I Have No Idea: On Sarah Palin

We've been hearing a lot about false choices these days, especially from the man in the White House. Barack Obama seemingly loves mentioning the many "false choices" made by his predecessor's administration. And I have shown (see link above) that Mr. Obama fails to see the irony in his pop-pronouncements on false choices, since, according to his wife, his very career is built upon a patently false choice.

In keeping with Mr. Obama's penchant for criticizing false choices that are not false and for creating "true" choices that are indeed false, the Democratic Party's statement yesterday regarding Sarah Palin's sudden announcement of her resignation from her Alaska governor's seat is exemplary:

Either Sarah Palin is leaving the people of Alaska high and dry to pursue her long shot national political ambitions or she simply can’t handle the job now that her popularity has dimmed and oil revenues are down. Either way - her decision to abandon her post and the people of Alaska who elected her continues a pattern of bizarre behavior that more than anything else may explain the decision she made today. [emphasis added]

The great and logical minds of the DNC have no problem creating such a false Either/Or, in large part because such minds are neither great nor logical. If I were to advise my readers to meditate on the DNC statement as if it contained profound religious truths -- I am not and it doesn't -- I am certain that readers would have some experience approaching epiphany: The Democrats who issued this statement are incredibly stupid and vapid. And petty.

Just think: the DNC has NO IDEA -- none! -- as to why Ms. Palin has suddenly resigned. And yet, like spiritualists probing through animal scat, they've divined the reasons behind Ms. Palin's actions: She is either overly-ambitious or she is incompetent. But note what the DNC has actually said (and they don't even realize it): Her resignation is solely due to her being a fool. There is no real or even false Either/Or here. Since Ms. Palin's alleged bid for national office represents a "long shot," at least according to the DNC, she is a fool for reaching well beyond her merits. And since she is leaving office because her job has become too difficult, she was a fool to have ever thought she merited the governorship. Really, the DNC's syllogism is dizzying in its rigor:

A. Either p or p
B. p
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C. Therefore, p

What is amazing is that Ms. Palin's alleged "pattern of bizarre behavior," as the DNC so confidently puts it, has not been shown to be either a pattern or bizarre. But the Democrats' demonstrable fixation on and targeting of all things Palin indicate a clear pattern of bizarre behavior among Democrats who accuse her of behaving in a bizarre pattern.

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WHAT IS MS. PALIN THINKING?

If this question can be asked without resorting to the cheap-shot answer -- Ms. Palin is not thinking because she can't think -- then it must be asked in humility: As of right now, no one but Ms. Palin and her husband know what she's thinking. I have no idea what's going on, do you?

I think a sane person of decent intellect and breeding, possessing even a modicum of compassion, would choose reticence and not pompous declamations upon hearing of Ms. Palin's resignation. Is it not possible that she is ill? Is it not at all possible that someone in her family is ill? Perhaps her marriage is in disrepair; perhaps the battering she has personally experienced from the media and the DNC has truly taken its toll on her children, and thus, on her. And if the latter is the case, then Ms. Palin's decision shows an immense amount of competence and gives the lie to the assertion she can't handle the office of governor. A good governor would indeed resign to protect her family from the unjust abuse that constantly comes her way.

I am not suggesting here she has not some other plans. I am not defending or promoting her ambitions (or lack thereof). My fascination, really, has always been about how her enemies -- and they are enemies -- perceive her, and how they've treated her (and her family). In fact, I will admit that Ms. Palin's decision prima facie spells doom.

But I am also quick to point out that if the media and the DNC pile on top of her and there is some sad story behind this decision; or if Ms. Palin makes some stunning announcement in the coming days about an appointment or position that is truly to her political advantage, both the media and the DNC will look incredibly foolish, weak, and, as already said, petty.

I can't help admit that when I read and hear the ridiculously over-wrought and presumptuous criticisms of Ms. Palin, I am hoping she gets the last laugh.

We'll see, of course. But in the scheme of things, at least for me, what Sarah Palin does or does not do matters little. This is not to say she is not important. It is merely an admission about what fills my life. And what does not fill it.

