Palin Pregnancy

Let's unpack this Palin pregnancy thing.

Sarah Palin electrified the world when John McCain announced her as his running mate.

This is an impressive woman, but she has her hands full with her family.  She has a new special needs child.  With her affirmation of the child's humanity, she enhanced her moral standing.  I am, and remain, a big fan.

It now comes to light that Bristol Palin, her 17 year old daughter, is pregnant by her boyfriend, and a wedding is planned.

The problem will not be with the Christian base, as the pointy-heads think.  The problem is a perception of disorder, and we want our leaders' lives ordered.

There is no chance the evangelical comminity will condemn her, as the media snobs should know if they knew anything about evangelical Christianity and it's place as a foundation for basic traditional American thinking.  The beautiful people, however, are so ignorant of its nuances that one can only conclude that there are serious deficiencies in their education, even those with Harvard PhDs.

The Maureen Dowds of the world will expect that judgmental churchgoers will look down their noses at a sinner.  Talk about projection.  It's the pointy-heads who will be looking down their noses at these gauche provincials.

I would venture that most Evangelical Christians know someone who has had a child out of wedlock.  Usually it's the young girl who's sitting two pews back with her baby and her parents.  In these congregations, there is no condoning of sex out of wedlock, of course, but there is also no condoning of procrastination, gossiping, sloth, stealing envelopes from work, exagerating income tax deductions, etc.  These people in the pews look up at the cross, and they remember who paid for all these sins.  "There but for the Grace of God go I," many of them think to themselves.

So Bristol Palin will not be condemned by Christians.  But she and her mother will be looked down upon by the pointy-heads.  You'll be able to see it in their eyes: "Our kind of people don't get pregnant at 17.  Our daughters go to college on a glidepath."  A callous but witty Oscar Wilde quote comes to mind: “To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.”  Read that as: "One family experiencing an unusual pregnancy (that the Beautiful People couldn't ever see themselves permitting) might be seen as a misfortune, but two (in one year) make the Palins look careless. 

I regard these beautiful people as moral monsters.  But this is what I'm afraid might do damage:  If the candidate looks "careless" or looks like she lacks the necessary "class" or "polish" required of the job; or lacks the necessary control of her life, then even some normal Americans could say, "I don't condemn her.  She could even be my best friend here in the real world.  But a heartbeat away  .  .  .   ??"

Obama talks like he understands that condemning her is immoral.  He said, in effect, "Lay off this subject.  Families are off limits."  That's to his credit, but for one thing:  Obama's act is beginning to wear a bit thin.  A pattern is emerging:  First, one of his surrogates says something boorish.  Damage is done to the victim.  Obama apologizes for his acolyte's boorishness, so that the boorishness doesn't rub off on him.  Repeat ad nauseam.  This is starting to look so calculated that this observer can only conclude that Obama (or David Axlerod or somebody) is behind the strategy.  Either that, or Obama can't control those under him (not a good quality in a Chief Executive).

This is largely a tempest in a teapot, of course, and people vote for the leader of the ticket and not the running mate (Bush 41 won in 1988).  But I'm wondering if the Average Joe's (or Jane's) enthusiasm for Sarah Palin has been slightly dampened by the amount of seeming disorder in her family, even if they admire her and would not hold anything against her if she were an ordinary mortal; and even if they deeply admire her, as I do, for her affirmation of life.

What will happen now?  This electrifying woman will come out and speak again, and remind everyone why she became a sensation in the first place.  I actually think this will happen.  But in the mean time, all I can say is, "What a wild ride."  Thursday: Obama dazzles everybody.  Friday: Sarah Palin makes everyone forget all about Obama.  Sunday:  What will Gustav do?  Monday:  The Palin daughter is pregnant.

I think I've got a whiplash.

P.S.:  I hate to be one more voice publicly musing about a 17-year old girl's private business.  So let me say this:  I think Bristol's upcoming marriage has a greater chance of lasting 50 years than  most of the beautiful people's marriages have of lasting 5.  What's more, the Maureen Dowds of the world know it, deep down.  Because they're unhappy.

