September 3, 2008
[note: this post continues to be updated with Things Palin.
Update: So long for a while, Governor. We'll both be back.]
a 2005 photograph of Gloria Steinem;
Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, the week
No word on bicycles except this, but the Governor seems to be in good order as to men and fish.
The title refers to a novelized biography of the miserable bazarre avaricious saga affecting Gloria Vanderbilt Whitney, heiress, mother of newsface Anderson Cooper. Cooper is also a grandson of authentic movie "back when stars were stars" star Gary Cooper.
Update: Nope, unhappy as always.
Update on more things Palin:
Bah, what does it matter: She's just a small town mayor, just a hockey mom, just a beauty pageant queen. Palin has never shunned these belittling monikers, in part, I imagine, because the camouflage has served her so well. Soothed by the litany, her opponents tend to sleep too late, sneer too much, and forget who it is that hires them....The ultimate source of political power in this country is not the Kennedy School or the Davos Summit or an Ariana Huffington salon; even now, power emanates from the electorate itself.... Watching Palin operate over the past few years has been like witnessing a dramatic reading of All the King’s Men....
Willie was right. He'd learned how to win.
To get there you follow something other than a Bridge to Nowhere... Heh.
Update from Victor Davis Hanson:
[Where she comes from reflects] a life of action in an often harsh natural landscape,
where physical strength is married to intelligence.
Palin's symbolism is the antithesis of the
metrosexual wind- or body- surfing politican, and hair-plugged,
neurotic TV pundit So at this time, right now, millions apparently like
Palin's atypical 19th-century profile. Again, it's a pleasant change of
pace from Harvard Law School, DC politics, "community organizing" and
the can't-do, 'they raised the bar on me' collective complaint.
If
she can beat off the frothing... with the grace she has shown so far, she will
fill a deep yearning among Americans for someone like her.
You can say that again. And we just did.
Update, from Mark Shea, Peggy Noonan still in terms relevant to Palin cf. Steinem:
A feminist of the "How do you reload this thang" variety rather than of the "I was a victim all my life till my consciousness was raised in Women's Studies and I learned to be a Professionially Aggrieved Grievance Professional" variety...
Update: Apparently, this is what a houseful of love looks like.
Update:
Or, she didn't show any evidence of a keen mind or sizable intellect...
And, she may failed to effectively pivot from sarcastic hocky mom to vice presidential...
Staying classy, philosophy of Sarah Palin is: "Fuck the poor and all those who disagree with me, fuck you and shut up."
The baying mob continues.
Keep the nasty elitist snark coming, folks. It only helps her. The nation is listening. Including Hillaryland.
Update: Are the smears business or pleasure?
Update after The Speech:
From now on, when a Democrat says "But what if McCain drops dead on his first day in office?!?!?!" I'm going to say "dude -- don't tease me like that," from Ann Althouse commenter
Update: Part of the genius seems to consist of a force-field in which the other team's attackers repeatedly blow themselves up. What's up with the Acme-Syndrome?
Update: Steel Magnolias on permafrost. Check out the breast-feeding blanket in camouflage.
Added: "I didn't know the struggle was for such a carefully nuanced view of female equality that it doesn't include actual women." Comment here.
Adding a song: Gerry Stanek is sure'nough happy with Sarah (a Republican beauty!) Via the initially unimpressed Kathy Shaidle.
Update October 3, 2008: No comparison.
Update on SNL: Who's the bubblehead?
Update February 7, 2009: Reflective essay on the flurries around Palin:
What was the Palin episode really about? The answer has much to do with the age-old tension between populism and elitism in our public life, which is to say, between the notion that we are best governed by the views, needs, and interests of the many and the conviction that power can only be managed wisely by a select few....
Palin became the embodiment of every dark fantasy the Left had ever held....
Applied to politics, the worldview of the intellectual elite begins from an unstated assumption that governing is fundamentally an exercise of the mind: an application of the proper mix of theory, expertise, and intellectual distance that calls for knowledge and verbal fluency more than for prudence born of life’s hard lessons.