What Anglachel said
What [McCain] has done is actually quite sophisticated. It is very short sighted to say that he can’t use the “lacks experience” argument against Obama anymore now that he has chosen Palin. Wrong. He now can say he put Palin in a position that is appropriate to her political talents and promise, but which takes account of her actual experience. For the Left to argue that she is unqualifed for VP when her political career is extremely similar to Obama’s is political suicide. If the Obamacans honestly cannot understand that Obama and Palin have comparable political biographies, then they are too stupid to be let out in public without a keeper.
Emphasis mine.
Actually, I think Palin is more qualified than Obama. She’s held executive office. She ran a town, she ran a commission, now she runs a state. She’s actually accomplished things.
What has Obama done, aside from write books about himself? “Community organizer”? He ran a voter registration drive, for chrissake. The law school thing was a sinecure while he wrote his autobiographies (plural, I note with a wry amusement that has yet to fade). He had a part-time job as a state senator, which mostly seemed to involve voting “present.” And for the bulk of his scant three years as a U.S. senator he’s been too busy running for president to even attend to Senate business.
24 Responses to “What Anglachel said”
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Ciccina says:
But he’d a man, Violet. He’ll grow into the office! I mean, everyone has to start somewhere!
September 1st, 2008 at 11:40 pm EST -
Violet says:
The lack of self-awareness in the Obama camp is really astonishing. I was just over at Slate and all the woman-hating women over there are sniping about how ridiculously “unqualified” Sarah Palin is.
Feminism needs to be a required part of the curriculum in our public schools.
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Ciccina says:
Re: feminism as a required part of the curriculum, I agree. I had the opportunity to observe a gender education program in Bangkok – 10 to 12 year olds going through a series of exercises that basically demonstrated there weren’t any real differences between girls and boys, breaking down stereotypes, and so forth – and it was great. Surprisingly, to me, the boys especially seemed more free to dance and clown around and so forth. In other countries, I believe, there are certain practices that push gender integration – pairing girl and boy students on school projects for example. I think if someone proposed to do that in the U.S. the earth would stop in its rotation. Anti-feminism is practically a national value.
[hope that made sense]
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carlitos says:
Don’t forget about the record-setting number of “present” votes that Obama cast in the Illinois legislature. Nothing like taking a stand. The only thing that he ever really ran – the Chicago Annenberg Challenge – was a complete failure.
BTW ciccina – If you think that there isn’t any difference between girls and boys, you’re not really paying attention. No offense, but one would guess that you don’t have children of your own.
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octogalore says:
Violet: nice analysis re the experience comparisons. Some additional thoughts on that, here:
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jh says:
Let me say this weekend has been a revelation
I am a big Republican and McCain supporter. During the primary I supported Huckabee and really had no problem with McCain so the switch was easy.
Tee point of that being I guess for us Republicans like the Democrats we are all sort of in the weeds if we are really involved with our guy or gal running. That what is happening in our opposing party primary might as well as be in an alternative Universe.
I was never a Hillary fan but I have grown to respect her during this primary because when I tuned in and especially after the GOP races was over I liked how she had matured as a canidate. Also I was getting a tad annoyed (as a Huckabee supporter I could feel her pain) about how many people were trying to push her off the stage once she got traction. I liked her guts and how she developed.
That being said I always thought the sexism charge of Hillary supporters were sour grapes. Again recall I was not in the democrat weeds but the Republican weeds so I missed a lot.
I am not so sure now after this whole weekend. SOme of this stuff they are saying against Palin ias over the top. Her 17 year old “child” my gosh she is months away from being an adult is so vunlerable that she must quit her VP slot? Bizaree. Andrew Sullivan has been very weird on this. THe bizaree theories about Palin’s child are incredible.
I guess as a southern guy I am used to be raising around strong women that actually get elected to office. I do wonder if people fear her because her Alaska upbringing where girls were expected to do what the boys do will be appealing to huge part of the electorate.
I am not sure what is going on but some of this stuff is incredible.
So Palin is suppose to quit being VP nominee so she go back to Alaska and give her new son in law hell as she is suppose to mother her daughter to death and not let them make their own way?
Why can’t people call her Governor?
She has a child with Downs and forget the fact that can run the entire OFfice out of the Naval Observatory(her potential new home_ and will access to the finest health Care i she got elected the best thing would be for her to quit?
Maybe it was your blog but someone raised the queston why was not the major uproar over Edwards that has a wife that COULD BE DYING when he ran?
What if Joe Biden had a 17 year daughter that was pregnant do I think we would not be seeing these headlines?
Why is Palin less qulaified than lets say Gov Kaine who I actually thought would be a good pick for Obama
Anyway I sort of poo pooed the charges of sexism against Hillary but now I am not so sure. I have been busy with this hurricane but I am going to spend some time going back and looking to see what Hillary folks were talking about.
I have a huge feeling this will backfire and I uspect when her husband decides to pipe in that will be a quite a moment. What happens when the world realizes through him that she was out there fishing in the dangerous arctic waters as he was in their business and to him it is no big deal.
