Search This Blog

10.04.2008

Is Sarah Palen Holding a Viper to Her Breast?

@ BoingBoing.net, this appears, itself a quote but at the original not elaborated.
Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin quoted an unidentified “writer” who extolled the virtues of small-town America: “We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty and sincerity and dignity.” (9/3/08) The unidentified writer was Westbrook Pegler (1894-1969), the ultraconservative newspaper columnist whose widely syndicated columns (at its peak, 200 newspapers and 12 million readers) targeted the New Deal establishment, labor leaders, intellectuals, homosexuals, Jews, and poets.
But it's not about Palen's lack of discrimination. All politicians are barbarians when it comes to pillaging the intellect. It's their birthright.

The quote informs us about the speech writers, not Palen. What politician would reject such a high sounding quote about the nobility of the common man? Perhaps Obama would have spoken it had the same quote been placed in his hands.

My point is that it is a speech writer making an indirect and ultimately sly reference to an obscure source, maybe as a joke but most certainly in a thoroughly cynical way. It is the face of an up and coming young Ben Stein in the ranks of Republican speechwriters.

It says to me that the people who control the day to day operation of the campaign are buffoons when it comes to something that should be important to their integrity as citizens.

Is the lady holding a viper to her breast? I suppose that would indicate a desire to follow Dubbya into obscurity...

1 comment:

  1. Sarah's nickname in high school was "Sarah Barracuda". That seems appropriate. She also took six years to get through five colleges. I'm not impressed by her ability to evaluate the material given to her to speak. You can get into deep doodoo by not questioning over zealous handlers.

    ReplyDelete