What about This Lipstick Thing? By Art Pearl
Sarah Palin brought the house down, no great accomplishment at the Republican Convention, when she answered her question, “What was the difference between a soccer mom and a pit bull? by quipping “Lipstick.”
She made a few other house downing quips, the most telling and revealing of broad and deep ignorance skewered Obama for his community service. The widespread laughter revealed that neither she nor her audience had a clue what community service entails. How could they, considering who was there.
The selection of Palin to be John McCain’s running mate seemed to many as hasty and not carefully considered.
It was hardly that.
McCain, trying desperately to distance himself from Bush and Chaney is doing what every Republican seeker of this year’s presidency has aspired to do - cover himself with the mantle of Ronald Reagan.
McCain, like Reagan, is ushering in a “New Morning.” The McCain pitch is a reprise of a distant past, the coziness of small town America, a recreation of a
"Bygone place of close knit families and neighbors, It might be a small town like Bedford Falls. In Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life (1942)" (Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History 1974-2008, pp.134-35)\
And where could one find a smaller, more family and neighborly town than Wasilla, Alaska, population of around 5,000 during the years Sarah Palin was its mayor. Overlook she did all she could to turn it into a mall dominated place similar to where the rest of us live.
That there is nothing real in Sarah Palin shouldn’t surprise. There was little real in Ronald Reagan and that didn’t stop people from voting for him and buying into his mythology.
Reagan rode the
"Legend of the rugged competitive individual, willing to brave fortune in chancy ventures, his eye fixed on the horizon." (ibid, p. 135)
McCain replacing the horse with a plane, is no less the brave hero (with more to base it on). It is that combination of hero and against all odds, small towner. that is intended to capture the Reagan Democrats. Lured are the rural, the blue collar and all others who find it difficult to vote for a person of color.
Palin was not on the ticket to snare the disgruntled Hillary supporters. Those 27 would probably have voted for McCain if Guliani was on the ticket.
When Reagan was running he kept referring back to his role as a Notre Dame footballer, George Gipp, whose early death coach Knute Rockne called on to motivate his team. His “win one for the Gipper” Reagan used to great advantage in his political campaign for the presidency
Palin shines besides the plodding Romney and the ineffable Guliani and McCain hopes she will be able to “win one for the quipper.”
What about the issues?
Issues? Are you mad? Who cares about issues? Where was Reagan on the issues?
Now wait a minute, were things quite as bad then as they are now? No, not quite. But things were bad. Iran held our hostages. A recession was well on the way. The Soviet Union was still in existence. Latin America was restive, inappreciative of all President Monroe and those that have followed him had done for it. Immigrants were coming into the US without asking permission (Reagan granted a lot of them amnesty). We had some of the same stuff, but it wasn’t quite as bad.
And take into consideration that we are dumber now. Remember, Fox News didn’t come into existence until 1996.
We are undeniably dumb. We did after-all, re-elect George Bush by a larger margin than the first time (if indeed he was elected the first time). And he was no longer running on his mythology. He was running on a record that included a war based on lies, a ridiculous economic plan (McCain has the same plan) and an unwillingness to look at what was happening to the environment. The McCain people reason that what worked for Bush in 2004 will also work for them in 2008, especially if they can get away with the canard that there is no similarity between their candidate and Bush.
A lot of silly stuff mucks up the waters. People wonder if Palin can mother and govern at the same time? A ridiculous question. She will get all the help she needs doing both. People wonder whether either Obama or Palin are qualified? Another ridiculous question. Abraham Lincoln, The first Republican to make it to the presidency, served eight years in the Illinois legislature, (the same as Obama) , and two years in US House of Representatives(that is less time than Obama has been in the senate), before leaving Congress because of his unpopularity for opposing what he considered to be President Polk’s unconstitutional Mexican-American War. Oh, boy, what chance do you think he would have in today’s Republican party? Lincoln had slightly less time as an elected official than Obama and about the same as Pulin. So what? Neither his lack of qualifications nor how he would currently be viewed by dominant Republicans really matter. Historians have judged Lincoln to be our greatest president.
What should concern voters and who knows, perhaps things will get bad enough to get folks attention, is how the contestants will govern.
That is pretty easy to answer.
McCain and Palin will favor the rich in tax policy.
McCain and Palin will rest their hopes on the economy riding out the storm. Hooveresque? Not nearly as smart as Hoover.
McCain and Palin will cut programs for the poor, for children and for the aged.
McCain and Palin have no plans to rescue the environment.
And most importantly of all:
McCain and Palin favor war over diplomacy. McCain wants to win the Iraq war. No one apparently has told him the war was won over 5 years ago. Now he wants to win the occupation. Some one has to tell him no one wins an occupation.
But where he is all for war, he seems to be in far more contact with reality than his running mate.
She, in a speech before the Alaska National Guard about to leave for Iraq, (her son was a member of the Guard), said that Iraq was involved in the 9-11 bombings. Here she finds only the incumbent Vice-President agreeing with her.
The similarity with Chaney ends not end there. In her executive style she resembles the sitting vice-president. She is truculent, harbors grudges and has little patience with those who disagree with her. Both like to hunt. Palin shoots bigger game and manages not to shoot her hunting partners.
Which brings us back to lipstick.
After her contrast of soccer moms and pit bulls attention was turned to lipstick on a pig. It became for a brief time a big deal. Sometimes in the not too distant past McCain found occasion to draw public attention to it. Obama used it to lampoon McCain’s advocacy of change resulting in Republicans accusing Obama of calling Palin a pig. All of this is utter nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing.
Not nonsense, however, is contrasting Sarah Palin and Dick Chaney?
The difference, of course, is
Lipstick.
