The Tears Were Real; Palin Was A Pawn

Maybe I'm just a sucker, or perhaps some misplaced machismo makes me want to defend damsels in distress (even ones who can take down a moose), but watching Sarah Palin tear up during John McCain's concession speech Tuesday night, I actually felt a twinge of sympathy. "Nonsense," my tough, liberal-fighter side sneered back. "Get over it; this is the same barracuda beauty queen who invites poachers to take down wolves from Cessnas, opposes abortion in all cases, and has witches exorcised from her up-do!" The whole slew of anti-Palin talking points blew up in my face.

Still, so did an even more alarming realization: Sarah Palin wasn't a power broker; she was a pawn. Her selection as VP, a move brokered by campaign manager Steve "The Bullet" Schmidt and allowed through by McCain's flimsy hold on his own campaign, was far worse than a mere cynical "political stunt." It was an act of cultural abuse; an exploitation of Palin's own novice aspirations, and an insult not only to the women whose votes the McCain campaign had hoped to sway, but to the millions of "real" Americans to whom the politically and socially naive Palin was expected to be an object of identification.

The later abject tokenism of Joe the Plumber took this gross manipulation of the working-class to new heights, but the real Freedom Fry fake-out starts with Palin. The GOP leadership plucks from obscurity an ambitious but woefully uninformed, inexperienced small-town mayor and small-state governor, whose narrow-minded, backward views are likely less deliberately sinister than just sadly symptomatic of her insulated upbringing, and splashes her out onto the battlefield of presidential politics with little more than an overpriced Neiman-Marcus wardrobe and a gaggle of shopworn, Salvation Army talking-points. Naturally, she got shot down. (Even if she did finally learn to pronounce "Ahmadinejad.")

But her public excoriation couldn't have been in the least surprising to those same shrewd political operatives who used her down-to-earth "you betcha" persona as both working-class fetish and human shield. Surely, they factored in the possibility of collateral damage. Evidently, whether it's sending powerless, politically naive and less-worldly Americans into military conflict, or, as in the case of Palin, throwing them as chum into shark-infested political waters, the neo-conservative wing of the GOP, in their Machiavellian, real-life version of the computer game God of War, rarely hesitates to use small-town Americans as game pieces and pawns.

As for her heinous proclamations on the stump, including accusations of Marxism, terrorist affiliations and general "otherness"; be real. Do you think Sarah Palin has the slightest idea what Socialism is? Do you think "surplus value" means any more to her than a special on Chunky Soup at the local Safeway? And do we need to contemplate what the various permutations of the term "Weathermen" might have meant to her before she was rush-tutored at the Republican convention? C'mon: These absurd arguments were shoved in her face; read 'em or weep, kid. That she is woefully inarticulate and misinformed about public policy, history, social issues and global affairs is a given; but, to be fair, so are many, many people around the world who nevertheless figure that running for Vice-President should probably not be on their To-Do list. Sarah Palin flew much too close to the sun, and she got burned; the smoke still hangs in the air.

And yet, perhaps the most pungent aromas still lingering from this election are the squalid vapors of alleged grown-ups like Rudy Giuliani, Lindsey Graham and Sam Brownback bogusly cheerleading Palin's selection as if it were the thoughtful, circumspect decision of elder statesmen. "She's got more experience than Barack Obama!" crowed Giuliani, grinning like a pop-up doll at the Republican convention. Like McCain and many in the GOP, Rudy saw no ethical conflict in shamming the confused religious and moral melting-pot that is the disintegrating American heartland. He detected no hypocrisy in selling to economically downtrodden rural America an attractive if empty symbol of their own unrecognized ambitions, even as his own party--through reprehensible tax cuts for the rich and imperial ambitions abroad -- has made it increasingly impossible for them to reach for the same stars.

Sure, Palin may have courted the VP slot, and may even -- if reports are accurate--have had eventual designs on the Presidency. But on stage in Arizona on Tuesday night, her disappointment palpable behind foggy faux-designer glasses, she appeared less the ambitious political pitbull-with-lipstick and more the kind of human animal we've seen time and time again: a sacrificial lamb lying ruined in the wreckage brought about by a Bush administration and McCain-led GOP who preaches allegiance to so-called Christian values and the virtues of "good, hardworking" blue-collar citizens, but has made their disdain and disregard for--and their eventual disavowal of--those same people abundantly and repeatedly manifest.

Comments

[XME]

There's no doubt she was used. However, I have to believe she KNEW she was unqualified, so that tells me she also had to know that she was being used...tha­t she was picked just because she was a woman and she didn't care because she thought she'd be able to use them in return. She thought it was her ticket to the quick track to big-time politics and power.

The moral of the story has something to with "dining with lions"...

