Tuesday, September 2

One More Taboo Topic: Politics

I'm not a Senator McCain hater in any way. Truly. I don't think he's Satan or Satan's Puppet (those are the ones I've heard that make me laugh,) or anything less inflammatory, either. But I do have one very important question, and it goes like this: WHAT THE F*&%?!

Whether Sarah Palin is qualified for a national office -- particularly this one -- is not what is most disturbing to me. What's disturbing (for the sake of this particular blog entry) is how it appears. The selection of a little-known, inexperienced, female person comes off like this to your random woman voter:

"You didn't get Hillary, so here's another vagina for you."

To be clear, I'm NOT saying anything about Ms. Palin with this statement -- she could, indeed, make a good VP -- I'm saying it about the people who selected her for the candidacy. If the GOP felt they truly needed a female candidate for the ticket, how about Sen. Elizabeth Dole? She's an educated, nationally-eperienced, charismatic woman. How about Kay Bailey Hutchison, the senior female senator? How about anyone, regardless of anatomy, with leadership experience and qualities that makes her or him an acceptable choice for president, should anything happen to McCain?

This entire frame of selection pisses me directly off. I remember feeling exactly the same way about President Clinton's selection of Janet Reno. Both of the president's previous nominees, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood, had confirmation problems; by the time he selected Reno, it appeared that he was searching for a woman to do the job much more urgently than he was searching for the most-qualified person to do the job. Yes, of course there's always the chance that the three most qualified candidates were all female, but I doubt it.

It's this sort of gymnastics (among other things, naturally) that makes me wonder how we'll rise above the game of politics and move forward, and upward with concern and love for people living in this country.

Yes, I'm idealistic. Yes, I had a visceral reaction. I offer no apologies for either.

6 comments:

KimmyDarling said...

I'm with you. It's as if we'll be so dazzled by her gender that we won't care where she stands on any of the issues we consider important...

All day on Friday, I had to wonder if we were being Punk'd.

love,
kimmyd

Anonymous said...

Cruise on over to your other aunties site and you will see that we share in your disgust. I feel especially bad for her daughter who now pays the price of her moms decision to out her very private business to the nation for a spot on the GOP ticket. I hoped she would have thought of that before she agreeded and accepted the nomination.
Other than that I love politics and the interesting people who make up our rather disfunctional gov't.
I'm just happy these eight years are almost over!!!
YIPPPPEEEE!
auntie g

Terri said...

Two words, dahling:

Yukon Barbie

Allie said...

i have so much to say on this - but don't know quite where to start.

i think diddy said it best.

"John McCain is buggin the fuck out."

Anonymous said...

Allie you're my girl!
Auntie g

Tasty said...

Her is MY girl! But I'll share. :) How I would LOVE to have you two in the same room. FUN FUN FUN!!!!! (And funny! duh!)

 
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