Posts by Simon Grigg
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
James, that was fantastic. I woke up and almost choked on my coffee it was so good. You got the instant (just add hockey mom) VP in a box memes down pat and repeated them without a pause or a thought as to how silly you might look.
Seriously, who do you think this choice is going to bring to the McCain camp that was earlier likely to vote Obama a day earlier..which of those, and your implication is that women are so profoundly dumb that they'll swing that easily, "25% of woman" will, in an instant, realise that they are now anti-choice creationists and vote McCain.
Those male / female figures Russell cites are interesting as the one thing that hit me when wandering through the blogsphere and the pundits in the past days was how overwhelmingly male those touting Palin's attributes were. There were a percentage of females to be sure but mostly it's male and a very large percentage of those seem to regard the fact that she is 'hot' as a major factor for gods sake. There are even (small) Facebook groups for those who want to 'do' her although my favourite is My Pet Rock Is More Qualified Than Sarah Palin To Be Vice President.
(But the group adds the qualifier: Although, my pet rock has never been mayor of Wasilla, Alaska)
But more than anything this choice simply unlines McCain's lack of judgement and unfitness to lead anything. It's almost pythoneseque in it's absurdity. Who in god's name reasonably asks or expects someone to grow into a job like VP of the US with all that entails and implies, especially when her only on the job training to date has been as short term boss of a state with a smaller population than the town of Denpasar here on Bali. Have you been to Alaska? It makes Wanganui look sophisticated.
Here is your link Russell
-
Am I going to be accused of any-thing-ism if I say that Palin's voice really does my head in? That Alaskan whine is a real grimace inducer (regardless of the speaker's sex).
-
Listening to what she said, I think she was walkng a tightrope, not wanting to criticise HRC (for being a woman that is - I'm sure a republican governor would have plenty of other criticism to make about Clinton), but at the same time trying to say, well, just live it. I think that word 'perceived' is quite important - she emphasises the perceived. I heard that as Palin saying that HRC was perceived as whining, not that she actually was whining.
Perhaps, but sadly I think she is about to find out what it's like to have the gloves removed and the ice-picks sharpened, from both the right (one of the first slaps at her came from the reliably odious Charles Krauthammer) and the left.
I don't think Pelosi is trying to say much more than that but I agree, her statement was a little too much you need to roll with it than it needed to be and I'd thinking that both Hillary and Pelosi maybe learnt a long way back not to do exactly that given the distance both have come.
Either that or they both own bulletproof blinkers.
-
Deborah, I can't get the clip to load so maybe I'm missing the nuances but from the transcript it seems to me that is pretty much what she said:
You need to look at:
I say that with all due respect to Hillary Clinton and to her experience and to her passion for changing the status quo - when I hear a statement like that coming from a woman candidate, with any kind of perceived whine about that excess criticism, you know a sharper microscope put on her, I think that doesn't do us any good - women in politics, women in general wanting to progress this country.
after:
she does herself a disservice to even mention it.
-
'Here, little ladies: she has a vagina and *you* have a vagina! Just like Hillary Clinton! They're interchangeable! Vote for me!'
except that Ms Palin seems to be fairly comfortable re-writing her glass ceiling cracking 'just like Hillary'-ness to suit:
Once onstage, together with Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, Palin talked about what women expect from women leaders; how she took charge in Alaska during a political scandal that threatened to unseat the state's entire Republican power structure, and her feelings about Sen. Hillary Clinton. (She said she felt kind of bad she couldn't support a woman, but she didn't like Clinton's "whining.")
-
And then there is her incisive take on surge and Iraq
I've been so focused on state government, I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq. I heard on the news about the new deployments, and while I support our president, Condoleezza Rice and the administration, I want to know that we have an exit plan in place; I want assurances that we are doing all we can to keep our troops safe.
-
(Pedantic moment: shouldn't the phrase be "a lack of a heartbeat away from the Presidency"?).
You need to forgive me, I've just staggered in from a rather generous wine tasting down the road to a CNN live run on this. Pedantry can wait till the morning.
There's also this to worry about,
What I am worrying is if McCain is related to this fellow.
-
That would be wily indeed.
and a very smart post DNC headline stealer. But it's odd to see such a massive who just a potential heartbeat from that job.
-
attacker rather than the attack
attacked..bah!
-
It didn't sound good.
Because he took those slams and turned them 180 degrees. Each time the Republicans try such from hereon in it belittles the attacker rather than the attack.
I was a great speech, the sort that McCain, even in his rare not-completely-wooden moments couldn't come within a mile of.