Posted on 09/26/2008 3:24:39 AM PDT by acsuc99
WASHINGTON -- If at one time women were considered heretical for swimming upstream against feminist orthodoxy, they now face condemnation for swimming downstream -- away from Sarah Palin.
To express reservations about her qualifications to be vice president -- and possibly president -- is to risk being labeled anti-woman.
Or, as I am guilty of charging her early critics, supporting only a certain kind of woman.
Some of the passionately feminist critics of Palin who attacked her personally deserved some of the backlash they received. But circumstances have changed since Palin was introduced as just a hockey mom with lipstick -- what a difference a financial crisis makes -- and a more complicated picture has emerged.
As we've seen and heard more from John McCain's running mate, it is increasingly clear that Palin is a problem. Quick study or not, she doesn't know enough about economics and foreign policy to make Americans comfortable with a President Palin should conditions warrant her promotion.
Yes, she recently met and turned several heads of state as the United Nations General Assembly convened in New York. She was gracious, charming and disarming. Men swooned. Pakistan's president wanted to hug her. (Perhaps Osama bin Laden is dying to meet her?)
And, yes, she has common sense, something we value. And she's had executive experience as a mayor and a governor, though of relatively small constituencies (about 6,000 and 680,000, respectively).
Finally, Palin's narrative is fun, inspiring and all-American in that frontier way we seem to admire. When Palin first emerged as John McCain's running mate, I confess I was delighted. She was the antithesis and nemesis of the hirsute, Birkenstock-wearing sisterhood -- a refreshing feminist of a different order who personified the modern successful working mother.
Palin didn't make a mess cracking the glass ceiling. She simply glided through it.
It was fun while it lasted.
Palin's recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League.
No one hates saying that more than I do. Like so many women, I've been pulling for Palin, wishing her the best, hoping she will perform brilliantly. I've also noticed that I watch her interviews with the held breath of an anxious parent, my finger poised over the mute button in case it gets too painful. Unfortunately, it often does. My cringe reflex is exhausted.
Palin filibusters. She repeats words, filling space with deadwood. Cut the verbiage and there's not much content there. Here's but one example of many from her interview with Hannity "Well, there is a danger in allowing some obsessive partisanship to get into the issue that we're talking about today. And that's something that John McCain, too, his track record, proving that he can work both sides of the aisle, he can surpass the partisanship that must be surpassed to deal with an issue like this."
When Couric pointed to polls showing that the financial crisis had boosted Obama's numbers, Palin blustered wordily: "I'm not looking at poll numbers. What I think Americans at the end of the day are going to be able to go back and look at track records and see who's more apt to be talking about solutions and wishing for and hoping for solutions for some opportunity to change, and who's actually done it?"
If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself.
If Palin were a man, we'd all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she's a woman -- and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket -- we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.
What to do?
McCain can't repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP's unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.
Only Palin can save McCain, her party and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.
Do it for your country.
Bush didn’t have a clue on foreign policy facts but he stayed the course in Iraq and we are winning. Unfortunately he had an MBA...maybe that’s why the economy isn’t so good? His conservative instincts were clouded by the keynesian economics that he studied.
How does Parker not get how Palin has galvanized the ticket for McCain?!
Parker's not getting it! Palin's handled corruptness in Alaska and turned that state around. 80% approval rating should show Parker how effective Palin has been.
Maybe she's just jealous. What other explanation could there be?!
Just read now CBS is working to diminish Palin. Palin must be doing something right for CBS to make such a move.
Palin is the BEST SPEAKER IN POLITICS TODAY... anything else said is a LIE!
LLS
Palin does not ramble... but some of you certainly buy the dnc’s propaganda.
LLS
Another opinion piece from the Peggy Noonan school of journalism. Palin’s problem in interviews is that she is bound by the McCain platform. It does make her answers seem contrived boilerplate at times. But not any more than Obama’s answers (and he’s at the top of the ticket). Dismissing common sense, sound principles and their affect on Palin’s judgment is just offensively stupid.
I’m seeing the Dems using this strategy in their campaign - paint Palin as out of her league then attack McCain for his health. Seems there are some conservatives sold on the idea too.
What happened to Parker?