Anyway those are my thoughts
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myiq2xu says:
What has Obama done?
He won his first election by getting the competition kicked off the ballot.
He ran unopposed for reelection.
He challenged Bobby Rush and got his clock cleaned.
He ran for the US Senate, and his main competition in the primary had to resign when scandalous information was leaked to the press. Then the GOP candidate also has to resign when his divorce records were unsealed (Jack and Jeri Ryan) So Obama cakewalked into the Senate, and almost immediately began running for President.
Palin on the other hand, defeated the GOP incumbent in the primary, then defeated the former governor in the general despite being outspent.
She has been governor for two years and is popular with the voters.
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Huan says:
consider me more educated than before.
i have always thought many professional women were treated unfairly but the actual hate that has manifested itself against Palin is truly abhorent. -
Bob Reed says:
I was stunned during the Democratic primary epilogue when the MSM pronounced that, contrary to Hillary’s assertion, there was not a single whiff of misogyny of sexism coming out of the Obama campaign and it’s supporters. The punditocracy and fifth column media elites declared Obama innocent of playing any cards from the identity politics deck-despite the calculated smear campaign waged against the Clintons.
Now, after the selection of Gov. Palin as McCain’s running mate, we have the reprise of the vile invective that Mr. Obama’s campaign and supporters are best at. And, regardless of Mr. Obama’s demonstrative public attempt to establish plausible deniability–once again–it is becoming clear to anyone willing to put aside partisanship for a moment and submit the record to intellectually honest scrutiny that his campaign thrives, indeed orchestrates, a masterful display of “good cop-bad cop” politics of personal destruction; the very kind that has been railed against, hand-wrung over, and decried for years.
It is stunning, sexist, disingenuous, and highly illogical for anyone to suggest that Ms. Palin is somehow less experienced than Mr. Obama. To do so necessarily must invoke the spurious rationale that holds women to a different set of standards than men. And, perhaps most risible is the assertion being circulated that by virtue of his experience campaigning he somehow has more executive experience! Furthermore, since Mr. Obama is the presidential candidate, and Gov. Palin the veep, we get into a whole new territory of hypocrisy. The same assertion that has been leveled at Bush, vis-à-vis Cheney pulling the strings behind the scene has not even scene the light of day with respect to Mr. Biden. Do you think Gov. Palin would be accorded the same deference? I think not…
Mr. Obama and his campaign, for all his self described post-racial and post-gender attitudes, have displayed an alarming propensity to play these cards in usual hardball fashion of the old politics they publicly decry. In June and in late July they tried to play the race card, preemptively, on Mr. McCain; an honorable man who has PUBLICLY chastised members of his own party during episodes where some elements, in his mind, had hit Mr. Obama “below the belt”. Now that he has chosen a QUALIFIED woman for his running mate we begin to hear the whisper campaign of smears as well as a sudden need to discuss a candidate’s “qualifications”. While Ms. Palin will be a proverbial “heartbeat away” from the presidency, it is neither unreasonable nor uncommon for the veep to be a younger person, obviously of less experience, who will most likely work on specific projects while learning the art of statecraft from their senior. And, why is it that the MSM suddenly feels the need to discuss and scrutinize Ms. Palin’s background; when they haven’t felt the need to do the same for Mr. Obama’s chequered past in Chicago politics and with his questionable associates?
It is the same old double standard that was played masterfully against Hillary in the primaries. Having seen it all before the question is; will version 2.0 go over as easily with the American people…?
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r.sikes says:
I’m a guy, and an executive, and a ‘Utilitarian’ feminist: both women and men run sections under me. I don’t much care if they run their bidness as a girl or as a guy, as long as they perform on cue.
That said …
‘Movement’ fems lost a LOT of credibility and moral high-ground with me when they dutifully lined up on their knees enabling and sanctifying and justifying and parsing Clinton, and I am not one bit certain it/they are not even more short-sighted now.
I am apalled at the silence from ‘movement’ feminists at how Palin is being demonised, including by COmission, of course.
I came here with your Instalanche, but have stuck around. Good blog & thoughtful commenters. Thank you.
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Ann Bartow says:
I admit I’m not particularly adept at reading political tea leaves but this doesn’t bode well for Palin’s continued presence on the Republican ticket:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTbsbeY5k5k
McCain may have underestimated the sexism in his own party.
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anna says:
Do you really think that getting into Harvard Law and becoming the head of its law review are not accomplishments to be proud of?
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Level Best says:
If the Republicans reject Palin for being a woman they are fools; I can’t imagine them being that blind and self-defeating. This VP choice was the best one McCain could have made. I’m a radical feminist,former yellow-dog Democrat, by the way. I don’t trust either major party per se any more, but look at individual candidates, their actions, and who supports them and in what manner. And the manner of treatment of first a viable female presidential candidate and now the Republican VP choice by Obama’s fans is despicable and woman-hating.
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Nadai says:
Do you really think that getting into Harvard Law and becoming the head of its law review are not accomplishments to be proud of?
