Category Archives: Political Commentary

Education, Political Commentary

Organize This

2 Comments

(Democrat) Sandra Tsing Lo writes that the Obamas should have been more supportive of their local school system:

it is with huge grief-filled disappointment that I discovered that the Obamas send their children to the University of Chicago Laboratory School (by 5th grade, tuition equals $20,286 a year). The school’s Web site quotes all that ridiculous John Dewey nonsense about developing character while, of course, isolating your children from the poor. A pox on them and, while we’re at it, a pox on John Dewey! I’m sick to death of those inspirational Dewey quotes littering the Web sites of $20,000-plus-a-year private schools, all those gentle duo-tone-photographed murmurings about “building critical thinking and fostering democratic citizenship” in their cherished students, living large on their $20,000-a-year island.

Meanwhile, Joseph Biden, the Amtrak senator, standing up boldly for the right to be a Roman Catholic, appears to have sent all three children to the lovely looking Archmere Academy in Delaware. Archmere’s Web site notes some public school districts allow Archmere students to use public school buses. Well, isn’t that great — your tax dollars at work in the great state of Delaware because with $18,000 a year in tuition, they can’t afford their own buses.

Public schools are for the little people, to be run as the teachers’ unions desire, and according to John Dewey’s toxic design.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Weird

I Have Not Been Dreaming About Sarah Palin

8 Comments

Just for the record. These folks have, though, which would indicate that she’s really gotten into their heads. I think that there’s going to be a huge therapy bill come mid-November.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Has The Atlantic finally leashed its rabid pit bull? I’ve often wondered the last few years if the HIV has finally caught up with Andrew’s mind. Dementia, sadly, is one of the potential consequences.

Political Commentary

Hammering Heather

3 Comments

It’s been a few years since I last heard from Heather Mallick, but not enough. I could have waited several more with no regrets, but it was not to be.

Fortunately, Lileks has the antidote:

I don’t think that Obama meant to call Sarah Palin a pig. Many in the audience may have been heartened by the stray implication, since they already regard her as a hootenanny mama who drinks corn likker from a jug with 3 Xs and smokes a corn-cob pipe after the media leaves, but Obama was just being Folksy and Colloquial in that um-you-know style he reverts to when he’s in Authentic Mode. In short, I don’t believe a line that stupid was delivered with full knowledge of its implications. I’m in a generous mood.

Or was, until I read this piece by a Canadian writer; it sums up with such delightful perfection what so many believe. So. Let’s have a look.

…At least she’s honest about the idea of female solidarity – it matters only if the ideological stars have aligned – no, if the ideological cycles have synced, to use terms she’d probably employ. Or has already. It’s not about whether Sarah Palin is a woman, it’s whether she’s the right kind. She’s supposed to restrict snow machines, not ride them or for God’s sake get knocked up by some slopey-brow dullard who rides them. (Competitively! Gawd) Nationalize oil companies, don’t make deals. Have one or two children, not five – Good Gaia, woman, are you trying to make overstuffed congested Alaska top the one-million-citizen mark all by yourself?

As for guys being irresponsible with their precious bodily essences, who cares? Aren’t you using protection? Or are they using vagina-confusing Man-Beams to cloud your mind? As for putting off home repairs, here’s a hint: either learn how to do it yourself, or admit there might be yet in this enlightened age a strange vague hangover that divides labor based on innate gender-influenced personality traits. If you expect him to fix things, and you roll your eyes when he tries, and you accuse him of using spit and matches, his motivation will be diminished – and even then he’ll probably wait until you’re out of earshot before he mutters “what a fishwife.” If your man can’t fix anything it but whines that he can make a really good white sauce, don’t blame him when you have an affair with the electrician.

I know this: Mr. Palin probably doesn’t postpone household repairs, or use glue, or old matches. He can probably change the oil in the car, too. There are guys like that. Not every wife has to sit in a cold Jiffy Lube waiting room leafing through Field and Stream, wishing the weirdo in the other chair would stop looking at her legs.

As usual, read all. I really should add a “Sarcasm” post category to complement my “Humor” and “Satire” ones.

Further fisking over at Tizona.

[Update a few minutes later]

OK, can’t resist. I have to provide one more snippet:

It’s a joy to see someone who flung around “white trash” noting that she finds racism “so appalling.” All is forgiven; BFF? I don’t know what “violently rich” means, except that it certain sounds bad – like you walked up to Tony Rezco and punched him until a nice house deal fell out of his pockets – but yes, most Americans want to be rich, at least as rich as Obama, and there is nothing wrong with this. Most don’t have the book-deal / Chicago machine option, so they either play the lottery and plug away at their jobs, or they try to improve their station by the usual means. It is a dearly held American notion that you can do better than you’re doing. Even in broken Kansas.

As I said, hie thyself over there. It’s all delicious.

Political Commentary

No Small-Town Girl

17 Comments

Jim Bennett writes that Sarah Palin is a much more savvy political operator than people are giving her credit for:

Far from being a reprise of Mr Smith Goes to Washington, Palin was a clear-eyed politician who, from the day she took office, knew exactly what she had to do and whose toes she would step on to do it.

The surprise is not that she has been in office for such a short time but that she has succeeded in each of her objectives. She has exposed corruption; given the state a bigger share in Alaska’s energy wealth; and negotiated a deal involving big corporate players, the US and Canadian governments, Canadian provincial governments, and native tribes – the result of which was a £13 billion deal to launch the pipeline and increase the amount of domestic energy available to consumers. This deal makes the charge of having “no international experience” particularly absurd.

In short, far from being a small-town mayor concerned with little more than traffic signs, she has been a major player in state politics for a decade, one who formulated an ambitious agenda and deftly implemented it against great odds.

Her sudden elevation to the vice-presidential slot on the Republican ticket shocked no one more than her enemies in Alaska, who have broken out into a cold sweat at the thought of Palin in Washington, guiding the Justice Department’s anti-corruption teams through the labyrinths of Alaska’s old-boy network.

It is no surprise that many of the charges laid against her have come from Alaska, as her enemies become more and more desperate to bring her down. John McCain was familiar with this track record and it is no doubt the principal reason that he chose her.

“In office for such a short time, but succeeded in each of her objectives.” Sound like Barack Obama? Not really, unless you consider “attaining the next office” his “objective.” Here’s hoping that he fails in the current one.