Live from NOLA

You watch.  If the levees break in NOLA due to Gustav, the GOP convention delegates will be watching on the Jumbotron while John McCain gives his acceptance speech from some gymnasium to where people have been evacuated.  I thought of this yesterday, but now I see the McCains and the Palins are planning to go to NOLA on Sunday.  But I see this extending into convention week.  The very savvy McCain has shown every indication that it is able to make such lemons into lemonade.

I can see it now:  Todd Palin driving some boat, carrying hapless victims out of the 9th Ward.  Sarah Palin wading through the water or filling sandbags.  A casually-dressed McCain in the middle of the action.

Of course, the partially-improved levees could hold and this may be mooted.  But I can see NOLA as Minneapolis south. 

"Sarah Palin, Über-Babe," or "Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington"

About a week ago, Jacob Weisberg from Slate wrote an online essay arguing that if Barack Obama loses the general election, America is a racist country.

Let me see him and raise him.

If John McCain loses this election, it is strong evidence that America has lost her character.  This is because Sarah Palin has character, and John McCain has shown character in choosing her as his running mate. 

Make no mistake: I am a conservative Republican of the type who has had reservations about Senator McCain. The Arizona Senator whom many of the press have dubbed a “maverick” has been given that appellation, in the estimation of many people like me, because he has strayed from the reservation of Reagan Conservatism.

Why, for example, did he champion campaign finance reform, which appeared to me to be an infringement of free speech? If rich bastards have a disproportionate impact on the public debate, the cure, it always seemed to me, was to publicize lists of wealthy donors to campaigns, so that the public could readily identify those who were trying to wield the “joystics of power.” (“Joysticks of power” is my trademarked phrase of mine; I can picture nefarious Superman-comic bad guys, wide-eyedly and orgiastically controlling the world with video-game controllers).

Why, for another example, did John McCain have a good relationship with the press? If anyone in the modern age has made a Faustian bargain with Lucifer, it is the MSM, the “drive-bys” (as the Great One puts it); those who buy “ink by the barrel” as Mark Twain put it. It could only be that John McCain had likewise Sold His Soul to the Devil, buying a few accolades at the expense of his Eternal Soul.

Ah, but wait: this is the man who spent five and one-half years in a North Vietnamese prison camp. Who had greater bona fides as a lover of his country that that?

This was the conflict in the minds of people like me: Did the GOP find its soul in nominating this man like this, who suffered so much for his country? Or did the “stupid party” once again nominate “the old guy” whose “turn it was”?

Just what, however, did John McCain actually do with his nomination? He went ahead and chose "Mrs. Smith" to be his running mate. “Mrs. Smith?” you say. Yes; Mrs. Smith. As in “Mrs. Smith Goes to Washington.”

Sarah Palin is the real deal. Oh, I know; “Put not your faith in men,” as the scriptures say, and you could read “men” as “women.” Sarah Palin could let us down, as could anyone.

But this woman came up to the mike and without a trace of nervousness introduced herself to America, and we were collectively mesmerized.

I was donating platelets at the time at the announcement, a process that takes up to two hours. While I had two needles in my arms drawing blood from my body, so that a centrifuge could extract the life-giving platelets, I found myself prostrate. But I did have a remote-control clicker in my right hand (I couldn’t bend my elbow for two hours, even to scratch my nose). I was, therefore, able to click between Fox News and CNN to follow the coverage.

What a beautiful lady Sarah Palin is. She found out her unborn son had Down’s Syndrome; and instead of aborting, she carried her son to term and made public statements about how beautiful he is: “perfect” was her word. WOW. Wow, wow, wow. These’s a holocaust going on, right now, at the expense of the mentally retarded. Thanks to people like the sophisticated and urbane Mr. Obama.

Mr. McCain is known for upholding “honor” and “duty” above all other ideological considerations. He sure showed it in the Hanoi Hilton, when he refused to go home when he had the opportunity, and instead stayed with his men.

