Just as black people using the N-word is different from white people using it, so criticizing a woman is one thing when a man does it and something else when a fellow female does. So we’re giving columnist Froma Harrop a pass on pulling no punches over Sarah Palin.
Besides that, we agree with her.
Until now, one could counter the Democrats’ argument that a McCain presidency would amount to a third term for Bush. After all, McCain is a deficit hawk…Many pro-choice voters were willing to overlook McCain’s generally anti-abortion stance on the belief that he didn’t really care about the issue. And the widespread concern regarding McCain’s age could have been assuaged by the choice of a competent vice president.
Then who does McCain pick for vice president? A 44-year-old who parades her dysfunctional family as a poster-child for conservative values. Who has virtually no foreign policy experience. Who as mayor of an Alaskan town of 6,700 hired lobbyists to reel in $27 million in federal pork. That’s $4,030 of the U.S. taxpayers’ money per resident. We thought McCain wanted to close down the trough.
But let’s face it, Palin wasn’t selected for her policy stands, she was chosen for her social ones. And they deserve some scrutiny.
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has five children, but she waited until they were grown before she ran for high political office. Palin returned to the job three days after giving birth to a special needs child, all the while her 17-year-old is entertaining a lover. And what about plans to have the girl wed the stud, author of some very unromantic remarks on Facebook? Note that she’s been pregnant for five months and still no matrimony. These nuptials couldn’t be a last-minute political move, could they?
Palin supporters insist that her out-of-control home life will resonate with many American families. Yes, if they’re from Mars or perhaps on welfare.
Ouch! But Harrop’s larger point is a good one.
What a McCain presidency now promises is another four years of Terri Schiavo and other artifacts of the cultural right. You remember Schiavo’s husband having to fight the Bush administration and Republican Congress to remove his wife — in a vegetative state for 15 years — from life support. It’s four more years of national humiliation as our leadership undermines the teaching of evolutionary science, and if something happens to John McCain, opposes stem-cell research.
One tries to untangle McCain’s political calculations. The Schiavo case, creationism and similar excesses appeal to a passionate but small slice of the electorate. They are one reason voters are booting Republicans out of power. So while some religious conservatives may be “energized” by the Palin pick, most everyone else is revolted.
