The impossible was nearly achieved today

[LeftishBrit]

Suppose that someone is a left-wing socialist, who thinks it's VITAL for the entire world that the Republicans get defeated! Suppose that she was just made very satisfied by the fact that the man who she knew of for some time as 'the Democrat who once replaced Helms as Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee' was selected as the Democratic vice-presidential candidate. Suppose she was on the other hand gobsmacked by the choice of an unknown, totally inexperienced and apparently quite fundie governor as the running-mate for a 72-year-old Republican candidate.

Do you think it could ever be possible for such a person to be persuaded to sympathize with that running-mate and start thinking that 'she can't be all that bad really'?

Well no. It isn't possible. But it got pretty damn close to being possible after I saw those posts calling her 16-year-old daughter a 'slut'.

And if it could *nearly* do that to me - what about undecided American voters?

Shocking and counterproductive.

Vent over.

[realisticphish]

1. well, the strategy is working, imho

everyone is focused on "she's a woman! and she's kind of hot!"

And THAT'S what they're attacking, not her terrible policies, or the fact that she's being investigated for corruption.

This may have been a last ditch effort by McCain, but it may still work. Just like some idiots thought, "heh, i'd have a beer with Bush, I'll vote for him," they'll think, "heh, I'd fuck the vice president, I'll vote for McCain."

she's a fundy, she's a woman, and she's hot. Three MASSIVE demos filled right there ("men" being the third).

and I do agree that attacking her through her gender, or her children for god's sake (and we all remember Rush attacking Chelsea Clinton) is a horrendously stupid way to do things

[LeftishBrit]

2. Yep...

well, she's a Republican, she's a fundie, she's a 'fiscal conservative' (which in Republican terms usually means 'fuck the poor'), she is prepared to sell the environment and polar bears out to big business, and she's got NO experience and to think they're going after *Obama* as inexperienced. And she'll be the running mate of an ageing man with some health problems. Crazy.

But putting the words 'My daughter is a slut' on a picture of her is over the top. Sickening!

[TZ]

3. Eh. Thats bad

BUT, I don't think this woman (whom I have heard described as a female version of Dan Quayle) is gonna attract the older white women voter Clinton demo they are going after- especially after they read her extreme anti-choice positions

[realisticphish]

4. yeah, i don't see this swaying women voters much

fundies and IDiots, maybe

[TZ]

5. Yep.

I think the better comparison on her is a female Mike Huckabee-with less credentials. A truly scary choice.

[moggie]

12. Will the fundies really go for a woman?

Sure, she says many of the right things from their perspective, but on the other hand there's her unfortunate possession of a vagina, which means she shouldn't be in a position to tell men what to do.

[realisticphish]

14. well

she ISN'T in a position to tell people what to do. She's VP, which while obviously it has some authority, allows them to ignore that particular fact.

[Pale Blue Dot]

6. It's been disgusting.

And just another reason that I'm glad that school started this week and I haven't been on DU much.

[Codeine]

7. When we aren't busy forming a circular firing squad

like we did in the primaries we're busily shoving our weapons in our mouths and yanking the triggers.

At least we saw lots of posters standing up against that nonsense. Hope?

[TZ]

8. You know

I wonder how much of this are TROLLS. I just encountered the critique of her qualifications=sexism attitude that stinks of RW tactics.
Not that I don't think there are some idiots here, but its making me wonder.

[mr blur]

9. Well lke most Brits (and many Americans?)

my first reaction to her was "Who the hell is that?" My second reaction was that McCain must be in a desperate panic over Obama's chances.

The reaction on DU to her on a personal level are precisely why I steer clear of GD these days.

[PVnRT]

10. The true beliefs of some are coming out

One poster in the Lounge basically said she's a bad mother for not staying at home for a while after the baby was born, despite there being a stay-at-home dad (and, since she's a Governor, most likely servants).

It's amazing to me, still, the depths to which some people will descend to attack the other side. I guess it's only hypocrisy if "they" do it.

