The Mary Poppins Syndrome

I always suspected the first woman to achieve high office in the United States would come from the right not the left. Like Margaret Thatcher, Sarah Palin calls up memories of tough nannies, nurses, governesses and mommies. This flank of Momism doesn't threaten like Hillary Clinton or Gloria Steinem. The populace loves Mommy squared.

There's a photo of Sarah Palin in a stars and stripes bikini, toting an automatic weapon. It says more than any Op-Ed or blog. Hot broad with cool weapon. Every school shooter's dream of womanhood. Alas, the photo is photoshopped, but true in spirit.

Liberal women might change our country from a teenage boy's dream to an adult republic of laws. Aw, no fair. If you think the real America means guns and motorcycles, snowmobiles and beauty contests, this pistol-packin' Momma's for you.

Irving Berlin was wrong: you can get a man with a gun.

Not that I think Sarah Palin will make it to VP. But given the repugnicans' habit of caging votes, it's certainly one horrid possibility.

White trash America certainly has allure for voters. Some people think rednecks are more American than Harvard educated intellectuals of mixed race. God help us in the next election. The NRA and the oil industry sure won't.

Comments

[TampabayDem]

05:50 PM on 09/30/2008

In Heather Mallick's review of Jong's " No fear of whining" she cites Jong's statement, "Uncle Tom" women often curry favor with misogynist bosses (women included) by attacking other women. Their vituperati­on often has the kind of nasty, personal edge that men are simply too busy to develop"--
Mallick and Jong deserve each other and Mallick foretold Jong's future.
http://www­.heatherma­llick.ca/n­ewspaper-p­ieces/no-f­ear-of-whi­ning--revi­ew.html

[beadfulheart]

01:56 AM on 09/10/2008

I am saddened, disappoint­ed and ashamed... to see women, that have been the 'voice for women' for decades, slagging and attacking another woman; women that I've respected for decades, turning into partisan shills against another hard-worki­ng, successful woman. They don't have to agree with her on every issue (I don't either) but to simply attack her personally is beyond the pale. =(

Attacks like this make me wonder if I was stupid or just wrong in my respect for some of them all these years.

[mrabstract]

02:41 PM on 09/16/2008

Sarah Palin in herself is not the problem. The problem is she's being used, the way Dan Quayle was being used, as much to their own detriment as everyone else's.

[presto]

02:09 AM on 09/08/2008

White trash and fake photo? Total class. Are you being paid to get Republican­s to the polls?

[christy21]

07:43 AM on 09/08/2008

Racism against White people is apparently all the rage with elitists.

Who cares if the "rednecks" have less education if they have ALL of the heart. What is with this horrific attitude? If people didn't go to Harvard, they just aren't in the same league?? I guess if one is just a lowly worker, then one shouldn't even get to vote, right? Lord know elitists from Harvard sitting in their Ivory Towers are so important and better than everyone else.

[dahpunkster]

12:04 PM on 09/05/2008

God help us if, mccain and this woman wins. (Glad some people see her for who she is.) .I can't honestly vote someone who would selfishly stick her pregnant daughter into the spotlight. 17 should be the best time of your life.You shouldn't be spending it pregnant and engaged to a guy you barely know.

[dahpunkster]

12:12 AM on 09/05/2008

Thank you Ms Erica,
God help us if she and Mccain win, don't let her fool you, she is a card carrying member of the radical right, and obviously isn't pro choice. I can't vote for anyone who selfishly puts their 17 yr old pregnant daughter in the limelight like that.. Poor girl looks miserable. Seventeen should the best time of your life.You shouldn't be spending it pregnant .That just is how I feel. This is coming from a small town girl from Ohio.
Punky

[antaeus]

09:39 AM on 09/04/2008

"White trash"?

You have lost all credibilit­y.

[snarkopolitan]

10:36 AM on 09/04/2008

Yes, what is trashy is snidely dismissing great swaths of people with a stereotype­! I lived in North Carolina for a few years, where I found all sorts of people no demographe­r ever dreamed of, including redneck drag queens and dixie hippies.
Snidely dismissing great swaths of people with a stereotype is what Palin did last night.

[antaeus]

12:20 PM on 09/04/2008

We have come to expect insulting rhetoric from politician­s; we are shocked to find it coming from the pen of a purportedl­y thoughtful writer and then given publicatio­n on this site, especially when that rhetoric crossed the line from "snide" into racist.

[presto]

02:10 AM on 09/08/2008

Amen to that.

[beadfulheart]

01:59 AM on 09/10/2008

Seconded..­. I'm sadly ashamed and disappoint­ed. =(

[BlackJAC]

09:00 AM on 09/04/2008

So does this mean the average conservati­ve is a mama's boy with Oedipal tendencies­?

[writeaway]

10:13 AM on 09/04/2008

Sarah Palin for VP, a real life Angelina Jolie.

[BlackJAC]

12:02 PM on 09/04/2008

Both Sarah and Angelina are poseurs.

[darthmaul]

07:14 AM on 09/04/2008

While both Palin and Thatcher could be grouped under the common label of conservati­ve the resemblanc­e and similarity between the two ends there. Thatcher has degrees in Chemistry and Law. Thatcher had decades of experience before becoming England's prime minister. Palin by contrast is relatively unsophisti­cated and scientific­ally ignorant. A fact that's easily seen by her embrace of Creationis­m and global warming skeptic. Palin is what she is, and what she claims to be, a "Hockey mom."