Bottom line: I am hoping that there is not some sort of tragedy behind her announcement. You would think that would be everyone's hope in America. Sadly, it is not.

©2009/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

Logic Lesson?

If you would like to see logic put to both good and bad use, then see James Taranto's "The Weisberg Fallacy" in yesterday's Opinion Journal. It will appear too academic to some who are inspired by the sort of fallacious argument Mr. Taranto dismantles; some might consider it pedantic. I find it jolly good fun (though I admit I did not closely check Mr. Taranto's proof).

In my opinion, Taranto is just about the best political blogger in the blogosphere. He plays ball in the majors, while I'd be lucky to make single-A. The guy is sharp and quick. Yesterday's post, through and through, is just solid stuff. In an amusing and effective way, well, Taranto can bring the high heat (sorry for the lame baseball metaphors).

Oh, and the Biden stuff is pretty good, too.

(And I note that he finds the DNC's convention theme, "One Nation," rather curious, as did I when the DNC emailed me with the news. What happened to the "Two Americas" meme?)

Peace.

BG

"Biden Pick Shows Lack Of Confidence" ... And Nothing New

Big News: Joe Biden is Barack Obama's running-mate. Very old news: Joe Biden is not change we can believe in.

I love the headline over the AP essay written by veteran AP political analyst Ron Fournier:

BIDEN PICK SHOWS LACK OF CONFIDENCE

Here's a great quote from Fournier's commentary:

"For all his self-confidence, the 47-year-old Illinois senator [Obama] worried that he couldn't beat Republican John McCain without help from a seasoned politician willing to attack."

Ah, yes. Willing to attack. The thing about Biden, one of my family members said, is not that he just attacks. It's that he's an attack dog. A salient point, considering Mr. Obama promised the country his campaign would rise above rabid and feral partisanship. But like nearly all political promises, such is short-lived.

What does Biden bring, or so nearly EVERYONE avers? He brings gravitas, and foreign policy experience to Mr. Obama's rather unimpressive resume. The Biden gift proves that Mr. Obama's having "lived abroad" does not add up to much. It also proves that Biden is Obama's Cheney: we will all know who really runs the White House -- who the real 'decider' will be -- if Mr. Obama is elected.

And what else does Biden bring? Well, according to one pundit we get this:

"As he [Biden] speaks, as he goes on and on and spins his long statements, hypotheticals, and free associations--as he demonstrates yet again . . . that he is incapable of staying on the river of a thought, and is constantly lured down tributaries from which he can never quite work his way back--you can see him batting the little paddles of his mind against the weeds, trying desperately to return to the river but not remembering where it is, or where it was going. I love him. He's human, like a garrulous uncle after a drink."

Thanks Peggy Noonan (and James Taranto) for this hilarious description of our country's potential "new" (What do you mean by that?) vice-president.

So, who is Biden? He's a rambling po-mo nuanced-to-the-gills old Washington insider who is Barack Obama's Dick Cheney, an old white dude who brings change we can believe in; though that change is just one in name, not attitude, posture or vision.

Amazing: The Democrats pretty much rejected Biden every time he ran for the White House. Now, somehow, he is suitable to have the White House -- in an emergency. Is he "the man" called on to guide "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" (as Biden so deftly described Mr. Obama in early 2007) as Obama "leads" America toward a "brighter future"?

The only way ANY candidate can ever bring "change we can believe in" is if he or she runs for office as neither a Republican nor a Democrat. The world -- including the Europeans! -- knows that there is nothing new under the American sun. Especially this time.

Food for thought, or not.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

A Very Low Threshold

In this morning's New York Times op-ed by Bob Herbert titled "A Gift to the G.O.P.", in which Mr. Herbert chides the Democratic Party for its nasty infighting and protracted primary battles, we find this stunning statement:

But the Clinton and Obama partisans spent months fighting bitterly on the toxic terrain of misogyny, racism and religion. It can only make you wonder about the vaunted Democratic claims of moral superiority when it comes to tolerance. [emphasis added]

It should also make us wonder where Mr. Herbert has been for the past two decades (at least).

