(If I subscribed to the Anne Coulter school of essays I would be referring to him as Rush Limburger-- oh, wait. That's reserved for Liberals. It would be Saint Rush.)
Now my Dad wasn't what you would call a conservative. As far as he was concerned, Roosevelt and Truman pulled him up out of the farm and put him in a nice engineering job. So listening to Rush was a surprise.
"So, Dad," I said, trying to be nonchalant. "What the Hell is this?" Subtle. I'm good at subtle.
He looked me straight in the eye and said: "You got to keep an eye on bozos like this."
Which is why I subscribe to various conservative newsletters.
Sarah Palin is a rather nondescript right wing republican. Shethinks Creationism should be taught in schools and has exhorted her constituents to pray for the new Alaskan gas pipeline. Personally, I think the pipeline is a good idea provided it follows environmental guidelines. I just don't think the Big Hairy Thunderer needs to be bothered with sweating the small stuff.
It did not bother me to hear about her pregnant daughter-- I thought it interesting that the daughter of an avowed proponent of abstinence education is unmarried and pregnant. It reminded me of the old joke: What do you call a user of the rhythym method of birth control? Pregnant. You can update it to abstinence education as an exercise in creativity.
So, though I expected some heat in my mailbox from the right, I was a little surprise by Pat Buchanan's article. Here are a few quotes:
What did Sarah Palin ever do to inspire the rage and bile that exploded on her selection by John McCain?
What inspired Pat Buchanan to think there was any? Rage and Bile? Huh. Maybe a little from Hillary supporters who thought selection of Palin was so cynical as to be insulting. But rage and bile? Not so much. He goes on to list a lot of irrelevant or untrue information about Palin that had pretty much nothing to do with any rage and bile. It's worth checking out Anne Kilkenny's letter regarding Palin's actual record. It's been pretty well verified.
No. Sarah Palin is not resented for what she has done, but for who she is: a Christian conservative who believes unborn children are gifts of God, even those with birth defects, and have a God-given right to life.
Well, Duh. She's exactly what we expect from the Repulicans. She's a right to lifer Christian conservative that does not let facts sway her from a higher truth. But Rage and Bile?
Yet, no sooner was Palin introduced, than the media went berserk over the news that her 17-year-old daughter is pregnant. As one in three births in America is out-of-wedlock and Hollywood celebrates this lifestyle, why did The New York Times and The Washington Post splash this "news" on page one above the fold?
Again, duh. This is the same country that brought up the same material with Giuliani, hunted down Gary Hart and looks in on the Bush girls. Remember Clinton getting impeached for getting a Hummer in the Whitehouse? What makes Palin deserve special treatment?
How does Bristol Palin's pregnancy disqualify Sarah Palin to be vice president? Why is it even relevant?
It's not but then, nobody but Pat suggests anyone thinks it is.
Normally, the press is reluctant to rummage into the private lives of public servants, unless their conduct affects their duties or they preach virtues they hypocritically do not practice.
At this point I realized that Pat Buchanan was not on this planet. This was Planet GOP, where the media is made up of foaming liberals, the democrats are traitors and the single bastion between the Blessed United States and complete ruin, along with the ruin of the entire world, is the Republican Party.
Consider the next few quotes:
Sarah ran her own fishing fleet, was mayor for six years and runs the largest state in the union.
- Palin helped in Todd Palin's salmon fishing. This happens once a year and he declared income from it (and from BP) of $92,790. Must be a pretty small fleet. Maybe an rowboat and a trolling motor.
- Check out Anne Kilkenny's letter regarding Palin's experience of mayor.
- Well, yeah. Largest area with the least population. Alaska averages slightly less than 1 person/square mile. It's also a state that is incredibly subsidized. Look at the Alaska Revenue Source Book of 2007 (under Palin's leadership). Page 3. Total state revenue: $12.3 billion. Source, federal: $2 billion. Oil, $5.2 billion. That means the more than half of the income from Alaska comes not from its citizens but from federal subsidy and oil taxes on oil corporations. Far be it from me to criticize taxing Big Oil but this is the same sort of economy as Saudi Arabia and Iran and about as self-sufficient. What it really indicates is that the rest of the country (and the world) subsidizes Alaska in buying oil. Alaska doesn't pay its own way. In no way does this prepare a candidate for being president of a country the must learn to be self-sufficient. This is negative executive experience. It's better to have no experience than this.
But informed debate and differing opions between equals has no place on Planet GOP.
So: Pat the B sees rage and bile. I don't see it. At least, I see no more than might be directed at someone, like, say, Pat Buchanan.
Wait a minute. Maybe she is Pat Buchanan! I've never seen the two of them together. Their ancient and hidebound ideas are the same. The vapid phrases are similar. She looks better but we live in the days of miracles and wonder and photoshop.
Anything is possible on Planet GOP.
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Links of Interest
Anne Kilkenny's Letter
Metaplace
More on Tardigrades in Space
The Mutable Brain
LHC: Here. Here. Here. Here.
Worst Headline of the Week
Memory Maps
Solar Sailing on Solar Panels
More on Neanderthals
The Making of a Terrorist
The End of the World: Why We Love It
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