Sarah Palin is the Kiss of Death
A couple of days after John McCain announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, I was over at my favorite uncle’s house having dinner with him and his wife. In the course of conversation, catching up on what had been going on in our respective lives, I asked my aunt what she thought of Ms. Palin’s nomination. Her response was that she thought Palin was “the kiss of death”. I couldn’t agree more, but for very different reasons than what my aunt had in mind.
You have to understand that my aunt and uncle are much more conservative than I am. Just how conservative, you ask? Their bookshelf proudly displays several titles written by Rush Limbaugh. ‘Nuff said.
This is not to say that I’m an ultra-liberal, however. I am pro-choice, but I don’t believe that making guns illegal is the way to stop gang warfare. I come from a long line of strong-willed women and strident feminists, but I hate the feminist party-line that men are bad and that the evils of patriarchy have caused all the ills of the world. I wanted to want Hillary in office, but I think she’s too harsh and too strident, too close to the stereotypical model of the successful businesswoman who has taken on the most extreme aspects of her male counterparts and rolled them into a finely tailored suit and French-tipped manicure.
Palin is, obviously, cut from a very different weave of cloth from Hillary, and I fear the consequences if she does manage to make it into office.
I’m not against Sarah Palin because she’s a woman. I just haven’t yet seen a candidate for President or V.P. who happened to be female that I wanted to support with my vote.
I’m not against Sarah Palin because she’s a Republican. I agree with the Republican consensus that our Federal Government spends too much. The problem is I also disagree with the manner in which they want to spend my hard-earned dollars.
I’m not against Sarah Palin because she believes in Creationism. Our beloved Constitution grants her the right to believe whatever she wants. I’m just afraid that she’s going to ram her beliefs down the throats of millions of innocent school children and make it illegal for opposing views to be aired in public forums.
I’m not against Sarah Palin because she’s a Christian. Again, the First Amendment of the US Constitution grants her the right to believe what she wants. I’m just afraid that one of her beliefs is that God wants her to kill anyone and everyone who hasn’t accepted Jesus – make that her version of Jesus – as their chosen savior. In this day of WMDs, many of which are owned by the United States Government, I hold that belief to be particularly dangerous when held by someone who would become my President should something happen to John McCain.
I’m not against Sarah Palin because she’s a working mother. Heck, I was a latch-key kid myself for most of my own childhood. I just resent the idea that Palin takes for granted that her employers, the taxpayers, should bear the financial burden of caring for her offspring. Why should she be any different from the millions of working mothers who pay for baby-sitters, nannies, tutoring and so on? She can’t have it both ways. Either she has to work with the same financial and logistical obligations as other working mothers, just like my mother did, or she’d better work darned hard to make universal child-care a major part of her political career.
And finally, I’m not against Sarah Palin because I have anything against pit-bulls, with or without lipstick. I happen to be very fond of pit-bulls, and Rottweilers, and Dobermans, and German shepherds, as well as bitches from other maligned breeds, but I think that being “a pit-bull with lipstick” is hardly cause to think someone is qualified to make the tough decisions that will influence the course of history for the entire world.
The choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain’s running mate was, in my opinion, calculated to do one thing: to capture millions of votes of disappointed supporters of Hillary Rodham Clinton. McCain’s camp is hoping to capitalize on the dashed hopes of those millions of Americans who wanted to see a woman empowered to govern our nation. The problem is that Sarah Palin is nowhere near as capable or qualified as Hillary to do the job.
I confess that I had decided some while ago I would cast my vote for Obama this coming November, but for me the selection of Sarah Palin was, indeed, the kiss of death to any notion that I might consider voting for McCain. That was, in part, what my aunt meant when she made her original comment. Where she and I differ, however, is that should McCain and Palin be elected, my greatest fear is that their administration would be the kiss of death to freedoms we take for granted, that our natural resources and those of nations who oppose us would be plundered with wanton abandon, and that their leadership would send us into the deepest darkest age the world has seen since the thirteenth century.
I have other reasons to want Obama to be elected President, but now I have lots of reasons to want McCain to lose.
~ B ~
September 13th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
The problem we have, and it seems to be increasing with each election, is that there is no decent choice. We are presented with a menu composed entirely of liver recipes. Any one you pick, you get basically the same meal, with different sauces.
I think I’ll go ahead and vote for Ron Paul. Some people would consider that a wasted vote; I consider a vote for someone I detest, just because they might win, a huge waste. Politics are way too much like off track betting for my taste.
I’m considering what foreign cournty to move to, no matter which of the two major parties prevail.