I was watching this really rather enjoyable brief history of climate science, a lecture by Naomi Oreskes, Professor of History and Science at the University of California, San Diego:
There's a lot of talk about McCain not vetting her and making an irresponsible decision without forethought, and so forth, but it seems clear that she's just a chewtoy for their coo coo base. McCain's been bending his maverick behind over for the crazies since he lost in 2000, and somehow unlike any other set of organizing frameworks in America these people still harbor enough institutional memory years later - an admirable quality, to say the least - that he felt he had to throw them one more bone to mill down the fault lines. It'd be easy to dismiss it as a loser move, but
they're just making the same Jimmy Carter/Karl Rove play that has worked so well in the past against a Charlie Brown defense. Maybe it's just me, but what I saw last Friday was Obama trying harder to not scare anybody than win an election.
That said, on the sole basis of her vast experience in reforming the PTA, Palin will clearly make a very maverickyish sub-overlord. We need more local schmoes stumbling around in higher office: it's less corruption for more Jerry Springer. Joe Biden can stand before a pastel modern art piece at the end of every recall election and tell us about loving one another, for all our faults.
:: posted by buermann @ 2008-09-02 23:19:46 CST |
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I have a semi-contrarian take on Palin and faith-based social conservatism.
The wingiest of wingnuts practice a faith that takes antinomianism past the point of innate grace and into the land of grace as a commodified entitlement -- one that needs to be hoarded and protected lest the mud people dilute its value. The wingiest are the barn burning welfare queen gold bugs of Grace.
Alaska is the holy land because there, and only there, every citizen gets a check simply for having the Grace to have parked their buttocks on top of valuable resources. The check is tangible proof of grace, but not only because of the money. It's clear proof that God wants to subsidize their attitudes. That's why secession is important. What if the mud people try to dilute the magic by moving there? Plus, Alaska has a lot of snow and snow is reassuringly white.
Palin's embrace of the fine points of the doctrine matters, but it matters much more that she represents the dream of a giant, air-conditioned hand-out station, whose embarrassing native inhabitants are being slowly drowned along with their polar bears.
