Palin : America's First "Reality" Candidate?
As I write this the big controversy of the week–in addition to whether the senate might vote to repeal DADT and whether our not-really-progressive president has "caved" to Republicans on extending the anti-progressive Bush tax-cuts–is the escalating spat between Margaret Cho and Bristol Palin. Ms. Cho contended that Ms. Palin as induced by her celebrity mom to be a contestant on "Dancing with the Stars" so that teabaggers everywhere could stuff the phone-in ballot box in Bristol's favor, thus expressing their undying and subversive love for Bristol's mom.
Says Palin: "Did not."
Says Cho: "Did too."
Palin: "Did not!"
Cho: "Did too!"
In this war of words, should it ever return to words of more than one syllable, I know where the smart money will be–unless, of course, it goes up for a text-in vote from teabaggers.
Ms. Cho says she doesn't mind at all that noted unwed mum and abstinence spokesmodel Bristol was a contestant. Cho clarifies:
What I do have a problem with is Sarah Palin running for president and using reality TV as her platform.
–Margaret Cho, on whether Sarah Palin forced her daughter to be on "Dancing with the Stars" [quoted in Andy Towle, "Watch: Margaret Cho Won't Have Sarah Palin Run for President on Reality TV", Towleroad, 8 December 2010]
Duh! And now I see it with stunning clarity. Sarah Palin is not running a presidential campaign at all, largely because she hasn't the first idea how that's done.
Rather, the half-term governor is starring in a Palin-Runs-For-President reality program at the end of which viewers get to vote (maybe only once, maybe multiple times) the other candidates off the stump and Palin wins the keys to the Dream White House! This is the only scenario I see in which one might hope to understand the strange set of antics that seem to constitute Palin's non-campaign. And it makes sense : this is the way to reach a whole new generation of voters and all those whose overriding concept of competition comes from watching the survival of contestants on "reality" programs.
This idea of trying a "reality" campaign might seem discordant since we know from the Bush years that Republicans generally don't believe in reality. However, it's only an apparent contradiction since "reality" programs are generally the least real and most contrived of anything one can see on today's television programming.
Forget governing qualifications. Ratings is what it's all about.
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Wednesday, 15 December 2010 at 05.00
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Palin's chief motivations are money, ego gratification, money, perquisites and money.
Governing requires reading dull things to be able to discuss dull things with dull people. Worse, most of those dull people aren't adoring fans. Worst of all, there's not that much money in it, at least in the short run. Consequently, Pallin wants to keep people guessing about her making a run for the presidency. That draws attention and increases her money making ability. Palin might even make a run for the GOP nomination, but probably not with the idea of actually winning it.
The one thing that might get Palin to run and really try to win the GOP nomination and presidency is if critics get under her skin badly enough to make her want to show them she could run, win and govern.
Were that to happen (shudder), the result would be a sitcom, not a reality show.
on Sunday, 19 December 2010 at 23.17
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A high-five in honor of DADT repeal. Happy holidays to you and Isaac.
on Monday, 20 December 2010 at 00.46
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Thanks for the thought and the holiday wishes, SW. It made for a pleasant Saturday, quietly celebrated by me and my marriage-equality-activist, legally-wed husband! I enjoyed reading various right-wing / religious fanatic doomsayer's comments that voting for repeal would only open the floodgates and lead to a flood of movement for gay and lesbian equality. One can only hope so. I hope you, too, find joy and peace in these last days of civilization as we know it.
on Tuesday, 21 December 2010 at 01.32
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Legally wed, you say? I didn't know. Congratulations to you both. May your union be lifelong and ever more rewarding as time goes by.
And no, I don't buy the end-of-the-world theatrics. What's more, neither do 90 percent of those saying such things.
on Tuesday, 21 December 2010 at 07.54
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…so that tea partiers everywhere could stuff the phone-in ballot box in Bristol's favor…
Undoubtedly a tactic learned from the Left, who likes to stuff the ballot box with votes from illegal aliens, a group short on "governing ability" but long on "ratings".
I've got some snark about DADT, but it is not very Christmas-y.
The Left likes to spout on about "equality", but what we get from their prescriptive policies are protected status groups at the expense of the traditional groups that made the sacrifices and built the country that now seems to need so much fixing.
In the political battle between heterosexuals and homosexuals, we can score one for the homosexuals. I'm not sure it portends doomsday, but no society that embraces homosexuality can last very long. [Sentence removed. –jns] Or more prosaically, as the clan leader in a Coetzee novel remarked about his childless adversary, "a man should take care to have sons."
on Friday, 24 December 2010 at 18.35
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Perhaps the illegal aliens you're thinking of are illegal extraterrestrial aliens since I don't know of documented cases of liberal aliens stuffing ballot boxes, although I can recall several instances of Republicans shipping bus loads of available bodies around to pack various rallies, marches, and demonstrations so they look better for the cameras on Fox "News". Where they hired to make phone "votes" so Bristol Palin could "win"?
I'd have been terribly dismayed had you not had some DADT-snark, but a holiday truce seems like a pleasant idea.
At this point I have edited your comment to remove a sentence as indicated, since [in my opinion] it stepped across the line into "homophobic" and "not amusing" both. This has been a troubling year in Uganda for gay people, with witch hunts, public libels, and proposed legislation calling for execution of gay people [read much more here]. The current politics and social volatility in Uganda is no model for civilized discourse or political action, in this country or elsewhere, and using that situation as a source for remarks–humorous or otherwise–is beyond the pale here in my bloggy fiefdom.
As for a man having sons, I don't see the relevance. I'm sure you aren't referring to the tired old canard that gay men can't have children, since even half-rational conservatives know that it's not true. I also know plenty of men who have had natural children of their own, some from previous mixed-gender marriages, some by other means. And I trust that you're not referring to some version of Sharon Angle's now notorious "second amendment solution".
And along a similar line, what is that about societies that "embrace homosexuality" supposed to mean? Is this a reference to the Roman Empire, weakened and diminished over centuries by the rise of christianity? Or do you mean to imagine our society in the future somehow becoming exclusively homosexual, forcing heterosexuals into loveless gay marriages? In that case, I can assure you that we gays and lesbians are aware of how human babies are made and we're even able to accomplish it by traditional means as necessary to perpetuate the species, doing so–if we're lucky–without risking a run-away sub-population of straight boys who fervently believe that their sperm and prodigious progeny are necessary to perpetuate our species.
However, to be honest, I probably don't want to hear any elucidation on those points.