He showed it again when he chose a genuine reformer as his running mate. Sarah Palin was on the Wasilla, AK, city council when she railed against waste in the budget. The sitting mayor tried to institute a recall campaign against her. It failed. She got elected herself as mayor. Taxes and waste were drastically reduced. Then she ran for governor of Alaska and won again. She took a jet owned by the state and sold it on eBay for a profit. She said she wasn’t a “mansion kind of person.”

She got herself elected without having to be beholden to the money interests of Alaska’s oil business; in fact, the people of Alaska elected her precisely because she did stand up to the corrupt moneyed interests of Alaska. This, of course, is bad news for the Alaska congressional delegation. Senator Ted Stevens won his primary, but he’s the kind of guy she ran against. As for Don Young, the state’s sole member of congress, ditto. The other US Senator, Lisa Murkowski, is the daughter of the guy she defeated for governor.

So talk about Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” She’s at odds with the ENTIRE CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION OF HER STATE. And yet, John McCain chose her to be his running mate, even though THAT CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION IS OF THE SAME PARTY JOHN McCAIN BELONGS TO. To me, this shows that John McCain, in keeping with his fidelity to Honor and Duty, has decided to Clean Up the Republican Party. God Bless Him.

As you can tell, I’m pretty “gone” on this chick, Sarah Palin. And I’m pretty impressed with John McCain at this point. Even though money is tight, I just made my first campaign contribution in years for this ticket.

God Bless John McCain. God Bless a Real Woman, Sarah Palin. God Bless Todd Palin, who must be a hell of a man to “close the deal” on a woman of character like this. And, as they always say, “God Bless America.”

Obama and McCain at Saddleback

I'm not going to go over everything that happened at Saddleback between Rick Warren and Barack Obama and John McCain.

But I can say that what is impressive and disappointing about Barack Obama were both on display. He seemed self confident, sincere, and reasonable. BUT.

But when he quoted the book of Matthew about how Christ said whatever we do to the least of these we've done unto him, my first thought was who are the least of these but the unborn? Is there someone lesser who could qualify as the least? Obama was apparently confident that Pastor Warren wouldn't drive a Mac Truck through that one, or else he's tone deaf to his own faux-sincere rhetoric.

I've read both of Obama's books. Dreams From My Father is a nice read, actually. His narrative voice carries the reader along, all the way to Africa. I had some issues with it, but all in all, it's his story and he can tell it as he likes. The Audacity of Hope, on the other hand, was ultimately irritating, and he was irritating in the same way at the Saddleback Church forum. At Saddleback, as in Audacity, he "gets you into the tent" with his seeming sincerity, charm, intelligence, and wit. He makes you think he listens and cares. Then he defaults to the extreme liberal position every time. After a while, you throw up your hands and just give up on the guy. It's like Lucy pulling the football from Charlie Brown. Every time.

The Audacity of Hope barely mentioned the Reverend Wright. It wasn't about him. Joining Rev. Wright's church wasn't about what it appeared to be either, I suspect, or Wright would have been mentioned more as an influence. It was about faking sincerity, Obama's specialty. Who was it who said, "Sincerity is the thing; if you can fake that, you've got it made?"

McCain's story about the North Vietnamese camp guard who showed McCain a kindness and then briefly drew a cross in the dirt was moving, and seemed real to me. McCain became animated whenever a question touched on his country's interests. I think he's the real deal, despite my policy differences with him.

I've wanted to like Obama, or else I wouldn't have read both his books. I still hope, if he becomes president, that he listens to the little angel on his shoulder, who tells him to be sincere and to care, rather than the little devil who tells him merely to look sincere. But I think McCain is more capable of grabbing that devil and drop-kicking him.

The Fairness Doctrune and the Georgia Invasion

Apparently a sizeable minority of Americans would favor a return of the "Fairness Doctrine." The Fairness Doctrine, or course, is basicly a government regulation that says you cannot exercise your free speech rights unless they are satisfied that you have also permitted someone who disagrees with you to exercise their right of expression on your broadcast medium and on your dime.

