My mommy, right or wrong
Al Franken, who I hope will become a senator soon, once said something very wise about the difference between how conservatives and liberals view America:
We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow.
This is generally true, and Governor Palin is currently behaving as if she were a prime example of the “my mommy right or wrong” type of conservative. She displays that mindset here in this snippet from her recent debate with Senator Biden:
Notice how her voice rises to a yippy Pomeranian pitch* when she indignantly pronounces the words, “hate America!” And like the incurious and/or stupid George W. Bush, she attributes the bad guys’ hatred of America entirely to their distaste for freedom, women’s rights, etc., when it is actually a whole lot more complicated than that.
Well, given the fact that Palin is literally in bed with a one-time anti-American secessionist and was providing encouragement to that anti-American group as recently as this summer, excuse me if I question her “America! Fuck Yeah!” bona fides:
But the sentiments of the yokels she’s targeting with her current rhetoric on behalf of McCain are real enough. And those people need to grow the fuck up. This isn’t about someone being mean to their mommy. This is about a planet on the brink, and we need a leader who can comprehend opposing viewpoints and thus negotiate the best course of action. Not to save us from further embarrassment on the world stage, though god knows that would be change I can believe in. But rather to save our asses, perhaps literally.
The world is getting a whole lot scarier and more complicated. It has never been as simple as wingnuts made it out to be, and the exercise of raw power was never the panacea they crowed about. But with the global financial meltdown and other gigantic, scary-as-shit issues—any one of which could easily keep a person up nights (loose nukes, global warming and terrorism, for example)—occurring simultaneously, we can’t afford a willfully simple-minded approach anymore. That’s why this election is so important.
*If anyone is tempted to accuse me of sexism for pointing out that Palin’s voice sometimes goes all screechy, spare me the lecture. It’s not a woman thing—I’m a woman, and I don’t have a screechy voice. Palin doesn’t have to have one either. She could modulate her tone to avoid sounding like a fishwife. Or she could try bourbon and cigarettes. I’ll stop comparing her voice to that of Pomeranians and fishmongers when she stops sounding like them.
[Cross-posted at Betty Cracker]
Posted by Betty Cracker on 10/08/08 at 04:19 PM • Permalink
Categories: Politics • Election '08 • Barack Obama • St. McSame • Marge Gunderson • PUMAs •
