doc_strange | Rant - "the woman candidate"

Those of you expecting a rant against the Republicans on this score, you're about to be disappointed. Nor is it praise for them. Nor anything about the Democrats.

Let's talk a little about Governor Palin. Oh, wait, don't I mean "Sarah Palin?" No, after all, we complained the press weren't calling Senator Clinton by her title while calling her opponents by theirs, as that's demeaning; but Palin, we're gonna never use her title? Strike one. You know who you are. Shame, shame. You can demean her by leaving off her office when you buck the party and fight your way to an office supervising over half a million people and over a half a million square miles.

If she were less comely, I suspect her actual history of 2 years in office might be in discussion rather than her looks. Admittedly, of course that's not a long time in high office - but how about we actually, you know, discuss it? Senator Obama is just as inexperienced and he's at the top of the ticket, and we HAVE discussed it.

Yesterday and today, I've read (all from people I took for social liberals) comments on her being a "bimbo," a "whore," a "walking uterus," "a token," and even some worse. Very interesting. Not a word on her actual 2 years as governor - for example, bucking the party on constitutional issues on the advice of the state attorney general, bucking party line by obeying court orders, renegotiating critical contracts with big oil, and opening up pipeline bids to international takers (Canadian company won), etc. I guess I have to ask if her 2 years as a governor are too little, then why are Obama's as a Senator not? Closet misogyny, that's why. If McCain had picked Liberman, would we be talking about the token Jew, a Kike, a Himey? Would Jindal be a token Indian (and he's really, really young), or called a "baby [ethnic slur here]"?

The obsession of looks->negatives is mostly coming from the general left, and maybe that's slanted because my friends' list is generally very left - but reading this outpouring of misogyny - and it is, you deniers, it is - I can only wonder if the left has more closet misogynists than the right.

During Senator Clinton's campaign, the media - even the left media - did some rather amazingly (closet) misogynistic things. They commented on her clothes and makeup as much as her speeches and positions. They made rude predictions on former President Clinton's role in the White House, and they questioned whether "having a woman in the White House" would affect our miltiary bearing. Rather a surprise for me how entrenched in the core of all US society misogyny is.

Senator Clinton complained about it, and, damned if she wasn't right.

And now we have it - worse, with real acid - for Governor Palin. Rather a disappointment for me, a disappointment in many of my friends. It's like discovering many of them are closet anti-Semites who believe they aren't prejudiced. "Hey, it's OK, I'd vote for a Jew candidate!" Uh, huh.

Why not discuss her as a candidate, rather than by her looks, as a "bimbo" for the right, etc.? Why is she not "the Republican Candidate"?

Remember the Saturday morning PSAs on prejudice?

"Who's Senator Palin, Jimmy?" "She's the Republican's woman candidate." Uh, huh.

Noooo, that's not showing a prejudiced core. No, sure isn't. Uh, huh.

My friends list is being trimmed, permanently. I will not remain "friends" with people whose souls are full of acid but who think they are full of balm. Those of you full of acid and happy to admit it, please stick around. You at least are honest, and sometimes a lot of fun.

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Doc, your post made me review mine on the topic. On retrospect, I think I was a lot less respectful of McCain than of Palin, although her (very!) good looks are obviously the foil I used.

I decided to write it the way I did based on an admittedly quick survey of her stance on *my* key issues. She seems to be a rabid antiabortionist and against gay marriage, as well as less tolerant of non-mainstream lifestyles (although less fanatically). Looking at those issues, I wouldn't care if she were a purple Martian with three heads and a tail, or a shoe-in for Ms. America, or had the longest resume for world politics since Winston Churchill. If Churchill was running today, and was a rabid antiabortionist, I wouldn't vote for him either.

Based on that, I stand by my post. I bet Palin's a great person to sit down and have a beer with, and I like her sense of style - selling Murkowski's jet on eBay? Pure Win. She seems to have integrity, competence, and charisma. But with her views, I don't want her in the White House, under any circumstances.

