But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
...Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for -- and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."
...She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency...
Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.
Also making me happy: The AP does some fact checking for Sarah Palin. Because I was wondering how the media was letting her get away with stretching the truth into downright lies last night... a speech full of negativity, lies, and no plan for change.
Sybil Vane of Bitch PhD analyzes Palin's (or should I say McCain's?) rhetoric. And asks the sort of questions I would want to ask if I found myself grading this speech as a work of persuasive argumentation:
"I guess -- I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities."
Nasty. The much-lauded grass roots voters, those who are most "energized" by the VP pick, are community organizers. Martin Luther KIng Jr was a community organizer. If state-sponsored service is the only service that counts, say so plainly.
"As for my running mate, you can be certain that wherever he goes and whoever is listening John McCain is the same man."
Dicey. Take, for example: John McCain has in this last week noted (rightly) that candidate's families are not appropriate subjects of political discourse, and yet famously made jokes about Chelsea Clinton's ugliness. One doubts he made such jokes when HRC was listening.
"We suspended the state fuel tax and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress, "Thanks, but no thanks," on that Bridge to Nowhere."
Insufficient evidence. Hired lobbyist secured $27 million in earmarks during tenure as Mayor. Bridge to Nowhere was supported before rejected, the latter happening once it became nationally unpopular and emblematic of earmarking.
"But the fact that drilling, though, won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all."
True. And yet - is anyone advocating doing nothing at all? Please support this implication.
"Al Qaida terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America, and he's worried that someone won't read them their rights."
Rudy's line. Also, nasty. Also demonstrative of gross misunderstanding of international law. Being opposed to torture is only shamefully equated with "worrying" about Miranda rights.
"And let me be specific: The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, and raise payroll taxes, and raise investment income taxes, and raise the death tax, and raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
Inaccurate. Non-partisan Tax Policy Center provides accurate info re: comparative tax plans.
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