This is in the United States of America.

This represents a move against freedom, by people who are more interested in advancing their agenda and using the force of law to oppose that freedom.

Kind of like what Russia is trying to do in Georgia: crushing people's democratic rights and freedoms by force so that the aggressors can do what they want.

Patriotic Americans can do no less than oppose the Fairness Doctrine and support the people of Georgia.

Of course, I have no way of gauging who President Saakashvili truly is, but he sure sounded like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, and Adams to me. Is he just a glib speaker? I hope not. His words in defense of liberty everywhere were very moving, and if I had a link I'd post it. But as for standing up for Georgians generally in this crisis, and for the implications for freedom in the world, here are some nice sentiments.

Michigan in play for McCain?

Is McCain making Michigan competitive?  Could Michigan become a bellwether state in November?  Will Obama have to spend time and money in states that should be reliable "blue" states in what should be the Democrats' year?  Good news for McCain; bad news for the Annointed One.

Kwame Kilpatrick

New parody song about Kwame Kilpatrick.

John Edwards Scandal

Isn't anyone on the right going to defend John Edwards in his present troubles?

After all, there is currently no evidence that he urged the killing of his inconvenient love child, which would have been in keeping with the protocols of his party.

Obama's New Logo

George Carlin, RIP

George Carlin is dead at 71.

I must admit a soft spot for George, as I have a taste for intelligent irreverence in comedy. It cuts through the bourgeois fog we often sleepwalk through in our day-to-day lives.

But Carlin, who was known for, among other things, “the Seven Words That Can Never Be Said on Television,” cut himself off from the light with such statements as:

"The whole problem with this idea of obscenity and indecency, and all of these things - bad language and whatever - it's all caused by one basic thing, and that is: religious superstition. . . There's an idea that the human body is somehow evil and bad and there are parts of it that are especially evil and bad, and we should be ashamed. Fear, guilt and shame are built into the attitude toward sex and the body. ... It's reflected in these prohibitions and these taboos that we have." (2004)

He was right that prudery is unhealthy.

But he was wrong about religious superstition, and that reluctance to fully embrace sexual frankness is based on such superstition. Granted, many people who call themselves religious mistake prudery for spirituality, just as many mistake following a checklist of rules for spirituality.

The real reason most people are uneasy with full sexual frankness has to do with the sacredness of sexuality. Most of us would be uneasy in the face of open propositioning, but not because we would not like to engage in some of these activities. Rather, we’re uneasy because we sense on some level that sexuality is so powerful that it can destroy a life as well as bring life into being. Men of another era used to name hurricanes after women, and called battleships “she” instead of “it,” recognizing the powerful forces moving them in their own lives. These same men, if they outlived their wives, often died very soon afterward. Carlin trivialized that which we knew was not trivial.

So again, when we heard the seven words you can’t say, we either recoiled, or laughed uneasily, because of the man’s audacity. Those who laughed without reservation have stunted souls, able to enjoy the profane but not appreciate the sacred. Unfortunately, today such people are legion.

Under Mr. Carlin’s system, he is now mere food for worms. I hope he said, in the moment of mortal extremity, “God, maybe I don’t have all the answers. Here I come,” thereby saving himself.

“Requiescat In Pace”

Charlton Heston RIP

My tribute to Charlton Heston:

My "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon" connection: My maternal grandparents owned a business in St. Helen, Michigan many years ago, and apparently they knew Heston's parents (his biological father drank a lot, apparently). This was before his mother remarried Mr. Heston, and the family moved to Illinois (Heston went to Northwestern, where my brother-in-law went). My mother said she thinks she remembers that Charlton Heston had a friend up there named "Fraser", and speculates that this is where he and his wife got the name for their son.

Charlton Heston was a classy guy indeed. May he rest in peace.

Who Do You Want Answering The Phone At 3 AM?

Comcast Digital Voice Parody

Maybe this isn't funny unless they run Comcast Digital Voice Commercials in your area.

Maybe it's not funny anyway.

Romney

I'm off to vote for Mitt.

