I don’t imagine anyone would think that GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin and I have a whole lot in common. True, we’re both Christians, we’re both mothers and wives, and it seems that she and I both are former members of Feminists for Life, a progressive, feminist, anti-abortion group. Beyond that, I don’t think there’s much we would bond over at a Pampered Chef party, coffee hour at church, or a political rally.
Except for one thing that I wish I could share with Ms. Palin: We both are bright, articulate women with sharp tongues and rapier wit. I know that she was on fire and in a groove Tuesday night during her convention speech — the barbs and sarcasm flowed freely, the crowd applauded, and for a brief moment, she made people forget her utter lack of experience and the naked pandering her selection represents. I was impressed; women that attractive and smart generally don’t have to develop the art of the insult, and most people, period, don’t do it well. That there’s a guidebook on the market telling Christians of their responsibility to wield the serrated edge in public discourse is unfortunate, but Sarah Palin seems to have mastered the craft well without any help from Canon Press. She dished, she preened, she parried and thrusted and had ’em in stitches, and if her job that night was to play pitbull, with or without lipstick, she did it well.
But I’ve learned over the years, and I have just a few on Ms. Palin, that people love a biting wit and delight in a well-shot arrow of invective. It becomes easier and easier to go just a bit further with the sarcasm, just a touch sharper on the insults, and to linger in the bright lights long after you’ve said what needs to be said — if, in fact, you say it at all. Smart chicks with crackling wit and a way with words often find themselves called upon to lead the charge against an opponent — with experience and background if they’ve got it, without if they don’t. Men love sass, especially if the sassy one looks like a hot school marm and yet worships the same God they do. Christians in particular love “cool,” and we’ll appropriate just about anyone who speaks well, looks good, and says what we want to hear — which is to say, just about anything, as long as there’s a veneer of “Jesus talk” slapped over it.
Looks aside — I’m afraid no one will ever mistake me for a hot school marm, just a traditional one — I do this well and so does she, and in the next six weeks she’ll find a wildly appreciative audience for her performance. And performance it is; she has no policy experience nor any particular contribution to offer in the national socio-political dialogue, and she was booked to warm up a crowd not entirely enamored of McCain, and to do it looking good and sounding sharp. It’s not sexism to point out that she was chosen because she’s a woman, by the way. Christine Todd Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Elizabeth Dole are women I’d never vote for, but they would have represented a VP choice made on the basis of experience. Sarah Palin is a trick pony, and that she’s having the time of her life doesn’t mean that her tenure in the ring isn’t without risk.
And so this is what I’d say to my sister in Christ: Be careful. Your audience, even your Christian audience, will applaud whenever you toss off a zinger — but will Christ? You may be smart as hell and look great, and you might even prove to be an excellent governor in all the ways that matter — but what will your performance reveal about your heart? Your ride on the GOP ticket will take you across the country and make you one of the most famous women in the first half of the 21st century, but where will you walk in victory? In defeat? What will it all bring about in your Christian journey? You may be one of only a handful of nationally-known politicos who trumpets her conservative Christian faith. At the end, will it be proved genuine — like that of the statesman and humanitarian Jimmy Carter? Or will you be shown to be lacking in both competence, piety, and depth, like George W. Bush? Will people remember just that Sarah Palin was all-out funny in her pitbull role, or will they know enough of you to discern what the true measure of your character and faith is?
In short, Ms. Palin, you’re being used. It’s heady stuff, I imagine, and the insincerity in which you were chosen for this role guarantees that those around you, those applauding your every utterance, have not your best interest in mind — just their own. Please take it from another smart, funny woman: Be clever. Be brighter than most. Be “out there” and sassy. But above all, be who you are in Christ, and strive for the quiet applause of judgment day, when I pray we’ll all be declared just as we hear our Lord’s pleasure in saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Face it no matter who John McCain picked they would have never been acceptable to you:It’s not sexism to point out that she was chosen because she’s a woman, by the way. Christine Todd Whitman, Carly Fiorina, Kay Bailey Hutchison and Elizabeth Dole are women I’d never vote for, but they would have represented a VP choice made on the basis of experience.
The most obvious reason he would never has picked one of these women is because everyone of them would have been quickly and easily tied by Obama (the media and blogers such as yourself) to George W. Bush and that alone would have been political suicide and made both you and Obama very happy, but McCain was smarter than that.
