Obama for getting the nomination are going to switch parties just because the Republicans put up a woman as a VP candidate? I don't think so.

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

Oh, actually there are a few of those -- disaffected Hillary Clinton supporters ready to vote for McCain/Palin -- check out http://www.puma08.com. How much choosing Palin affected their judgment is anyone's guess; maybe if McCain had picked Gingrich or Romney it wouldn't have made a difference.

I agree that to suggest that her gender was the only reason for selecting her is insulting. It's also madly unrealistic -- no one in politics does anything for only one reason. But I think it's fair to say that her gender was a major factor. Of course I'm only speculating; I know no one in McCain's organization -- but from where I sit, I would say the sheer contrariness of picking her was a large part of the decision -- it reinforced McCain's maverick image, it put a woman on the Republican ticket after the Democrats had declined to put a woman on theirs, and then there's Governor Palin herself, a publicity magnet if there ever was one. And then there's her appeal to the evangelical right, which gets nauseous when it looks at McCain. No, it was much more than an insult.

If by some obscene mischance she gets to be president, that won't be an insult; it'll be a catastrophe. She's a spunky feminine version of Dubya.