I was wondering what kind of mother, being an avowed evangelical and knowing that her underage daughter is pregnant out of wedlock, would choose to accept the vice presidential nomination and thus subject her daughter to a vicious and unrelenting spotlight for, potentially, the next eight years. And I was wondering what kind of mother would agree to take on the rigors of a presidential campaign and essentially put aside a four-month-old baby with special needs. Sarah Palin's convention speech answered that question: that kind of mother.
Palin was comfortable stepping in and lying through her teeth about her record and her opponent. She was at ease insulting people who selflessly try to give back to their communities--because it helped her politically. She had no qualms about parading her visibly uncomfortable family across a stage and passing her special needs baby down the aisle as a political prop.
The media, taken aback no doubt by Palin's ability to lie and smear with gusto as if it were second nature, mostly lauded the speech, leaving those of us who care about our families and our country--and not our ratings--to hope that the majority of American swing voters, at least, disagreed.
Maybe a night of such dramatically appalling pageantry could only be summed up in poetry, but I noticed that more than a few posts in the blogosphere that night included this excerpt from Macbeth's great soliloquy (later adopted by Faulkner): "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." We can hope.
It's appropriate that I've been reading Yeats lately, whose life was haunted by a beautiful and fiercely political woman named Maude Gonne (any extension of the comparison would be offensive to Gonne's memory). "Why should I blame her," Yeats wrote in No Second Troy, "that she fills my days with misery." The poem is apropos, considering the culture war Palin is being used to ignite:
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great...
With beauty...
That is not natural in an age like this...
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
I've used excerpts here because Palin doesn't come close to living up to the rest of the poem. And while I wanted to include the final line, I apologize for implying that Palin's beauty might be enough to cause the burning of a capital. We may yet uncover a suspicious arson at the Wasilla Dairy Queen.
A more appropriate Yeats poem might be this excerpt from the lesser-known On a Political Prisoner, which, I would offer, Palin now is:
She that but little patience knew,
From childhood on, had now so much
A grey gull lost its fear and flew
Down to her cell and there alit,
And there endured her fingers' touch
And from her fingers ate its bit.
Did she in touching that lone wing
Recall the years before her mind
Became a bitter, an abstract thing,
Her thought some popular enmity:
Blind and leader of the blind
Drinking the foul ditch where they lie?
She that but little patience knew. We have evidence she was impatient, transferring five times in six years before finally managing to get a Bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Idaho. We don't know that she was ever innocent.
In his apocalyptic vision The Second Coming Yeats wrote, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst/ Are full of passionate intensity."
Thanks to Palin, the worst, as evidenced by the old, white, teeth-gnashing Republican convention crowd, now have that "passionate intensity."
Thankfully for us, so do the best this year.
Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart have informed the McCain/Palin Campaign that Universal Music Publishing and Sony BMG have sent a cease-and-desist notice to not use one of Heart's classic songs "Barracuda," as the congratulatory theme for Sarah Palin.
The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission.
"We have asked the Republican campaign not to use our music. As American women, we don't share the views of Sarah Palin
We hope our wishes will be honored."
OOOOOOOOHBARACUDA
"What do you call a mother who teaches abstinence only?
Grandma !
To hopefully answer your question, how about a woman who believes that the feminists are correct on some things. Such as a woman's obligation to break those glass ceilings when the opportunity arises.
All of a sudden, liberals, leftists, feminists, and Democrats are very, very family oriented and are pounding on this woman and her family.
And just who is operating those vicious and unrelenting spotlights?
Why is she such a threat to the left?
Also, she is lame for forcing her daughter into a shotgun marriage for political expediancy. It is selfish, this guy doesn't want to marry her daughter, yet she's pushing her into what will be a miserable, loveless marriage to make herself look better. Again, I am very grateful that she is not my mother.
It took the republicans 24 years to finally put a women on a ticket after the democrats did it, and this is the best their party has to offer? But I guess thats about right because they are generally a quarter of a century behind in most progressive views. My goodness Barbara Bush (the elder) has probably forgotten more than Sarah will ever know.
The Monday USA/Gallup poll has flipped the lead from Barack to McCain and the reason is Sarah Palin.
Keep pounding on her. It seems to be helping McCain.
Lipstick on a pig. What a gaff. :)
seems hypocritical given her widely broadcast religious beliefs
she makes choices I wouldn't make as a mother, but those are her choices
problem is, she would reduce the choices other people would have given her policies
she certainly doesn't represent what I believe in as far as what is good for the country.
frankly she scares me
Speculation about why Palin had certain members of her family present at the convention or about why certain people were holding her baby is absolutely useless. It's a baby. Someone has to hold him. No one in the McCain campaign planned the CNN camera closeups. If she had left him at home and hired a sitter, all the bloggers would be claiming that she was too embarrassed of him to bring him along. The bottom line is that no mother in her right mind would ever use her newborn special needs baby as a political pawn. To suggest that is simply irresponsible.
There is no reason to turn this election into an episode of the Young and the Restless any more than it already is. It only hurts the process.
I don't begrudge them making their case, it's the American people's job to NOT get confused, to pay attention and sift through this garbage and pick the best leader from the group. And I truly do believe that anyone who IS Paying attention wouldn't vote for Mac/Pal, unless they are not voting based on the issues.
Wouldn't all the religious conservative women applaud this answer; after all, we all know that women are subordinate to men and that husbands have all the control. I mean, come on, this is god's law.