[realisticphish]

11. indeed

a lot comes out in the open when people are viciously attacking someone. when they get emotional, it's hard for them to keep that stuff inside

[LeftishBrit]

13. The thing is...

Gordon Brown has a 2-year-old son with cystic fibrosis, and a healthy 4-year-old. David Cameron has a 6-year-old son with severe cerebral palsy and two younger children. Admittedly he did take paternity leave for the third child, and was commended for it - but no one has suggested that either man should give up or restrict his political career.

Tony Blair became father of a (healthy) baby while he was PM; his wife is a high-flying lawyer; they had two teenagers and a just-grown-up son at the time of Leo's birth. No one suggested that Tony should give up or downsize his career! The only criticism I remember that related to the baby is one quite relevant to this forum: he refused to answer questions about whether Leo had had his MMR jab, thus in some people's views missing an opportunity to damp down the post-Wakefield paranoia about this vaccine! (There, you knew we couldn't keep eeeeevil vaccines out of a thread for long, could we?)

It might be perfectly reasonable to suggest that parents in general should not undertake highly demanding political careers during te first year or two of a child's life. But the demand is not being made of the fathers. I can't help thinking that a lot of the criticism of Palin here *is* because she's a woman. When I brought up Brown and Cameron with regard to this issue on one of the GD threads, I was asked "But are they single dads?" Well, no, and I don't think Palin is a single mum, either.

[Tumbulu]

15. I am a parent and a mother and it is a big huge gigantic deal.

And no matter how liberated people are it is always the mother for whom the baby cries for. And this is a fundamentalist woman no less.

All the mom's I run into are simply shocked at the reality of it- the mom is the parent most called upon by the baby. It is biological and cultural and very hard to separate. I think that it is outrageous to take on a political role with babies in the house for either parent, but more so for the mom's as it is the mom's who make the milk in their bodies and go through all the physiological changes involved in birth and recovery. This is not sexist it is biology. But this woman does not believe in biology after all, so perhaps that explains it.

And I have not read that he is the stay at home dad. i have read that he works for BP and as a fisherman. So who is holding the baby and homeschooling the children in Creationism?

[LeftishBrit]

18. I don't think it's the greatest form of parenting...

just that by contrast male candidates' parenting decisions don't seem to get questioned much. Even when maybe they should be, because all 4 of someone's sons turn out to be crooks, and one of them ends up wrecking the country (GHW Bush & Sons!)

[Tumbulu]

29. Wow, what a great post!

I am going to chuckle all day about that one, thanks!

[onager]

16. And what was on the DU FRONT PAGE this morning?

It's Sunday morning here in Egypt, and the thread was quickly moved to GD-P.

But this was the VERY FIRST THING I saw this morning when I opened DU, at the top of the home page:

Sarah Palin's Fifth Child rumored to be Daughter's Child

The relocated thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6842975

Two unusually brief points, for me:

1. Attacking a 16-yr-old is just beyond the pale and completely inexcusable. I didn't like the "jokes" about Chelsea Clinton who was, I believe, 13 when Rush Limbaugh called her "the White House dog." I didn't even care much for attacks on the Bush twins, at least until they started actively campaigning for Dad, along with their Grandma Messalina. At that point they became mere political hacks and deserved to be treated as such, IMO.

2. Having said that, Mrs. Palin is a Fundie Xian who takes a deep interest in regulating the lives of other families. She is anti-choice, anti-contraceptive and anti-sex education. So she shouldn't be a bit surprised if the voters are deeply interested in how those ideas have worked within her own family. Or not.

3. I still suspect Palin is only a stalking-horse, trotted out to establish McCain's Pro-Wimmin credentials. At some point, she will quit and be replaced by McCain's true choice, another NDWM (Nearly Dead White Male).

The usual rantiness, partly for our Esteemed British Correspondents (and BTW, you ARE highly esteemed by me. You often provide an interesting counterpoint to us Americans. I would mention you all by name, but I'm afraid I would leave someone out. Or even worse, mistake an Aussie or Canadian poster for a Brit, and I know how all of you hate that...):

I can remember a time when this wouldn't even have been mentioned in an American political campaign. That "time" changed, for the most part, between 1992-2000, when Bill Clinton and his family were slimed daily by the flimsiest and sleaziest rumors imaginable in the American press.