I'm not 100% on board with any candidate, but Mitt's gotten some things done. I yearn for competence. Rudy has the same appeal. He's off the reservation on some social issues, but who has actually accomplished more things appealing to conservatives? Why isn't Rudy running on this, and saying, "Let's turn our cities around!" and "Who has a better record of actual conservative accomplishments?"

I like Fred. He's conservative and a real smart guy. But where's the passion, other than in occasional spasms?

I admire John McCain, but the phrase "off the reservation" comes to mind again -- this time critically. Plus, I'm afraid in Michigan McCain's numbers will be goosed by Dems and Indies coming in to vote in the GOP primary just to screw things up, and we need to boost Mitt's. I also don't want a repeat of 1996; i.e., let's nominate the old guy whose turn it is and who can crack a joke with the press.

Huckabee is one hell of a speaker; or should I say one "heaven" of a speaker. After GWB I long for a president facile with the language. But I don't want a president who reminds me of the guy I work with. I want to have a beer with a guy like the guy I work with. I want a president like the guy who laid me off -- somebody who knows how to make a business decision. My next job will be offered by another guy like the guy who laid me off, because that is the type of guy with the wherewithal to actually hire people. Either that, or I'll make my own job -- this still being America, at least for the time being -- and Huck's paternalism promises only to gum up the works.

I like Duncan Hunter, but he doesn't stand a chance. And everyone should listen to Ron Paul and think about what he's saying before returning to the real world.

Merry Christmas

Lesser of Two Weevils

Chávez Referendum

From the New York Times:

CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 2 — From the unusually quiet streets of this capital to the hushed tones of state television announcers, Venezuela was on edge Sunday night as voters awaited the outcome of a contentious referendum that would give President Hugo Chávez sweeping new constitutional powers.

Hours after the polls closed, the government still had not released official results, causing political leaders to speculate that the vote was too close to call.

Corrected Version (run through Michigan Oracle Truth Filter):

CARACAS, Venezuela, Dec. 2 — From the unusually quiet streets of this capital to the hushed tones of state television announcers, Venezuela was on edge Sunday night as voters awaited the outcome of a contentious referendum that would give President Hugo Chávez sweeping new constitutional powers.

Hours after the polls closed, the government still had not released official results, causing political leaders to speculate that the vote is being rigged.


UPDATE: Well, I'll be darned. This referendum must have been really unpopular; you just know Chávez goosed the results but lost anyway. Reminds me of Violeta Chamorro's 1990 victory in Nicaragua over Daniel Ortega. ¡Viva Líbertad!

Evel Knievel RIP -- 1938-2007

Evel Knievel: May he rest in peace.

Waterboarding

Regarding waterboarding, novelist Stephen King recently said, "[I]f the Bush administration didn't think it was torture, they ought to do some personal investigation. Someone in the Bush family should actually be waterboarded so they could report on it to George. I said, I didn't think he would do it, but I suggested Jenna be waterboarded and then she could talk about whether or not she thought it was torture."

OK. Fair enough, provided when we catch the next Khalid Sheikh Mohammad we put him in a room with Stephen King, and tell him, "Look, Steve, we're giving you a choice. You see, Abdul here isn't talking. We're pretty sure many lives would be saved if he talks. Of course, you know best. We'll let you decide. You can either let all these people die, or else you can let us waterboard him -- waterboarding being the most humane form of coercion we could come up with."

These sanctimonious prigs don't seem to get it. No moral person favors techniques like waterboarding; however, serious people would compare it to something like cannibalism. There should be a hard and fast rule against it -- EXCEPT.

Except what? Well, if 20 people were stranded, say, and two of them went for help, and these two found themselves starving with 20 miles to go, and one of them died, the survivor might actually have a moral duty to dine on his buddy so he could make it the other 20 miles and save the whole group.

The next president can read Mr. King. Mr. Bush can keep reading Vince Flynn.

Lord Vladimir Voldemort Putin

Beware! Beware!
Vladimir Putin is really Lord Voldemort!!