This morning I woke up to find that Teh N00b had opened three cartons of yogurt, eaten half of each one without mixing them, then dunked two wooden cars into one and run them all over the back of the sofa and the coffee table, leaving yogurt tracks everywhere.
It was like the Palin-Biden debates.
She avoided any substance by leaving it untouched at the bottom of the yogurt carton, then smeared sweet goop everywhere, making a mess.
I don't understand anyone who thinks that Palin is charismatic, charming, or likeable. Because at the moment that Biden was recalling what must have been one of the most painful moments of his life -- the death of his first wife and young daughter in a car accident -- she failed to respond. At all. A simple, "I imagine that must have been a difficult time for you" -- anything -- would have done. But she just launched into blathering about McCain. (See the video here, it happens at 2:45).
Was she not listening? Did she not know how to respond to another's suffering? Does she not care?
DG thinks that this was a planned slip on Biden's part, an attempt to show his human side. Maybe, maybe not. But it doesn't matter. Biden's suffering was and is real, even if it happened a long time ago. If Palin can't respond to the suffering of someone standing in front of her, then how the hell can she empathize with the American public?!
Friday, October 3, 2008
Sarah Palin destroyed my sofa, or, you call THAT empathic?!
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3 comments:
If I remember rightly (I am being lazy and not re-watching the footage, understand), she was doing that ghoulish-smirk-to-grinning-wince-to-ghoulish-smirk-at-the-podium thing that she did for the entire portions of the debate when she was not speaking. Maybe she was in a grinning-wince phase at that moment; I find her expressions hard to parse, except that I, like you, do not find them winning or charming.
Treacly, yes. Brassy false coin touching upon a highly imaginary "main street," yes. Confident, yes, surprisingly. But in no way pleasant.
On the other hand, the entire debate went so much better than I anticipated; I am not in love with Biden and I must admit amusement at the Couric interviews Palin had beforehand, so I expected a train wreck. Both came off as competent speakers and as coherent politicians (whether or not they exhibited any policy-level knowledge or savvy, and whether or not you consider them geniune rather than disingenuous.) I was pleasantly surprised by that.
I do, however, love your metaphor. I really wasn't surprised by her lack of empathy because it is just such a lack that characterizes every part of her self-entitled, elitist-elect way of thinking. I'll say it again: fundies are scary in government, and intensive focus on one's own halo really gets in the way of caring about other people's emotions.
I've been quietly enjoying your posts about the n00b, by the way. :)
Hi Ducks! I couldn't agree more -- Palin gives me the creeps. She seems over-confident -- the kind of person who is convinced she is right even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary (possibly because she avoids examining such evidence whenever possible!).
Pat and I were talking about this the other day from another angle: I will soon be marketing Long Term Care Insurance, and was studying marketing materials targeted sociologically to demographic age-sets they identified as "Seniors" and "Boomers." These materials talked about Seniors as valuing hard work, sacrifice, and frugality, and about Boomers having a sense of entitlement. I wonder to what degree the nutty fundie mindset is indebted to such a Boomer mentality?
Could it be that waves of smugly evangelistic philosophy are responsible for some of the oppressive trends we normally see as eras, rather than generations?
I dunno. Idle armchair people-watching. But it can be easy to see Seniors - Boomers - X-ers & all these funny haired emo kids as a parallel construction to Enlightenment - Industrial Revolution Positivism - Counter-Enlightenment & Romanticism... or any other number of such successions of eras of thought.
Meh. :)
I work in an office of such people, smug and convinced that God will always ride to their rescue, and self-importantly sure that any little normal daily setback is a trial like unto those of the saints... if they believed in saints, which they don't. I actually heard the term "God-bumps" the other day (it replaces goosebumps.) Some of them are nice people, which surprises me a little.
My dad is a deacon, as you know. He and I have had several exhausting arguments about "works" and "deeds." Essentially, the way Dad sees it, if you try to do good works or good deeds and believe that they affect your worth as a person, you are sacreligious. Why? Because you are already (presumably) saved. To waste effort and energy trying to improve yourself when you have already been delivered is tantamount to heresy.
I won't go so far as to say this is a typical Baptist interpretation, but neither can I guarantee you that it is not. And it is logically contiguous with the concept of being elect. I find that anyone who believes in "End Times" being upon us believes that they will be delivered to Heaven in the Rapture... I don't meet a lot of self-admitted "sinners" who expect to have to slog through Armageddon and the wreckage of Earth after the goody-goodies get evac'd by Big G. Why improve the world when your reward is in the next one?
I'm probably too bilious and probably reading too much in, but ... no, I do not like Sarah Palin. Nor do I take her inclusion in this campaign as progressive for womankind. McCain's record on equal pay for women, for example, as well as Palin's awful, awful positions on ... well, everything... are setbacks, not progress. I think it takes a particular brand of hoodwinks to think otherwise.
I hope that people understand that voting for someone based on their having, or not having, a vagina is sexism, pure and simple. I'll wait for a good feminist, male or female -- not a bad one in a skirt-suit.
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