SOBUMD and I went around for a while on Clinton's run; the bottom line is that we *really* don't care about the gender of the President. Could it be a women? Sure. The conclusion with Hillary Clinton: Wrong woman for the job, wrong person for the job. I feel the same way about Sarah Palin.

The better question is, to what extent do the ends justify the means? How low can, and will, and should, one side go to keep the other from being elected? You and I have limited readership, but we *do* have readership, and this is a (very) public forum. Is it OK to make jokes about McCain's age? Is it *fair* to disguise the pathos of an emotional appeal as a logical, reasoned argument? Most Americans can't think worth a damn these days, and the big-name political consultants know that. The election has been a popularity contest since the dawn of television, and it's getting worse. There's a reasonable chance that we get a hard-right conservative in high office for *no better reason* than because she's nice to look at. That's not going to prove that we're not misogynists, and it's not OK.

So those of us with forums face a dilemma - can we hold to the moral high ground of Aristotle and Cicero's Rhetorical schools, while doubting that the other side will do so? At the end of the day, the only person I have to be able to look in the eye is the guy on the other side of the mirror while I'm shaving. If I haven't done what (little) I can to keep *the wrong people* out of the White House, I won't be able to do that. Because I think those wrong people are out to win, and they won't hesitate to grab an advantage.

The funny part is, I'd be willing to bet - and I have no real idea, but I'd be willing to bet - that McCain and Palin personally would prefer to maintain that moral high ground. I just don't believe they're ultimately in control of enough of the campaign to do that.

Whaddaya think? I'm leaving you on my friends list. You're right about the tone of the media coverage so far, and I think you're right about the general American misogyny. However, "You won't rescue Lotho, or the Shire, just by being shocked and sad, my dear Frodo," and I'd be willing to use that American misogyny (since it's there anyway) to prevent a worse evil. If McCain had picked someone who leaned closer to center, I'd've thought harder before voting for Obama (I'm not thrilled with him, but I think he's smart enough to surround himself with good people). However, abortion is a driving factor in my choice, and I can't let the current Republican ticket - regardless of gender - win.

Your post, though you danced all over the [n]ILF thing, wasn't so very misogynistic as, well, willfully sexist for the sake of humor? But I do think your post does press that button, and I don't think it's ultimately helpful for people to go on doing that without self-reflection. Insert some other, less-tolerated-today class of prejudice in there, and I bet it'll seem much less humorous, except to a much more limited audience.

But at least you didn't call her sexist names [er, excepting the [n]ILF thing], and the Wonder Woman reference was pure genius. Of course, Wonder Woman was supposed to be a symbol of forward-moving feminism. [pauses... blinks] Yeah, yeah, I know.

And if this thought experiment helped get you to write some more about the actual issues on which you are guiding your choice, then that's even better.

Excellent! "Willfully sexist for the sake of humor" is exactly what I was aiming for. My worry about the GILF comments is that it's not over-the-top *enough* for people to recognize it as irony, though reading some of the rest of the Big Ugly Man Doll should put it in context. (OK, that *name* should put it in context.)

The funny part (to me) is that I'll write about the actual issues on which I'm guiding my choices on your blog - but not on mine, for the most part. My primary goal is not *specifically* to get people to think, but rather to get them to laugh. If I can also associate an issue with a joke in people's minds, and influence them subtly in what I think is the right direction, I will - and that won't always be the moral high road, and I know that. Humor isn't nice - humor hurts.

Should I take your response to mean that you think we, as pundits (to whatever extent), should aim for the moral high ground?

And, if the conservatives aim low, is it OK to lower our aim? Heinlein reminds us that "It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." And so I wonder.

What do you think?

If you aim for comedy, aim wherever the laughs are. That's a comment on society.

If you aim for social change, aim high, where your own actions won't reverse progress.

If you aim for social change through humor, study Lenny Bruce and Belle Barth.

This fortune cookie will self-destruct in 5...

Heh. For example, take my post - PLEASE! ;->

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