A line from an old film favorite, a true guilty pleasure, comes to mind: "Welcome to the party, pal!"

Welcome, indeed.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Barack Obama: An Affirmative Action Nominee?

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Without ANY help from the dirty old political machine called the Republican National Committee, the Democrats are doing a fine job wreaking havoc on their own party.

Take Missouri Democrat Emanuel Cleaver, a US congressman. Here's a black man, admittedly loyal to Hillary Clinton, who, without flinching, says he'd be "stunned if [Obama] is not the next president of the United States."

Why does Rep. Cleaver believe Mr. Obama is likely to win? A news report, based on an interview Cleaver gave to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, gives us an answer:

In the interview, Cleaver insisted he would not back away from his endorsement of Clinton. He claims much of the support for Obama is driven by a sense that his election will prove the country has solved its problems with race.

“I think for many white Americans, they are looking at Barack Obama and saying ‘This is our chance to demonstrate that we have been able to get this boogeyman called race behind us,”‘ Cleaver said. “And so they are going to vote for him, whether he has credentials or not, whether he has any experience — I think all that’s out the window.” [emphasis mine]

Cleaver adds this gem about Mr. Obama being an "articulate" black man:

"For white Americans, it’s like, this guy can speak..."

So, WHITE Americans are just fascinated with Barack Obama as he's an "articulate" black man (by the way, Mr. Obama only seems articulate when reading his speeches, at least to this writer), is that it? And WHITE America is going to vote for him -- irrespective of whether he's qualified? All this to show that WHITES are no longer racist, or that America has solved the race problem?

(By the way, much of this sounds EXACTLY like what Shelby Steele said in his engaging books, White Guilt, and, though to a lesser degree, A Bound Man. Steele is a black man born of a white mother -- and conservative.)

Clearly we can conclude several things. First, once again, the DNC is not above injecting race into its own primary processes. Second, once again, someone's suggesting that Barack Obama will likely be president solely because he is well-spoken and black: Qualifications, be damned!

To paraphrase Rep. Cleaver: WHITE America is going to absolve itself by promoting a black man above those more qualified. All this suggests that this is an affirmative action project if there ever was one. (And I do not use the word 'project' without noting its brutal irony.)

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Alas, there is more. Rep. Cleaver cleaves a fine line between what race-conscious America wants and does not want.

Yet Cleaver asserts that Obama as president could actually hamper efforts to curb racial injustice. He said future concerns about race “would be met with rejection because we’ve already demonstrated that we’re not a racist nation.”

What does Rep. Cleaver mean? Is he suggesting that Americans -- black or white -- also DON'T want Barack Obama to be president? Will his election suggest race is no longer a national issue, and hence RACE as a political leveraging tool will be destroyed? Is he saying that whites will use Obama's presidency against those who still see racial injustice: "We can't be racially divided, we've elected a black man!"

It must be wondered, then, where all this leaves us. It seems to me that Mr. Cleaver is saying that Barack Obama as the nation's first black president will merely be symbolic, token, even, sadly, illusory.

Oiks! No wonder people grow tired of politics!


Peace.

(HT: James Taranto)

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S MISTAKE

Identity Politics: I, (self-) defined by some particular characteristic of my body or soul, am a political constituency and force demanding legal, social and cultural approval and representation in all matters of this republic (or something like that) on the basis of how I identify myself to you and everybody else. I will brook no dissent: you will accept me on my terms, as I've struggled for approval and representation far too long to stop now.
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Rather than nominating for their party's candidate for President of the United States the most qualified, experienced person, the Democratic Party has instead essentially nominated two sacred icons, two holy archetypes: a person with dark skin and a person that is not a man. Rather than nominate a talented and skilled executive, like a Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, or Chris Dodd, the party faithful have decided that skin and sex trump achievement, aptitude and competency.

Alas, now the DNC and its members are in a double bind, one they no doubt hoped to wrap around the country in November. Instead, the party itself is trapped: If we choose the person with dark skin, we will be called sexist; if we choose the person with double XX chromosomes, we will be deemed racist. This can't be! Not us! We're Democrats!