As far as the subject of having a ‘thin’ resume, may I ask you if Palin’s resume is so thin what does that say about Obama’s? McCain knew that Obama, the news media , and blogers such as yourself would point out her ‘thin’ resume, he also knew that more you did it the more it would highlight Obama’s even thinner one.
So now lets compare the two’s resumes:
1994-1996 Palin: Mayor, staff of 50 Budget of $12 million. Executive decisions concerning personnel, budgeting, taxes, public utilities, public relations, managing a city council and working with the Police Force and Fire Department.
1994-1996 Obama: Part time law professor and community organizer. No staff no budget. No executive decision-making. (Strike that: he had to decide what to wear every day). (Strike that: Michelle probably did that for him).
1996-2002 Palin: Mayor – staff of 50, budget of $12 million. Executive decisions concerning personnel, budgeting, taxes, public utilities, public relations, managing a city council and working with the Police Force and Fire Department.
1996-2002 Obama: State Senate – staff of ? less than 5, budget of what, maybe a few thousand dollars. Executive decision-making minimal to nil.
2003-2004 Palin: Chair of the Alaska Oil and Gas Commission, staff of 25, budget of $5 million. Executive decision-making responsibilities all day long. Took on Big-Oil and won!
2003-2004 Obama: State Senate – staff of ? less than 5, budget of what, maybe a few thousand dollars. Executive decision-making minimal to nil.
2005-2006 Palin: running for governor, assume very little staff. Taking on the Chairman of her own party and getting him fined $12,000. Taking on the sitting Governor from her own party and beating him in the primary. Taking on a former Governor from the other party and beating him in the general election.
2005-2006 Obama: U.S. Senate office, staff of maybe 50. Budget minimal – maybe a few hundred thousand at most, executive decision-making minimal to nil. Major goal: positioning to run for President.
2007-2008 Palin: Governor of Alaska, America’s Number 1 energy producing State with borders with Russia and Canada. Staff of 25,000, budget of $12 billion. Executive decision-making all day long. Negotiated natural gas pipeline deal with Canada. Squashed the Bridge to Nowhere project. Cut taxes and refunded taxes to citizens. Has the highest approval rating of any sitting Governor in all fifty (50) United States.
2007-2008 Obama: Running for President, staff of 2,500 (many unpaid). Budget of what, say 350 million – 400 million tops? Executive decision-making? Nothing that isn’t ran by a crew of advisers and the DNC first.
Lastly I like to point out that two of the best President we every had, had very thin resumes one Democrat and one Republican, Turman and Lincoln and they seem to have done pretty well on those ‘thin’ resumes.
Comment by kartographer — September 7, 2008 @ 10:24 pm
Thanks for your comments, Kart. I contend that a Harvard Law grad and law professor could easily be presumed a scholar of Constitutional Law, something much needed these days in the United States. Further, as I’ve said before, not even Obama’s critics have suggested that he lacks understanding of policy issues foreign and domestic. Beyond that, a Senate term exacts much in the way of exposure to and grasp of the kinds of “national stage” things — foreign policy, defense, education, economy, etc. — that being a governor does not. No, I would likely not support a McCain VP choice, if the definition of such is voting for McCain, but I think his choice of Palin was sufficiently odd (regardless of how clearly pandering) to call his judgment into question. I resent, by the way, Palin’s (and, by extension, your) assertion that “community organizers” don’t do much or know much. Altruism and desire for justice aside — and those things really shouldn’t be “asides” — CO’s get to know societal problems close up, and the wisdom that comes from such experience results in decisions made not just for politics, not just for expediency, but for the betterment of real peoples’ lives. I spent nearly 12 years ministering to the Mexican immigrant community in Snohomish County, Washington, and I would humbly suggest that no other training has been as helpful in formulating my views on economic justice, immigration, and poverty. At the very least, Palin owes Obama and other community activists an apology. Frankly, it’s pitiful, although funny as all get-out, to watch people say with a straight face that Palin has more experience than Obama, than Biden, or than Obama/Biden combined. Politically, methinks the GOP protesteth too much . . .
Keely
Comment by Keely Emerine Mix — September 8, 2008 @ 12:16 am