[stelgor]

Mr. Rotondi: Sarah Palin was selected to run as VP, but she was not forced to accept. All she needed to say to John McCain was "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm not ready for national office." (Just as she says she said to that Bridge to Nowhere.) This was evident the day she was introduced by McCain in Dayton, OH. She looked like an up-and-comer, but not someone to lead this nation.

[trisha08]

James, thanks for posting your comments. I always wondered if these comments are read by the authors.

[Lee323]

"damsels in distress".­....spare me while I wipe my eyes after laughing my head off.

Yeah...she was used hard and put up wet by the McCain camp....bu­t she bought and paid for every minute of that "use" with her blind and amoral ambition, enthusiastic character assassinations, and flagellations of her "energized base" to a frenzy where death threats against Obama sky-rocketed.

She's learning some real truths about herself, (even though they're tardy in coming for a forty-four freaking year old adult !!) Some of those truths hurt. If she accepts those truths, she may be able to actually grow up and go forward. If she continues to stubbornly blame everyone and everything for her mistakes..­.....she won't. I'm betting on the latter.

[fishgirl26]

Oh the mighty, they do fall. I think the party got what they wanted but also I surely think that she got what she wanted. She probably thought it was cool to be asked, cool to run but then when she put on the new big girl clothes she got a taste of the power....a­nd it went from there. She's like the girl that gets nominated for prom queen, thinks she's the queen of the school but when defeated will show up at the 20th class reunion and remind EVERYONE that she should have won! If she's serious about being a player perhaps she needs to retreat and educate herself about this country. I doubt she'll do it because she has that "I'm all knowing" vibe.

[uscitizen]

It's too bad Palin ended up over her head. However, she's an adult and responsible for her own actions. She could've said no to anything that wasn't right for her. And, let's not forget she outright lied about the bipartisan ethics panel findings, and she didn't shrink from publicly taking the campaign low road. Oh, and she made fun of Clinton for whining when things got tough for her. Unfortunately, I think Palin probably got what was coming to her for the choices she made along the way. Don't cry for her, James Rotondi.

[averygard]

She chose to go with them. She chose to go for hate- and fear-mongering. Nope. No sympathy. Again, as women, we can do better. Have you felt this much sympathy for older or conventionally less attractive women who have lost or who have been under media scrutiny some deemed unfair (though it wasn't--not if you're up for one of the highest profile jobs in the world, in the middle of a financial crisis)? My guess is no--you betcha NOT.

[joebiz]

It was quite obvious that Palin was being "used" (as a pawn) but she was a willing participant for long term exposure and political power.
In this case, GOP was looking to do several things and answer a few calls:
1) Show that they could also hoist a woman to the highest position in the land;
2) Keep the Southern Strategy intact by appealing to the right, right wing party base;
3) Keep attention away from Senator Stevens, ironically, Alaskan politics have never been so "in vogue"
4) Gain a new senator should Stevens quit, Palin names successor, it could be her;
5) Put a pretty face on the GOP, aka lipstick on a pig;
6) Transition GOP from Baby Boomers to Generation X

7)

[trisha08]

Also, I think she was crying because she wanted to make a speech that night and was told NO. Her arrogance (up until the end) is astonishing. She really thinks it was ALL ABOUT HER.

[trisha08]

I disagree that she was a pawn. I think the question is........­who used who.

McCain may have "used" Sarah as a pawn, but the fact that Sarah accept when she is clealy unqualified leads me to believe that she "used" McCain to get to the National Stage.

From early on, it was clear that Palin thought that she should be a the top of the ticket. She publicly questioned McCain about pulling out of Michigan,etc. Newsweek's behind the scene reporting mentions that Todd Palin may have been calling heavy hitters in Alaska telling them to hold off until 2012. I think Sarah joined the ticket NOT to help McCain get elected. She joined the ticket to further her own agenda.

I also believe the McCain's camp underestimated Palin's quest for power. It's as if they opened Pandora's box (thinking they were using her) and then could not control the monster (they found out that Palin was using them).

I have no pity for Palin. She said yes to the offer and she knew what she wanted---National attention. Soon everyone will feel sorry for Palin and she will reemerge on the National scene as the poor, poor victim who was so mishandled by McCain and the "mainstream media".

[cltclt]

I enjoyed reading this. I have had fun over the past two months making fun of her, but election night and the next morning felt sorry for her. I work closely with a guy who was raised Republican (voted for Bush twice since old enough to vote), Christian, aged 30, sick wife, 4 children, (2 in school, 2 toddlers at home). Our team makes about 60-65k annually. We had conversations leading up to the election and he was very torn about supporting Obama. His whole family has always voted for the Republicans because of their "values". I never tried to convince him or sway his opinion, but he told me he liked Obama because of his healthcare plan, and felt the Republicans were "throwing a bone" to Christians and never were going to overturn Roe v. Wade. Also Mccain never says he is a Christian or lived a lifestyle to show he is one. I agreed. Now it comes out people in Mccains own camp referred to her and her family as "Wasilla Hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus". I want working class people to see what the grand old party really thinks of them behind closed doors. I think enough of them saw it before election day, and that is how we turned N.C. blue, but more and more will hopefully will come to their senses. Mccain picked her for who she is and now they have dropped her since she can't be used right now.

