OK, I'm Canadian and we've got our own election looming and I should really be paying attention to that, but damn me if I'm not fascinated by the "Sarah Palin phenomenon". I can't help myself. My long-held opinion that American politics are inherently more interesting than the Canadian version because the US's involves nuclear (or, as I guess it was spelled in her speech to the Republican convention, "new-clear") weapons has never been more true. The possibility that a nutter like Palin might actually end up in a position where her finger's on the button should frighten the living bejesus out of every sane American, but at least they have some sort of say in whether she gets there or not (dirty "voter fraud" tricks to prevent lower class Americans from voting notwithstanding). The rest of us just get to watch in stunned disbelief as McCain and Palin blatantly lie their way into contention to win what should've been a no-contest election.
It looks like the love affair between the media and Palin is coming to an end (finally) and she and McCain are both starting to be called on their repeated falsehoods (which doesn't seem to have stopped them from continuing to repeat them, at least not yet.) So maybe by the time November rolls around the people who're buying the "We're mavericks who'll stop lobbyists and earmarks in Washington, cut taxes and win the war in whatever country we've invaded under false pretenses this year" line will know their actual records on such things, vote accordingly, and the world, or at least the United States' portion of it, will make some kind of sense again. Not that I honestly expect Barack Obama to be a fabulous president, but man...I mean, McCain/Palin is a ticket that wouldn't just be another four more years of Bush - it'd be four years of worse than Bush, something I'd have thought inconceivable until I got a look at a list of McCain's foreign policy advisors and heard Palin's position on getting the United States into a shooting war with Russia--I mean, her position on bringing former Soviet states in to NATO (something NATO's own membership requirements would make null and void even if she did ascend to the Presidency, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster.)
But for me, the REALLY interesting thing about McCain/Palin is the reaction of the American left. I've never seen anything remotely resembling the kind of palpable rage that's floating around the progressive circles I keep some sort of track of. I can understand where the anger's coming from: the Republicans have made a senile warmonger and a small-minded hypocrite their choice to lead the "free" world, and against all reason, the warmonger and the hypocrite actually stand a reasonable chance of winning. Minds have well and truly been boggled, and it must be admitted, mine is one of them. The simple shock of seeing anyone but the most rabid Republican partisans come out in support of this ticket was followed up by utter horror, then outrage, that the Republicans were getting away not just with foisting their bogus narrative and sleazy, race- and class-baiting tactics on the public unchallenged, but that such tactics actually (continue to) work in what one would hope would be an enlightened era. Of course they're mad. Seeing any large group of people being unbelievably #*&%ing stupid would make most people mad. I can barely leave the house anymore for fear that I'll start berating total strangers for their presumed idiocy.
A couple weeks back, there was a brilliant segment on Jon Stewart that contrasted Republican shills taking exact opposite positions on issues. There was little (if any) commentary from Stewart, just one clip of Rove, O'Reilly, et al saying one thing, then another of them saying the exact opposite when it was applied to someone on their side. I'm not convinced the Daily Show writers thought the bit was actually funny - I laughed pretty hard, but then, I have a superhuman sense of humour and can laugh at darn near anything. The piece dripped with contempt, for the individuals involved, for the system that encourages their hypocrisy, and I strongly suspect, for the ignorant masses that support them (though that might just be a happy projection on my part.)
And some sick part of me is devouring CNN (we don't get MSNBC) and other available MSM sources, waiting for some of that much-deserved contempt - or, failing that, some simple investigative journalism and objective reporting - to come through. "Liberal media", my ass.
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ALSO...
The democrats suck too. But slightly less.
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THE FUNNIEST THING I READ ALL WEEK
The Hamlet Facebook newsfeed.
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