Gee, so the hockey mom turns out to be the hatchet mom. I guess Sarah Palin is the woman Rudy Giuliani aspires to be.
And if Rudy is, in Jimmy Breslin's lovely phrase, a small man in search a balcony, then last night Sarah Palin showed why Rudy or McCain or anybody better watch his/her back up on that balcony. Yow. That is one ambitious vicious pit bull the Republicans have got themselves. But surely a pit bull is not the kind of creature you want running around loose in family neighborhoods? Not family-friendly animals, pit bulls. I'd hide the 101 Dalmatians when Cruella Palin comes to town.
What was downright shocking last night was how offensive (both senses) the GOP vice-president nominee was. What potential leader of a country sneers like that at her fellow countrymen and -women? I guess someone who goes on talk radio and giggles while morons deride a cancer-surviving woman as a "cancer" and a "bitch."
And what person, who boasts her kinship with working folk, mocks and sneers at community organizing--which consists of helping out-of-work people put their lives together? This is the "voice" of the distressed middle class? (I love how working class doesn't exist as a designation anymore politically).
Palin's tone was so negative, divisive, bullying and demeaning, my girlfriend and I looked at each other in amazement. And with a creepy hammy sarcasm that, as Josh Marshall, Andrew Sullivan and I'm sure numerous other commentators have noted, befits an ugly high school student council election. Reese Witherspoon crossed with Bob Dole?
And what fanatical Orwellian chutzpah does it take for someone to champion small town sensibilities who ripped apart the communal workings and spirit of her small town with Rovian fanatical politicizing?
This is the politics of Karl Rove's dreams. This is right out of the GOP textbook, straight culture-war toxic flimflam from Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas.
And I'd like to hear how Chris Hedges, who's warned and written about Christian fascism, viewed last night. Very dark stuff we've got going here. If this becomes America's choice in the fall, then, well, "it can happen here." And it will have.