Open Thread

BRG: You can have the glass pumps. Shall we kiss and make up now? Girl fights are so ……. Sarah Palin. Right, Benson?

THL: Can I borrow your patent leather heals, dear?

Dave in panties?! I bet the What created an avitar for that so he get get off while playing world of warcraft.

OK, so ENY and I vs. Dave on Sunday. Anyone else want to “play on Dave’s team” this week? 11217? Rob?

I come from a working class background too- but Palin doesn’t have moxie. Chutzpah, but not moxie. Palin and her husband aren’t rich by D.C. standards, but they nave never been wanting. Todd Palin inherited (I think) fishing shares, or something like which give him income and I believe also worked for an oil company. Sorry I can’t recall better in detail but the upshot is Palin is hardly a Horatio Alger story. I admire her for going into politics, that she got elected governor, but sorry- with a personal value of $2,000,000 a year this is no working stiff. I don’t admire her for her policies and lack of interest in the world- all too evident during the campaign.I never admire people who hunt animals from airplanes and think its ok to charge rape victims for their rape kits.

Obama comes form a career of community work and politics. He may be light- as you call it on experience, but his is a first class, intelligent mind and a personality forged from a childhood of hardship and difficulty. this is a person who worked hard at educating himself, and trying to make his community a better place. How is what he’s done less than what she has? How is he less working class than she (of course neither of them is working class now). But the Obamas certainly came from more difficult backgrounds, and did far more with it. When Guiliani snarked about community organizers it reminded me of Margaret Mead’s famous comment: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. ”

Bxgrl;

I would tread lightly on the subject of qualifications. Obama has a pretty light resume there. Quick question: name one major policy or legislation that he put his weight behind while he was in the Senate? I don’t mean just attaching his name to a piece of legislation. I’m talking about doing some heavy lifting: being out front on something, taking the heat, etc. Other than write two books about himself,what did he do during his time in the Senate?

As to my friend Sarah. The main reason I like her is that she has what used to be called (in NY) “moxie”. Here is a woman who came from nothing, no connections, no elite name or school on the resume, yet through sheer grit and determination made something of herself. She did this while at the same time raising a large family, in a state where it’s not so easy to make a living. As was on full display during the campaign, the east coast elites were all over her. As the WSJ put it: they hated her because they had never met her before in the CNN “green room”. Remember the vitriol thrown at her by folks like Maureen Dowd the DAY AFTER she was selected, when they knew NOTHING about her except that she was not one of “them”? Moreover, I admired that she threw it right back in their face. She wasn’t intimidated by them.

Again,you may not agree with her policies, but that is not what I’m talking about here. She is exactly the type of person who used to be at the core of the Democrat party: a working stiff who makes something of themself. Now she is scoffed at by the party – which is why (coming from a working class background myself) I no longer relate to it. As Ronald Reagan once put it: “I didn’t leave the Democrat party, they left me”.

MM- you’ll wrest that tiara from my cold, dead, royal hands.

Eeewwww, benson. You like Palin? In all honesty, why? My reaction to her is political. Had she the qualifications to be VP or Prez, she would be formidable, but her politics, her inability to speak coherently,her lack of understanding of the world we are living in today (I join her in this), her religion- no no no no no. and her enormous ego- if I were ever asked to be a VP nominee (excuse me a sec…ha ha ha ha ha ha ha…gasp…ha ha ha)I still have enough wits about me to understand why I am so not qualified. She, as she famously said, didn’t even blink. It takes a huge lack of self-knowledge to do that.

I totally disliked how she campaigned. She reveled in the Obama insults and the terrorist implications. Yet she couldn’t offer any real program or policy of her own. I completely disagree with Paglia on this one. Palin is the true heir of Schlaffly and Anita Bryant- she just uses the gains of the feminist movement to market herself.

ps- I’ve spoken to the wolf. He’s on my side 🙂

Dave, just when I thought the holidays were over. Now I have “walkin round in women’s underwear” going through my head endlessly.

Thanks a lot, bud.