On Wed, Oct 8, 2008 at 1:24 PM, ravi
<ravi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Oct 8, 2008, at 1:18 PM, Charles Brown wrote:
At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable,
preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had
a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made
such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the
voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked.
Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for
female candidates and American political discourse that, with her
newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now
deemed to have performed acceptably last night.
I disagree that this has anything to do with standards for women. Almost all of the above is/was true of George Bush and he was treated in much the same way. In fact, unlike Palin who is dismissed as fluff universally (outside the 25% base), Dubya is actually treated with some seriousness.
this is an interesting point. and doug of course is right that she's making zero headway, at best.
that said, the sense i had of the argument was i guess two-fold. on the one hand, it seemed to be the case that women had to be sharper, less flirtatious and girly, more articulate, etc., in order to be on the same stage with men. but palin seems to say that if you're *sufficiently* girly (ie, over the top in the *other* direction), you can get away with the stuff that would normally hurt you. this is why the tina fey sketch of palin and hillary joint press conference was so perfect. palin's approach is sort of the down-home counterpart to W's good ol'boy/fake cowboy folksiness (in texas, we have a saying, maybe you have it up here, too): he's a "regular guy," and she's a "regular gal." that does not seem like progress. it seems like regression. no?
on the other hand, bush was *not* treated in the same way. did fareed zakaria say W should resign from the ticket for the good of the country? both were and are mocked, but mocking bush simply fed into his mystique in a way that is not working for palin. prominent right-wing intelligentsia pundits have remarkably stepped out and questioned her position on the ticket at all. and this does go against the argument of the article, in certain respects.
but at bottom, i think the general sense is the fact that mainstream commentary has become, and this is an old saw by now, about the horse race and not about the quality of the candidates. oddly, our opinion elite are not supposed to have opinions of their own, except opinions about the opinions of the mythical mass america they revere and despise. to do otherwise is to find yourself working at foxnews, on the one hand, or msnbc on the other. :)
seems like. i'm not sure. my initial reaction to the article was, "uhh, yes." but it seems more complicated, and still more or less to me like she's right.