Couric and Gibson are VIPERS....VIPERS.....and for some reason, McCain sent her into their pit......ENOUGH!
Palin may be fine in terms of her conservative credentials, but I am certainly not convinced she is ready to be POTUS.
When I have heard her speak she did not seem particularly bright. Her education is limited to a bachelor's degree. The POTUS needs more than that.
She appears to be afraid of the press (sure its hostile, but that isn't going to change if she were President). the interview with Hannity was a joke.
She didn't know what the Bush doctrine was. She led a town of 5000 people and then a state of 600,000. She has not traveled outside of the country in any manner worthy of mention (yes this is extremely important when dealing with allies and enemies) and her ability to be Commander in Chief seems to boil down to an affinity for hunting.
I don't get the excitement about her and would have much preferred Mitt who is up to the job (and quite possibly turned it down to run in 2012).
Of course she is still better than Obama or Biden, but that is beside the point.
It is amazing how anyone can take their cheap shots at Governor Palin as the VP nominee and say nothing of Obama, who is the most unqualified candidate to be nominated for president in anyone’s memory. And when forced to discuss issues sans teleprompter, he’s proven to be incoherent, inarticulate, and actually embarrassing to listen to.
The truth is, there are few politicians, or people in any field who can discuss the complexities of the current financial crisis with any real depth of knowledge. I’ve heard several experienced in the field admit that they don’t understand all the implications. It is to an extent uncharted territory. To pretend that a lightweight like Katie Couric has the knowledge to address the issue is laughable. None of the four on the two major party tickets can discuss this situation with real depth of knowledge and this Parker columnist just wanted to take a few cheap shots, and she exposed herself as just one more zero integrity member of the MSM.
Parker’s “analysis” is inexplicable. And inexplicably stupid.
Even if Parker were completely right in her observations (and she is not), her call for Palin to withdraw from the race showed a stunning lack of intellectual self-discipline.
Once again, the problem with this narrative is that if Palin is unqualified, NObama is uber-unqualified. He is the ultimate empty suit, and he’s at the TOP of the Dem ticket.
For any rational person, an attack on Palin of this nature only amplifies the necessity of electing McCain - since the alternative is NObama.
Amazing that the media keeps falling for this...but I like it! =:-D
Perhaps one too many at the Carolina Cup!
Yes, it is. Pretending that newsreaders have any special knowledge of national or international affairs is one of the more bizarre fictions of our time ... right up there with imagining that actors know something the average voter doesn't know.
“When I have heard her speak she did not seem particularly bright. Her education is limited to a bachelor’s degree. The POTUS needs more than that.”
What elitist BS. So, you’d automatically disqualify a candidate with on a BS from Eureka College.
And Truman, with no degree, well, he would surely have offended your sensibilities to no end, Lol.
WTF indeed.
First of all, I’ve never heard of this Kathleen Parker broad....who the hell is she anyway?
Second, did anyone hear the liberals complain in 2004 that Howard Dean was from a small New England state with a small population? Insert here the sound of crickets.
Alaska is half the size of the lower 48 states and is one of the most important energy producing regions of North America.
What disqualifies Gov. Palin in the small minds of these liberals, especially these liberal women, is this....
(1) she’s a conservative
(2) she’s a Christian
(3) she gave birth to five children, and didn’t abort any of them
(4) she hunts
(5) she’s pro 2nd amendment
(6) she has common sense
(7) she’s not part of the Northeastern liberal establishment
(8) she didn’t go to an ivy league college
(9) she’s pro Iraq war and has a son fighting in that conflict
(10) she has an “R” after her name and
(11) she, like most conservative women, is attractive, unlike most democrat women, who fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down.
You go, Sarah. And thank YOU, Senator McCain, for choosing Gov. Palin as your running mate.
“Her education is limited to a bachelor’s degree. The POTUS needs more than that.”
Why is that? Advanced degrees focus on one narrow discipline. The President must be a true executive, delegating expertise, taking the best advice, and making the hard decisions.
Those talents aren’t something you learn in college. Sarah will do fine, just as many Presidents and Vice Presidents who lacked “advanced degrees” have done in the past.
A final thought, regardless of NObama’s educational achievements, his character is unsuitable for President. Sarah is quite the opposite.
LLS
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