Sexist, racist, sexist, racist. Has this not essentially been the heartbeat of the Democratic campaign? Forget the prevarications and postures over "experience." The exchanges that matter -- at least the ones reported by the press and noticed by the public -- are all about "injecting race" or "injecting gender." And what we are witnessing, especially those of us who consider ourselves political independents, is a big-tent party that no longer has a tent. It's a 3-ring riot, and this without the GOP elephant having to do a single trick.

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In 2006, Markos Zúniga, the founder of the world's largest blog, the incorrigibly leftist "The Daily Kos," said, "Republicans failed us because they can't govern. Democrats failed us because they can't get elected." I noted at this blog and elsewhere how odd a statement is Mr. Zúniga's, for winning elections is in part an indication of being able to govern.

The current Democratic Party imbroglio is largely the result of passion trumping reason, of ideals trumping ideas. Moreover, the Democratic Party's commitment to the role of "super-delegates," a term and role mostly absent from GOP vernacular and praxis, is rooted in a fear that the Democratic electorate might get things wrong. Hence, the super-delegates were designed to act like facilitators in a crisis intervention: they would intervene and set an errant party on the right course, one that would ensure that the most viable candidate (i.e., the person who could win in the general election) would be nominated. I recognize that you've heard this before; I mention it solely to remind readers that the role of the DNC's super-delegates is not, apparently, always that democratic. Really, the irony is almost too much.

All this exacerbates the aforementioned double-bind: if the super-delegates choose the woman, they are racist; and if they choose the black man, well, they are sexist and, possibly, closet racists acting out of "white guilt." What's the best resolution, at least for some? Put the two party icons on the same ticket. The problem? Neither icon wants to take a secondary role.

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In the 3 years I've been writing at Contratimes, I have written thrice about Rush Limbaugh. Today marks the fourth, and for good reason. Mr. Limbaugh asked an utterly simple yet brilliant question the other day: If the Democrats can't even run their own primaries, how can we expect them to run the country? And indeed it is quite evident that the Democrats can't run their own nomination process, nor can they even remotely unite their own party. Barack Obama is a uniter? Give us a break. Hillary? Are you kidding? Even recent polls show that the Democratic Party is splitting along racial lines: most blacks support Barack Obama over Hillary. This is unity? This is "healing?" [And then, as if on cue, comes these remarks from a black Democrat legislator. -- added 4.3.08]

Read this post-polling analysis from National Review Online's Byron York:

So — [Clinton and Obama are] both down five percent among whites, but Clinton is down 12 points among blacks, while Obama is unchanged. Thus, Clinton's overall positive rating is down more than Obama's. What does that say? It says what has been clear for a while now. The Democratic race is heavily racialized, and is perhaps becoming more so. Party leaders and pundits may be uncomfortable with that fact, but it's a fact nonetheless. [emphasis mine]

In the end, what we are witnessing is the clash of two icons in the mess of identity politics. Democrats were looking for a "winner" rather than a qualified chief executive; they went with persona and personality rather than qualifications and substantive ideas, and they've ended up in a wild mess. Indeed, some even may have hoped to use either icon as proof of America's true evils: If either icon is rejected in the general election, then Republican America is clearly racist and/or sexist.

Ironically, as Mort Kondracke observed recently, the double-bind problems around race and sexism are not the only double-binds facing the Democratic Party. Kondracke recalls that it was the Democrats in 2000 who hooted and hollered that the "popular vote" (which then-candidate Al Gore won in the general election) trumped the "electoral college," which George W. Bush and the United States Supreme Court purportedly hijacked. Now, should the Democrats face a decision at their Denver convention where one candidate holds the lead in the popular vote but the other holds more delegates, one can almost see the paralysis. Hoisted by their own petard as a result of their petulant and indignant reaction 8 years ago, the Democrats will find themselves in a quagmire. In fact, they've led themselves right into one, and this without ANY help from Karl Rove, Fox News, or even Donald Rumsfeld.

And these are the folks who can save us from the "quagmire" of Iraq? Are these the folks Mr. Zúniga believes can govern?

How curious.


©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.