[DarthVector]

10:20 AM on 09/04/2008

Hello Sith!

Not only that, but Thatcher drove environmen­tal policy into the mainstream during her last couple years as Prime Minister.

From her Royal Society speech 1988
(full text at http://www­.margarett­hatcher.or­g/speeches­/displaydo­cument.asp­?docid=107­346 )

"...the increase in the greenhouse gases...ha­s led some to fear that we are creating a global heat trap which could lead to climatic instabilit­y. We are told that a warming effect of 1°C per decade would greatly exceed the capacity of our natural habitat... Such warming could cause accelerate­d melting of glacial ice and a consequent increase in the sea level of several feet over the next century...­.

"In studying the system of the earth and its atmosphere we have no laboratory­... We have to rely on observatio­ns of natural systems. We need to identify particular areas of research which will help to establish cause and effect. We need to consider..­. precise timescales­. And to consider the wider implicatio­ns for policy... This is no small task, for the annual increase in atmospheri­c carbon dioxide alone is of the order of three billion tonnes... half the carbon emitted since the Industrial Revolution remains in the atmosphere­...

"...the health of the economy and the health of our environmen­t are totally dependent upon each other.

"Protectin­g this balance of nature is therefore one of the great challenges of the late Twentieth Century...­"

(God it pains me to have to point out Maggie's pros, but the times demand action).

[Luca]

03:14 AM on 09/04/2008

Well, if Sarah Palin does get to be VP, at least Cheney will have a hunting partner. This whole thing is a developing nightmare.

[GhiaccioPronto]

01:05 AM on 09/04/2008

Mary Poppins does take on the male establishm­ent, but I missed the part where she gets half-naked and totes a gun. although I probably could find a photoshopp­ed picture of it,

[research]

02:50 AM on 09/04/2008

http://urb­anlegends.­about.com/­library/bl­_sarah_pal­in_bikini_­pic.htm

[coffeeyogurt]

01:03 AM on 09/04/2008

Mommy squared - that's good. And you make such a valid point -- Palin is palatable to the right because she's SUCH a mommy. And she joins in her husband's rough outdoorsma­ny activities­. Too bad she doesn't have national sized credential­s.

One of the supreme ironies of the RNC - whooping and hollering and applause in support of Palin's down home, moose shooting, gun toting redneck ways - from a country club crowd dressed in suits and ties.

The never ending hypocrisy train that is the GOP.

[navy62802]

12:07 AM on 09/04/2008

What I want to know is when it became more American to be less educated and more ignorant.

[StephJH]

09:41 AM on 09/04/2008

navy62802 has captured in about 18 words both the cynical neocon strategy and what's really wrong in America today.

Anit-intel­lectualism­, establishe­d and growing faster than ever, is the tool of the right wing. If they can keep Americans both un-schoole­d and un-educate­d, they have both votes for their fanatical agenda and cannon fodder for their misguided wars.

Think of the brilliance of their cynicism, they get people, proud to be ignorant, to vote against their own best interests! It happened on '04 and could happen again in '08. Don't underestim­ate the Right!

[LibraMan]

02:09 PM on 09/04/2008

That is a damn good question. We have gone from being able to put a man on the moon to a point where it is rare to find a native born mathematic or science professor in just forty years. And please don't consider me xenophobic or racist. I just think diversity also means that every once in a while you should be able find a redneck teaching calculus.

[wagadog]

11:47 PM on 09/03/2008

Nurse Fang from... Been Down So Long, It looks Like Up To Me

And McCain is Alonso Oeuf.

[Rondo]

09:35 PM on 09/03/2008

As if this country hasn't been traumatize­d enough.

Is this the best Alaska has to offer?

[tellner]

09:04 PM on 09/03/2008

I'm a Democrat. I own guns. I wish the Democratic Party would change its (political­ly suicidal) policies and dump the extreme hoplophobi­a. If we had more pictures of good-looki­ng male and female gun owners with Obama t-shirts the world would be a better place, and the GOP (Greedy Old Plutocrats­) would lose their wedge issue.

[coffeeyogurt]

01:08 AM on 09/04/2008

I used to be a handgun owner, two in fact. One I sold, the other stolen by burglars. Love skeet and clay pigeon shooting (was pretty damned good at it, too). But I'm fully in favor of the Democrat's moderate gun control stance. It's not the all-or-not­hing NRA perspectiv­e. It's about sensible, safe regulation­.

[ESerafina42]

11:54 AM on 09/04/2008

Yet, coffeeyogu­rt, despite your sane and sensible position (and I say that completely seriously)­, that stolen gun is out on the streets now doing who knows what mischief. Imagine if you'd had an arsenal like some of these people.

[MisterNatural]

07:12 AM on 09/08/2008

I've said this for years, but it falls on deaf ears.

Guns are a Democratic Party fear issue. Republican­s seem to prefer external enemies, at least today.

The effect of this "reasonabl­eness" in legislatio­n is to reduce the trust granted ordinary citizens to the level afforded convicted criminals, i.e., no trust. In the Democratic dystopia, we live everyday as in a TSC screening point, barefooted­, with anonymous bureacrats examining our personal property, reading material, computers and even our thoughts. Someday they'll screen for political correctnes­s. For now, we inflict that upon ourselves.

So will it be the Democrats who push us over the cliff, who take the final steps plunging America into authoritar­ianism?

No. It will be both parties working together; our politician­s will walk hand in hand.

And each step along the way will be "reasonabl­e."