She made a few other house downing quips, the most telling and revealing of broad and deep ignorance skewered Obama for his community service. The widespread laughter revealed that neither she nor her audience had a clue what community service entails. How could they, considering who was there.
The selection of Palin to be John McCain’s running mate seemed to many as hasty and not carefully considered.
It was hardly that.
McCain, trying desperately to distance himself from Bush and Chaney is doing what every Republican seeker of this year’s presidency has aspired to do - cover himself with the mantle of Ronald Reagan.
McCain, like Reagan, is ushering in a “New Morning.” The McCain pitch is a reprise of a distant past, the coziness of small town America, a recreation of a
"Bygone place of close knit families and neighbors, It might be a small town like Bedford Falls. In Frank Capra’s film It’s a Wonderful Life (1942)" (Sean Wilentz, The Age of Reagan: A History 1974-2008, pp.134-35)\
And where could one find a smaller, more family and neighborly town than Wasilla, Alaska, population of around 5,000 during the years Sarah Palin was its mayor. Overlook she did all she could to turn it into a mall dominated place similar to where the rest of us live.
That there is nothing real in Sarah Palin shouldn’t surprise. There was little real in Ronald Reagan and that didn’t stop people from voting for him and buying into his mythology.
Reagan rode the
"Legend of the rugged competitive individual, willing to brave fortune in chancy ventures, his eye fixed on the horizon." (ibid, p. 135)
McCain replacing the horse with a plane, is no less the brave hero (with more to base it on). It is that combination of hero and against all odds, small towner. that is intended to capture the Reagan Democrats. Lured are the rural, the blue collar and all others who find it difficult to vote for a person of color.
Palin was not on the ticket to snare the disgruntled Hillary supporters. Those 27 would probably have voted for McCain if Guliani was on the ticket.
When Reagan was running he kept referring back to his role as a Notre Dame footballer, George Gipp, whose early death coach Knute Rockne called on to motivate his team. His “win one for the Gipper” Reagan used to great advantage in his political campaign for the presidency
Palin shines besides the plodding Romney and the ineffable Guliani and McCain hopes she will be able to “win one for the quipper.”
What about the issues?
Issues? Are you mad? Who cares about issues? Where was Reagan on the issues?
Now wait a minute, were things quite as bad then as they are now? No, not quite. But things were bad. Iran held our hostages. A recession was well on the way. The Soviet Union was still in existence. Latin America was restive, inappreciative of all President Monroe and those that have followed him had done for it. Immigrants were coming into the US without asking permission (Reagan granted a lot of them amnesty). We had some of the same stuff, but it wasn’t quite as bad.
And take into consideration that we are dumber now. Remember, Fox News didn’t come into existence until 1996.
We are undeniably dumb. We did after-all, re-elect George Bush by a larger margin than the first time (if indeed he was elected the first time). And he was no longer running on his mythology. He was running on a record that included a war based on lies, a ridiculous economic plan (McCain has the same plan) and an unwillingness to look at what was happening to the environment. The McCain people reason that what worked for Bush in 2004 will also work for them in 2008, especially if they can get away with the canard that there is no similarity between their candidate and Bush.
A lot of silly stuff mucks up the waters. People wonder if Palin can mother and govern at the same time? A ridiculous question. She will get all the help she needs doing both. People wonder whether either Obama or Palin are qualified? Another ridiculous question. Abraham Lincoln, The first Republican to make it to the presidency, served eight years in the Illinois legislature, (the same as Obama) , and two years in US House of Representatives(that is less time than Obama has been in the senate), before leaving Congress because of his unpopularity for opposing what he considered to be President Polk’s unconstitutional Mexican-American War. Oh, boy, what chance do you think he would have in today’s Republican party? Lincoln had slightly less time as an elected official than Obama and about the same as Pulin. So what? Neither his lack of qualifications nor how he would currently be viewed by dominant Republicans really matter. Historians have judged Lincoln to be our greatest president.
What should concern voters and who knows, perhaps things will get bad enough to get folks attention, is how the contestants will govern.
That is pretty easy to answer.
McCain and Palin will favor the rich in tax policy.
McCain and Palin will rest their hopes on the economy riding out the storm. Hooveresque? Not nearly as smart as Hoover.
McCain and Palin will cut programs for the poor, for children and for the aged.
McCain and Palin have no plans to rescue the environment.
And most importantly of all:
McCain and Palin favor war over diplomacy. McCain wants to win the Iraq war. No one apparently has told him the war was won over 5 years ago. Now he wants to win the occupation. Some one has to tell him no one wins an occupation.
But where he is all for war, he seems to be in far more contact with reality than his running mate.
She, in a speech before the Alaska National Guard about to leave for Iraq, (her son was a member of the Guard), said that Iraq was involved in the 9-11 bombings. Here she finds only the incumbent Vice-President agreeing with her.
The similarity with Chaney ends not end there. In her executive style she resembles the sitting vice-president. She is truculent, harbors grudges and has little patience with those who disagree with her. Both like to hunt. Palin shoots bigger game and manages not to shoot her hunting partners.
Which brings us back to lipstick.
After her contrast of soccer moms and pit bulls attention was turned to lipstick on a pig. It became for a brief time a big deal. Sometimes in the not too distant past McCain found occasion to draw public attention to it. Obama used it to lampoon McCain’s advocacy of change resulting in Republicans accusing Obama of calling Palin a pig. All of this is utter nonsense, trying to make something out of nothing.
Not nonsense, however, is contrasting Sarah Palin and Dick Chaney?
The difference, of course, is
Lipstick.
Comments
Thanks for this excellent commentary. You summed it all up perfectly and this one is going on the refrigerator.
Julie