The Palin Drag Chute

HomeDiariesBreaking BlueE-Wire 2008The Palin Drag Chute

by chrisblask, Sat Oct 04, 2008 at 11:03:16 AM EST

Crossposted from The Motley Moose

With four weeks to go, John McCain still can't draw a crowd by himself and the person who can fill a stadium - Sarah Palin - scares everyone who isn't madly in love with her.

Isn't she the American Everywoman? Isn't she the Classic Military Mom? Isn't she Maverick coming to save the day?

Apparently, she's none of the above.

GrassRootsOrganizer has this to say about the Everywoman brand of Sarah Palin:

From what I can remember about those times, even the women sharing them with me in our small town could not be well fitted into a box labelled "alot like Sarah Palin." Some were newly divorced mothers, struggling with custody laws, trying to carve out a new life path for themselves. Some were working women, some were stay-at-home mothers, some ran small businesses to be home for the kids, each with their own unique perspective. A few weren't mothers at all but grandmothers raising kids partially orphaned by economic realities.

Our issues would have run the gamut from the need for affordable accessible reliable childcare, to better laws to support women leaving abusive partners, to equal pay for equal work. And our issues would have extended beyond the gender specific to the environment, the conduct of the war threatening to take our sons and daughters, the safety of our food and water, the rising cost of everything, the struggle to find stable work that paid a living wage. For some of us the pressing concern would be how to obtain or maintain healthcare insurance with a child's pre-existing condition -- or how to work, raise kids and care for a parent with dementia -- or how to get training for a new career while trying to save for our children's college education.

For five weeks now I haven't heard Sarah Palin say one word that indicates to me she either represents me or understands me. As a military mother, I want to hear alot more about veterans' healthcare and psychological services and could care less about who waves a white flag at what. As a home owner I want to hear about programs that will keep me in my home of 19 years if I lose my job to this shit economy.

Seems that Joe Biden's lifestory has more to do with the American Everywoman than does Sarah Palin. Many American Everywomen are military parents, as well, and Palin's ignorance of those trials isn't winning her points outside her core fanbase, either.

NavyBlueWife has even deeper doubts about Sarah Palin, Commander in Chief.

Palin as a Blue Star Mother

I am a military wife, and I can assure you that I am not qualified to be vice president of this great country on that fact alone.

As part of a Blue Star and Gold Star family, nothing makes me happier than to have two major presidential tickets with vice presidential candidates who have sons serving in our military in Iraq. About one percent of the elite in Congress have military sons and daughters. Both Palin and Biden know firsthand the sacrifice of our troops because they are part of the military family.

Yet, being part of a military family does not make either one qualified to be vice president, just as being a veteran and POW is not the singular qualification to make someone president.

So What Would Palin Do as Commander In Chief?
Who knows? She hasn't said much of substance.

Having nothing of substance to say actually says a great deal.

Most importantly, it says that she would NOT be the one making the calls. Her stump speeches and performance at the vice presidential debate all point to a crash (and burn) course in military issues and foreign policy by the Bush/Cheney administration.

Bush is a disaster as a Commander in Chief. He has put our troops in harms' way based on faulty intelligence, has ignored his commanders on the ground in both theaters, and has hung up on the 911 call from veterans and military families for more support in all ways, including health care (i.e., Walter Reed).

McCain and Palin, like Bush and Cheney, have failed our military and veterans in their political careers and are doing more of it in their campaign. Expect nothing less than continued ignorance on their parts if they should get elected. They would continue to profess their undying "love" for our military on stage while slashing and burning them in the budget.


Not only does Sarah Palin fail to provide depth to the McCain ticket, she highlights areas of weakness he already faces, and brings up fears in the one area (military) that he had held an advantage.

And the "Maverick" brand? What does she bring to McCain's shining hood-ornament of a talking point?

She makes it a synonym for flippant disregard. Fogiv has this to say about that:

Wanna know what really pissed me off? It was that "white flag of surrender" horseshit.

No, in fact, when we talk about the Bush administration, there's a time, too, when Americans are going to say, "Enough is enough with your ticket," on constantly looking backwards, and pointing fingers, and doing the blame game.

There have been huge blunders in the war. There have been huge blunders throughout this administration, as there are with every administration.

But for a ticket that wants to talk about change and looking into the future, there's just too much finger-pointing backwards to ever make us believe that that's where you're going.

Pardon my French, Sarah, but fuck you. What the above quote fails to capture is the flippant and dismissive tone with which these words were delivered. Let's remind ourselves what the ramifications of some of these "blunders" are; the ones we ought not to concern ourselves with looking back on.

To date, 4,177 Americans have given their lives in Iraq. That's almost half of the 2007 estimated population of Wasilla, Alaska. I read somewhere that the average age of these casualties is about 30 years of age, which means there are a shitload of widows, orphans, and grieving parents back here in the Land of Hockey Moms. Let's just put that behind us, right Sarah?

And then there are all those wounded. About 30,680 of them. Missing limbs, traumatic brain injury. I'll be damned if that isn't almost exactly the same as the 2007 population of Juneau, Alaska. No biggie, right Sarah? Just a blunder. All administrations have blunders. Sheesh.

So the vaunted McCain Bailout Pick - Sarah Palin, Slayer of Democrats - turns out to be a tightly-bundled drag chute that deploys before the finish line. The backward forces are enough to snap the neck of an incautious driver, and I think Racecar McCain is going to need an icepack and a massage before this is all over.

-chris

http://www.mydd.com/story/2008/10/4/11316/9055