Sure. Just like George W. Bush getting an MBA from Harvard Business School is probably something he’s proud of. For my part, it’s what you do with your degree that matters.
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creeper says:
And yet CBS is reporting Obama with an eight-point lead in the latest poll.
Have Americans taken leave of their senses?
Barack Obama’s “record” is even worse than George W. Bush’s. But he’s a male and he’s black and if you don’t vote for him you’re a sexist, racist pig.
Oink!
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simply wondered says:
just from the wrong side of the atlantic it strikes me there is no shortage of reasons to despise gov. palin: my favourite is that she seems some way to the right of margaret thatcher.
and if obamabots are wrong to level charges of racism against those who don’t like him, then i’m assuming it’s wrong to call me sexist just because she looks a hateful kinda rightwinger to me with all the old nasty bigtory(sic) about gay people, atheists, women who dare to have abortions… blah blah blah.
good for her running for vp as a woman, as a mother etc but with policies i’ve heard her associated with, the further from me she runs the better. -
Randall Shake says:
A Writer a Black Womwn with Philly.com is threatening a “Race War and Class War” If Obama is not elected. This is truly strange times we live in.
I am a registered Democrat but in truth normally plug my nose and vote for the lesser of two candidates I intensely dislike. A pox on both their houses.
Hilliary was really mistreated by the Media, who ignored Obama’s gaffs and mispoken statements. Hell MSNBC is worshipping him practically speaking This is just crazy. That they would go after Sarah Palin’s family does not surprise me.
Hilliary had to go to Fox News to get an interview that was at least not against her. That was a real shocker to me. Hilliary has more life experiences, and more exposure to crisis management and has seen if first hand.
What has Obama ever governed? Nothing. He has written books, Taught, been a Community Organizer. But what has he governed?? This is going to backfire on Obama and cost the Democrats the election. The party should have chosen Hilliary. She was more electable.
My other concern is what is this communicating to ordinary Citizens willing to take a risk of Public Service? Palin’s parents are a Teacher and a School Secretary. Not Washington Insiders or wealthy folks. We are discouraging normal ordinary Citizens from taking a risk of going into public Life. It is crude, vulgar and outrageous to go after her Daughter.
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Infidel says:
The life of an unborn child is above Obama’s pay grade.
Fuck’n right!
When it’s in your womb! -
sister of ye says:
For those here being wilfully obtuse, let’s try this again. No one has a problem with criticizing Palin on her political philosophy or performance at governing.
But we have a Democratic party who always tiptoed around critizing George W. Bush, ignoring his drunken “youth” (which last till his 40s), his disappearing TANG service, and his largely ceremonial if bloodthirsty career as Texas governor. It wouldn’t be “civil,” we were always told.
Now Obama’s surrogates in the MSM and the Big Boy Blogs are sniffing around in the panties of a woman govenor, her 17-year-old daughter and her infant son, insisting that that has relevance to her qualifications as veep where Bush’s repeated business failures did not.
Bill Clinton was an exception, being raked over for a personal indiscretion that would have been overlooked in another president. (Think all those overnight WH visits by male prostitute turned “journalist” Jeff Gannon.) What did Clinton have that they didn’t? A strong wife whom he obviously valued as a political partner, whose abiities he was happy to let shine.
No coincidence, I don’t think, that the “scandal” the Republicans finally got Bill Clinton impeached on had the most potential to humiliate Hillary Clinton – and that the Dem boys club either twiddled their thumbs silently on the sidelines or joined in the fingerwagging.
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cinnabarb says:
I have heard much more about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy in the last 36 hours than I’ve heard about Obama’s relationship with Bill Ayers in the 19 months he’s been campaigning. Something’s wrong with that.
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Perry Logan says:
In nominating Palin, the Republicans took the Democrats’ queen. The game is almost over!
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Randall Shake says:
The Feminists and PUMA movement has a point about how Hilliary has been treated. She has been treated miserably. According to a recent Poll if Hilliary were on the ticket instead of Biden the Democrats Poll numbers would be higher. The bounce from the Convention is evaporating. The good Ole Boys Network is obviously alive and well in the Democratic Party. Which has betrayed its Women voters.
Unbelievable that the most loyal constituency of the Democrats has been disregarded.
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Sis says:
Bloody amazing isn’t it? But you know what, she’s going to withstand it. Just look at her record. What is it even her political enemies say about her? “The landscape is littered with the bodies of people who underestimated Sarah”.
She’s our blood. Yes. She’s blood. We have to back ALL the women who step out the way she has, from the whole of the political spectrum; liberal, communist, conservative, green; no matter what colour they are, black (I actually like Michelle a whole lot better, they got the wrong Obama), white, native. Wow there are some fantastic native women leaders in the Canadian north. And hang onto your hat, they let the patronizing left know where to get off. They’re taking control of northern resources and making it pay for natives, for a change. I support them even if I don’t support everything they do, or what party banner they run under. *This* is revolution.
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Yanni Znaio says:
Violet:
Looks like another case of hubris combined with overreach.
Best regards,
YZ
