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Media ADD

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Watching CBC news last night (all paraphrased) on the US election:

“Barack Obama, in an unprecedented move, spent 6 million on a primetime infomercial. (bla bla bla about his campaign.)”

“But the Republican camp hasn’t given up yet. Sarah Palin was in Ohio (interview with some supportive college girls). Republicans are angry with Palin for possibly campaigning for her own candidacy in 2012.”

Based on the CBC, it was as if John McCain didn’t exist.

So who has moved on to 2012–Palin? or the media? (I’m still wondering what Joe Biden is up to.)

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Brigitte shouldn’t be surprised but still: “Republicans” are angry with Palin? Which Republicans? All of them? Ah, er, except for Rush listeners (he’s a pretty enthusiastic fan), a batch of conservative commentators, and even Karl Rove, who wrote this morning that he had “already cast my absentee ballot in Kerr County, Texas — joyfully, enthusiastically marking the straight Republican column.” I’m sure there are McCain aides and supporters who resent Sarah Palin’s popularity. But good grief, isn’t that sort of why they drafted her in the first place? Why can’t the CBC (and most other traditional media outlets) see the grumblers for what they are? Oh, and have they talked about Wendy Button while reporting on the Obama campaign?

Give me a reason, then

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If it’s plain as plain as a clear sky over the prairies that Sarah Palin is completely unqualified for VP–you’d think Danielle Crittenden would include at least one or two reasons in this column. Maybe she ran out of space, since she spent a good 500 words describing her own background. (Which was interesting, don’t get me wrong.)

Not compelling though, on why I’m supposed to think Palin is incompetent.

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Tanya adds: Funny that you’d blog on this, Andrea. I was just watching this clip this morning. The real question that no one seems to be able to answer: “Name the most significant thing Barack Obama has done –” Or, more specifically: “what’s he done other than run for president from the day he graduated from Harvard Law School? ” But Palin, running for VP, is unqualified. Of course.

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Andrea adds: Oh but Tanya–don’t bore Crittenden with thoughts like that! (“The other side doesn’t have experience either!”) For she tells us, “That’s an argument you can make without having graduated from elementary school.”

She may not be part of that snobbish “elite.” She is, with this piece, imitating them rather well, however.

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Rebecca would like to draw our attention to Michael Novak on Palin, and Palin-bashing:

I wonder if most of the people who are today dissing Sarah Palin, at least among a few conservatives I greatly admire, are more accustomed to debating highly educated liberals. Could it be that they understand the diction of journalism and the academy better than they understand the speech of most of America?”

I think he’s onto something. More than a liberal or conservative echo chamber, I think what’s going on here is the politics-junkie echo chamber. The world of people who spend most of their time thinking about, writing about or practicing politics is fairly small, and as with any group who share an intense but narrow interest, it’s easy to forget that the rest of world thinks and works differently.

The courts decided it was objectively true…

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…because it is.

The majority argued that it is objectively true that human life begins at conception, and that the state can force doctors to say so.

If Bush pushed those courts “to the right”–(I don’t happen to think abortion is a left/right issue, but whatever, I’ll go with the New York Times language)–then it’s best to know that the next President can just as easily push them back.

On loneliness and depression

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Great piece in the Ottawa Citizen . It’s about assisted suicide and euthanasia and makes a tremendous argument against the practice. It concludes by saying:

There is a cultural assumption that severe disability is worse than death, and so to Daniel’s parents it was completely normal that their 23-year-old son wanted to die. Perhaps they were right. Maybe for Daniel, disability really would have been worse than death. But he should have been given a chance to discover otherwise.

This is our cultural assumption–that death is better, in particular in cases of disability. For that, we have no proof at all. (Tell me now, who is making a leap of faith with their arguments?)

Depression and loneliness are huge factors in wanting to die, in wanting someone else to die (in the case of abortion). Again, is killing the best we can come up with in these dire, sad circumstances?

Another classy move from the fashion world

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I’d say I’d boycott Levi’s for this, the “Unbutton Your Beast” campaign. But truth is, I’ve never actually fit into anything they make.

(This, by the way, intrigues me. I question the company that makes jeans that don’t fit the average female, no matter what size she tries on. Some companies apparently cater exclusively to those women who are emaciated and extremely tall. You’d think they’d want a slightly broader profit margin. But I digress. And I agree with Wendy Shalit. Unbutton your beast? Er, please don’t.)

SNL on Palin

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Saturday Night Live on Sarah Palin. No, not Tina Fey. Lorne Michaels:

Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of “Saturday Night Live” who lives on the forward wave of American life, gave his view of Sarah Palin this week to EW.com: “I think Palin will continue to be underestimated for a while. I watched the way she connected with people, and she’s powerful. Her politics aren’t my politics. But you can see that she’s a very powerful, very disciplined, incredibly gracious woman. This was her first time out and she’s had a huge impact. People connect to her.”

If she’s truly such a bimbo, it makes idiots of those obsessed with pulling her down. Why waste valuable column inches in stating the obvious? No, they write about her precisely because she’s not a “caribou barbie,” after all. (I don’t think they can have it both ways.)

And speaking of lead balloons

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If Wente wants to talk lead balloons, let’s talk a McCain candidacy without Sarah Palin. The reality is that McCain is a weak candidate. The only inspiring thing he’s done is choose Sarah Palin as a running mate. Certainly, this is not the view of the media elite, of that I’m well aware.

It may take years to see who has the last laugh, because I don’t believe the McCain ticket will win. But they won’t lose because of Sarah, that’s for sure. As for all the femme fatale nonsense? Seems to me Wente’s fallen into the trap of thinking good looks and brains are mutually exclusive. And that only men like her. Oh dear.

Palin is a strong and attractive candidate. But how she looks is neither here nor there, save for columnists who use that as an excuse–when really, not so secretly, it’s her ideas they abhor.

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Rebecca adds: “Seems to me Wente’s fallen into the trap of thinking good looks and brains are mutually exclusive.”

If I thought in stereotypes as shallow as those Wente indulges in that column, I’d be tempted to expand upon Andrea’s observation.

Palin has lots of male fans, but the news has been for a month and a half how she has energized the Republican base and women. Wente isn’t dumb, so she must be pretty blinded by her obvious resentment to have missed this point.

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