The Vice Presidential Debate: The Farce

My last post was about it being open season on women in the political realm. This post will be a review of the VP debate with a keen focus on Sarah Palin.

After about an hour of "by golly", shout outs to 3rd graders, and that damn bang flicking in her eyes, I was ready to jump through my television and shake her until her fillings rattled. People complained that Hillary was shrill and too hard. Palin was a parody of herself. Hell, Tina Fey probably would've looked more poised than Palin. She was an enthusiastic cheerleader for John McCain with her good, ol' gal demeanor. Neither candidate directly answered the questions poor Gwen tried to ask, but Palin was obvious about pushing her agenda. She even looked squarely into the camera and said she wanted to tell America why she was right for the job. She turned the debate into a job interview. She didn't fall flat on her face like most of America thought, but she didn't give a stellar performance. If anything, she exposed herself to even closer scrutiny. Will her performance help or hinder McCain? No one really knows.

The Right is breathing a sigh of relief because she didn't look too bad. When you have to watch your candidate while holding your breath as if you're watching your toddler walk across the room, it reveals a lot. The Left is doing a jig because Biden hit a homerun. If you're celebrating too hard because your seasoned pro performed better than a novice, you must've been worried.

In the end, America is asked to choose the next leader of this nation. The VP role is the shadow to the president. In the case of George W., his shadow looms larger than the president, but that's neither here nor there. What matters now is which shadow does America want to be waiting in the wings in case the head of state is lost. Does America want a tried and true Washington insider with a wealth of experience? Does America want a Gidget and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington hybrid?

Open Season

I am not a Sarah Palin fan. When many conservatives started wetting their knickers over her, I was left speechless. How could any rational person know so little about another and are willing to hand them the keys to the White House? It was absurd. All the talk about being a maverick and her good, moral stance on all the issues the far right consider...well, right was just beating the drum to the same ol' chant that we've been hearing for the past 8 years. We know that she likes to shoot moose, her 17 year old daughter is pregnant, and she tries to charm middle America with her "aw shucks and golly" personality. We can only gleam from her interview with Katie Couric that she doesn't read periodicals, she thinks looking across the ocean at Russia is foreign experience, and she is oh so happy to be on the winning ticket to the White House.

I could go on and on talking about Mrs. Palin, but I won't because everyone else is doing a fine job of it. Their job is so well done that it looks like it's open season on the female politician. First their was Hillary that everyone wanted to dress down and humble. Michelle Obama got beaten into a side note after her feisty personality started to look a little too...much. Cindy McCain can be called a c*nt by her loving husband and no one really stands up for her. Now poor, mousy Sarah gets to dodge the unkind arrows aimed at her carefully styles hairdo.

I watched her debate tonight. When you think about the person who will be a heartbeat from the presidency, you want to see someone who you could trust to take on that responsibility. When Truman, LBJ, and Ford took over, they managed to hold it all together. Can Sarah Palin do it? I don't know. I don't know her. What I do know is that there seems to be open season on the women who are in the spotlight of politics.