[Freesia2]

I'm sorry Mr. Rotondi, but no pass.

Socially naive? Perhaps. But she's an adult, and from what I understand a strong willed person who is nobody's victim. And every time she stood on that stump screaming words she might not have fully understood, she understood completely the reaction they elicited. She got that just fine. She heard the racial slurs and the rage and she shook her proverbial pom poms and led them in a big angry, violent cheer. She understood completely what she was doing. It was dangerous and the fact is those people didn't go away. They're still out there. She owns that.

So while I as a woman, can appreciate your realizing how hard it can be for a woman to find her footing in a "man's" world or try to stake her claim on the events she's found herself in, I think you shouldn't worry too much about Palin. The tears may just have likely been from trying to break in her new 5" high heels or self-pity that she wasn't get to pretend to be a real vice-president after all.

[averygard]

I've really noticed how quick men are to defend Palin. What bothers me the most about this woman is not that she was not prepared, and not even that she is, at best, a 'C student' type person (who wanted to be in a position to take over as PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES). I just can't defend her or really stomach too much more defense of her because of her truly fringe views. This is a woman who is so anti-woman that she believed RAPE VICTIMS SHOULD HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR OWN RAPE KITS. She is so anti-choice that she told the media that even if her (now-pregnant, then 14-year-old) daughter was to be raped, she (Palin) believed a 14-year-old should be forced to bear that child. She also even, reportedly, refused to be photographed with a New Hampshire Republican who is pro-choice.

Sorry, but I don't feel sorry for her, and it saddens and disappionts me that so many 'liberal' men are so quick to defend her/feel empathy for her. Clearly it's because she's pretty (but, truthfully, not BEAUTIFUL, just cute). That's just sad. Expect more-DEMAND more--from women and especially from female politicians. We ARE capable of much, much more.

[demomntgirl]

She started the day she hit the trail, about Ayers. Been there, done that during the primaries! She didn't attack on policies, she made it personal attacks. The McCain campaign hadn't even approved the attacks and she just went out and did them anyway. They couldn't publicly denounce her for it, so they let it go. Until McCain was called on the carpet by a mad he respects, Lewis! Then he spoke up for Obama at rallies, letting everyone know yelling kill him, terrorist was not ok with him!
The clothes? Not the reformer, "joe the plumbers" equal..aft­er all.
She can't blame McCain for her spending spree on designer clothes and jewelry! She can't blame McCain's aides b/c she doesn't understand foriegn policy, or geography, or the constitution! Sure, HE picked her. But then she had to make it out there on her own. She couldn't do it. She kept answering questions with the most incoherent answers ever given. She made no sense! She saw the brass ring, and she attacked for it. Then she thought... brass ring? I want the gold ring, and the diamond ring, and the earrings to match!
Sorry, I have no sympathy for someone who has no character, no morals, and no CLASS!
"Class isn't something you buy! You either have it, or you don't." Is what my mom always said.
Case in point!
That also goes for character, morals, and ethics! She has none of those either!

[James Rotondi - Huffpost Blogger]

These are great comments; lots of real insight and passionate thinking.

Ironically, while many of you find me overly sympathetic to Sarah Palin, at least one of you accused me of a "cloaked," "very personal invective" against her. What-huh?

The truth is somewhere in between. In fact, I'm not especially sympathetic toward Ms. Palin (apart from an ironic "twinge"), and I have felt exactly the same mixture of outrage and disbelief toward her that many of you have. But for all her offenses, the fact remains that Sarah Palin was all but powerless when she was selected to be McCain's running mate; why didn't the GOP choose someone who had genuine political capital to lose instead? Because they didn't want to sacrifice a real political player. Sarah Palin was set up as the fall-guy (fall-gal?) for the Republican Party, to deflect blame away from the real criminals: Big Money, the Military-Industrial complex and the soulless operatives who manipulate and maneuver on their behalf. She is an easy target, but she's the wrong one.

Sarah Palin, despite her transparent lust for power, was nothing more than their completely expendable, $150,000 spokesmodel.

And they even got their money back. . .

[mageduley]

So we are supposed to feel sympathy for the con artist who got conned by bigger better con artists?

It is republican evolution. All is fair in the lust for power you see. Big con artists eat little con artists - both of which feed on the poor and uniformed.