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Have we talked about Kathleen Parker's latest and fascinating op-ed yet?
I just read it and wowsers. It is harsh, but incredibly fascinating. Major props to her for raising the issue.
Andrew Sullivan says that the National Review is going mental about it, but one of their writers (editors?) Rick Lowry wrote a piece about how watching Palin during the debate was like "little starbursts" across his screen or something like that, and how he was in love. So I hardly think they are in a place to criticize.
Not to mention, this klassy republican senator:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/10/kathleen-parker.html
Seriously, dude? Gross.
Anyway, here is the article. It is well worth a read.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102302489.html?nav=hcmodule
Something About Sarah
By Kathleen Parker
Friday, October 24, 2008; A19
My husband called it first. Then, a brilliant 75-year-old scholar and raconteur confessed to me over wine: "I'm sexually attracted to her. I don't care that she knows nothing."
Finally, writer Robert Draper closed the file on the Sarah Palin mystery with a devastating article in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine: "The Making (and Remaking) of McCain."
McCain didn't know her. He didn't vet her. His campaign team had barely an impression. In a bar one night, Draper asked one of McCain's senior advisers: "Leaving aside her actual experience, do you know how informed Governor Palin is about the issues of the day?"
The adviser thought a moment and replied: "No, I don't know."
Blame the sycamore tree.
McCain had met Palin only once -- in February, at the governors' convention in Washington -- before the day he selected her as his running mate. The second time was at his Sedona, Ariz., ranch on Aug. 28, just four days before the GOP convention.
As Draper tells it, McCain took Palin to his favorite coffee-drinking spot down by a creek and a sycamore tree. They talked for more than an hour, and, as Napoleon whispered to Josephine, "Voil?."
One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to reckon that McCain was smitten. By no means am I suggesting anything untoward between McCain and his running mate. Palin is a governor, after all. She does have an executive r?sum?, if a thin one. And she's a natural politician who connects with people.
But there can be no denying that McCain's selection of her over others far more qualified -- and his mind-boggling lack of attention to details that matter -- suggests other factors at work. His judgment may have been clouded by . . . what?
Science provides clues. A study in Canada, published by a British journal in 2003, found that pretty women foil men's ability to assess the future. "Discounting the future," as the condition is called, means preferring immediate, lesser rewards to greater rewards in the future.
Drug dealers, car salesmen and politicians rely on this affliction and pray feverishly for its persistence.
The Canadian psychologists showed pictures of attractive and not-so-attractive men and women to students of the opposite sex. The students were offered a prize -- either a small check for the next day or a larger check at some later date.
The men made perfectly rational decisions, opting for the delayed, larger amount after viewing the average-looking women. You know where this is going. (Women, by the way, were rational no matter what.)
That men are at a disadvantage when attractive women are present is a fact upon which women have banked for centuries. Ignoring it now profits only fools. McCain spokesmen have said that he was attracted to Palin's maverickness, that she reminded him of himself.
Recognizing oneself in a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex, as the case may be) is a powerful invitation to bonding. Narcissus fell in love with his own image reflected in the river, imagining it to be his deceased and beloved sister's. In McCain's case, it doesn't hurt that his reflection is spiked with feminine approval.
As my husband observed early on, McCain the mortal couldn't mind having an attractive woman all but singing arias to his greatness. Cameras frequently capture McCain beaming like a gold-starred schoolboy while Palin tells crowds that he is "exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief." This, notes Draper, "seemed to confer not only valor but virility on a 72-year-old politician who only weeks ago barely registered with the party faithful."
It is entirely possible that no one could have beaten the political force known as Barack Obama -- under any circumstances. And though it isn't over yet, it seems clear that McCain made a tragic, if familiar, error under that sycamore tree. Will he join the pantheon of men who, intoxicated by a woman's power, made the wrong call?
Had Antony not fallen for Cleopatra, Octavian might not have captured the Roman Empire. Had Bill resisted Monica, Al Gore may have become president, and Hillary might be today's Democratic nominee.
If McCain, rightful heir to the presidency, loses to Obama, history undoubtedly will note that he was defeated at least in part by his own besotted impulse to discount the future. If he wins, he must be credited with having correctly calculated nature's power to befuddle.
Re: Have we talked about Kathleen Parker's latest and fascinating op-ed yet?
I posted on E08 about it. I was stunned the NR actually published it.
If it were any other woman, I would probably think of it as sexist. But since she has so little substance (and also said bombing abortion clinics wasn't terrorism today, thus becoming my nemesis for life), I am OK with this conclusion.
"As of page 2 this might be the most boring argument ever. It's making me long for Rape Day." - Mouse
bombing abortion clinics isn't terrorism?!?!?!? Eric Rudolph isn't a terrorist? WTF?! Good god.
In any event, it's a pretty thought-provoking piece. I think if Palin is anything, she's charismatic. I can easily see how she fools people into thinking she's something extraordinary, especially since it doesn't seem like the vetting process was all that thorough.
And those early campaign clips, where McCain kept glancing at her ass... like in her speech when he announced it... it wouldn't suprise me if Parker is right on the money here.
I'm surprised she didn't highlight this quote from that same Draper story she mentions:
Reviewing the tape, it didn?t concern Davis that Palin seemed out of her depth on health-care issues or that, when asked to name her favorite candidate among the Republican field, she said, ?I?m undecided.? What he liked was how she stuck to her pet issues ? energy independence and ethics reform ? and thereby refused to let Rose manage the interview. This was the case throughout all of the Palin footage. Consistency. Confidence. And . . . well, look at her. A friend had said to Davis: ?The way you pick a vice president is, you get a frame of Time magazine, and you put the pictures of the people in that frame. You look at who fits that frame best ? that?syour V. P.?
LOOK AT HER????? Are you freaking kidding me? This is how McCain's men chose their VP? This is ridiculous!
I'm the icky skeptic then.
It always grosses me out when he says he is "proud of her." I think his constant repeating of that line fits in with Parker's theory. I just don't think he views her as an equal...but as the pretty girl who's done so much.
I haven't read the Draper article yet, but I've printed it out and it's on my list for the weekend.