How REALLY to talk about Sarah Palin - and why Canadians know more than you do with this one
So Sarah Palin's candidacy has been calling out to me lately. Actually that's not true - the story has been screaming at my head and brought on a serious headache. Just not in the way one might expect. With time on my hands, an economic meltdown in the offing and nothing better in the news than the presidential campaign - I feel I just have to say something.
Except, I feel, the good stuff has already been said. I give absolute credit to both Heather Mallick and Andrew Potter for saying it all in pointed and wonderfully honest pieces of writing. Bravo, regardless of what the chaps over at FOX News believe.
Then this week, Canada was able to pass the puck and assist on a point that the hockey mom from Alaska was making about her foreign policy experience. Amazing how we can go from zeros to heroes in this election isn't it?
All of this is contributing to the headache. So what to make of it all?
Here is my final word and testament on Palin...for now at least...
I believe I actually called it early that, although tactically brilliant, the nomination of Palin by McCain left much to be desired. Although, that move (tactically brilliant but with a whole lotta big dumb faults) has come to characterize the McCain campaign, one really has to wonder what is going through this man's mind.
Palin, as I also called early, on first appearance is an admirable woman - career driven, a great public speaker (counteracting a lot of Obama), good looking, committed mother, etc. - yet, calling upon all of my own knowledge of lost and forlorn places in the backwoods of Ontario, I sniffed out that hickism pretty darn early.
Let's be honest, with the hockey talk and that damn accent, the woman sounds more Canadian than anything Americans have seen en-masse since Michael Moore's dreadful Canadian Bacon (a lesson learned - stick to documentaries). Which is perhaps McCain's most stupid move of all - Palin's very legitimate leadership experience in Alaska can so easily be painted as far removed from the rest of the lower 48, so as to make her appear all but 'foreign' to the vast majority of Americans. Not the wisest shot at a VP in my opinion. Even if removed from the culture wars context (thanks to Potter) of liberal-Democrat lifestyles vs. the rest of the country mentality, she still comes off as removed from the political situation through geography alone.
As every good US political science major knows (thank you Robert Vipond and -ick- Beth Fisher), American presidential elections are not won on the basis of strong foreign policy EVER (witness the life and times of John Kerry). So concerns about her lack of a passport until very recently, are exaggerated. However, the fact that she appears foreign - well, there's the rub.
Which is perhaps why Canadians are so qualified to be her best examiners. Palin is all but one of us. And, as mentioned above, we know our hicks when we see one. What Mallick and Potter are kind enough to point out are not her foibles alone, but real problems with this woman and her policy positioning (of which Potter points out there is very little) for Americans. And in Canada's role as the God given critic of all things American, we ask you to trust us on this one.
What Canada really yearns for in American politics is something substantive. It's a big wish. We wish it every five years or so. We wish it to make our lives easier.
From my sources at DFAIT, I am told there are 5 (count 'em FIVE) disputed border territories between Canada and the US - STILL. One would like to think this had been hammered out, oh, I don't know, in the 1860s. This is not the case. Not a few of these disputes are over areas close to Alaska. All of them are, at their heart, about oil. Here's a snippet of US foreign policy insight from your friends to the north - much of US plans to rid themselves of dependence on foreign oil happens to include a plan to de-foreignize oil sources, like taking over and drilling bits of Canada or well into the Gulf of Mexico and calling it "American."
In times like this, a Canadian might think that someone with a knowledge of the border and oil would be the candidate for us. But, I fear, not so with Ms. Palin. She has her talents, unfortunately they seem not to resound in politics.
Besides she's too busy staring at Russia from her house to notice what's happening in her own backyard.
So Sarah Palin's candidacy has been calling out to me lately. Actually that's not true - the story has been screaming at my head and brought on a serious headache. Just not in the way one might expect. With time on my hands, an economic meltdown in the offing and nothing better in the news than the presidential campaign - I feel I just have to say something.
Except, I feel, the good stuff has already been said. I give absolute credit to both Heather Mallick and Andrew Potter for saying it all in pointed and wonderfully honest pieces of writing. Bravo, regardless of what the chaps over at FOX News believe.
Then this week, Canada was able to pass the puck and assist on a point that the hockey mom from Alaska was making about her foreign policy experience. Amazing how we can go from zeros to heroes in this election isn't it?
All of this is contributing to the headache. So what to make of it all?
Here is my final word and testament on Palin...for now at least...
I believe I actually called it early that, although tactically brilliant, the nomination of Palin by McCain left much to be desired. Although, that move (tactically brilliant but with a whole lotta big dumb faults) has come to characterize the McCain campaign, one really has to wonder what is going through this man's mind.
Palin, as I also called early, on first appearance is an admirable woman - career driven, a great public speaker (counteracting a lot of Obama), good looking, committed mother, etc. - yet, calling upon all of my own knowledge of lost and forlorn places in the backwoods of Ontario, I sniffed out that hickism pretty darn early.
Let's be honest, with the hockey talk and that damn accent, the woman sounds more Canadian than anything Americans have seen en-masse since Michael Moore's dreadful Canadian Bacon (a lesson learned - stick to documentaries). Which is perhaps McCain's most stupid move of all - Palin's very legitimate leadership experience in Alaska can so easily be painted as far removed from the rest of the lower 48, so as to make her appear all but 'foreign' to the vast majority of Americans. Not the wisest shot at a VP in my opinion. Even if removed from the culture wars context (thanks to Potter) of liberal-Democrat lifestyles vs. the rest of the country mentality, she still comes off as removed from the political situation through geography alone.
As every good US political science major knows (thank you Robert Vipond and -ick- Beth Fisher), American presidential elections are not won on the basis of strong foreign policy EVER (witness the life and times of John Kerry). So concerns about her lack of a passport until very recently, are exaggerated. However, the fact that she appears foreign - well, there's the rub.
Which is perhaps why Canadians are so qualified to be her best examiners. Palin is all but one of us. And, as mentioned above, we know our hicks when we see one. What Mallick and Potter are kind enough to point out are not her foibles alone, but real problems with this woman and her policy positioning (of which Potter points out there is very little) for Americans. And in Canada's role as the God given critic of all things American, we ask you to trust us on this one.
What Canada really yearns for in American politics is something substantive. It's a big wish. We wish it every five years or so. We wish it to make our lives easier.
From my sources at DFAIT, I am told there are 5 (count 'em FIVE) disputed border territories between Canada and the US - STILL. One would like to think this had been hammered out, oh, I don't know, in the 1860s. This is not the case. Not a few of these disputes are over areas close to Alaska. All of them are, at their heart, about oil. Here's a snippet of US foreign policy insight from your friends to the north - much of US plans to rid themselves of dependence on foreign oil happens to include a plan to de-foreignize oil sources, like taking over and drilling bits of Canada or well into the Gulf of Mexico and calling it "American."
In times like this, a Canadian might think that someone with a knowledge of the border and oil would be the candidate for us. But, I fear, not so with Ms. Palin. She has her talents, unfortunately they seem not to resound in politics.
Besides she's too busy staring at Russia from her house to notice what's happening in her own backyard.
posted by Jen S. @ 11:46 AM
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