I'm not sure even the best-informed foreigner can understand the sheer rancor and nastiness of that time in the USA.

There was also a time when such stories would have been relegated to the Nut-Right "news" sources and tabloids. But a weird reversal took place during the Clinton years. The respectable, mainstream media just dumped everything on the front page. And if the story turned out to be a lie (as it usually was), they could always run a retraction on page B36. In two-point type. Right under that advertisement for Herbal Male Pleasure Enhancements. (Desperate attempt to stay on-topic in a Skeptics forum.)

All this guttersniping ended with the Repub majority in the House of Representatives actually impeaching Clinton, you may remember. (Not that it did them much good. e.g., Barna Research Group polls at the time showed Clinton still enjoyed the support of 66% of voters self-identified as Evangelical Xians. And Barna is owned by an Evangelical Xian.)

Among some Democrats since then (and I tend to be one), there is the feeling that if our candidates are to be put under a moral microscope, then simple fairness demands that GOP candidates get exactly the same treatment. The Repubs, of course, want it to be a one-way street.

Oh, and this trip down Memory Lane reminded me of some Non-Esteemed British Correspondents from the Clinton era: Alexander Cockburn and Ambrose Evans-Prickard. Those two actually made me nostalgic for the Alien & Sedition Acts of 1798.

Late edit, totally off-topic and a very cheap shot: I just saw the names of Palin's children: Piper, 5, Willow, 12, and at right is Bristol, 16. Not pictured is Palin's son Track, 17. Trig Palin was born in 2008.

Willow? Piper? Trig (Twig)? WTF?

For some strange reason, I'm hearing the voice of Christopher Lee: Time to keep your appointment with the Wicker Man...

[mr blur]

17. I wonder is the American public just not interested in "ideas"?

Don't people care what any of these politicians stands for? I mean, this woman comes out of nowhere as a candidate for VP and people are immediately focusing on things which have absolutely no bearing on her ability to do the job. And which are, frankly, offensive.

NB: I'm not claiming that we Brits are any more politically savvy, but it seems to me there's too much money and religion involved in US politics. I'm trying to imagine a scenario over here where a sizeable percentage of the population would believe that Obama was a Muslim because his name sounds like "Osama". Or why anybody should care.

[LeftishBrit]

19. Religion is far less of an issue here...

But I suspect that many of the Daily Mail crowd here wouldn't vote for Obama because, well, his skin contains rather a lot of melanin, AND his father was an eeeeeevil immigrant!

What always puzzles me on the 'secret Muslim' front is: how CAN someone be a secret Muslim? Islam is one of the religions which requires a considerable amount of outward observance: praying five times a day; regular attendance at mosque; etc- so how can someone whose schedule is as public as a presidential candidate practice it in secret? I susepct it's the modern equivalent of 'crypto-Communist' and the like, and that Islam is seen as almost synonymous with 'being a traitor' or simply 'not one of us'.

FTR: I think that one of the relatively few advantages of our having a Royal Family is that they act as lightning-rods for the people who view leaders as representatives of Morality and/or are preoccupied with real and imagined lurid scandals about their private lives. This leaves politicians to some extent out of it, and they are seen more in terms of their policies - and as people who are probably guilty of lying until proved innocent; we seem more cynical about all politicians than Americans do. Not that all this means we always elect the best people; far from it, in fact.

[mr blur]

21. You're right about the Hate Mail

and why would anyone want to be a secret Muslim? If your faith was of any importance to you, presumably you'd want to proclaim it at every possible opportunity - like just about every other American public figure.

[onager]

20. Oh, ideas are BORING!

Your subject line is pretty much correct. And it goes a long way toward explaining the fix we're in today.

Not that anti-intellectualism is a recent trend in American politics. Way back in 1952, when the suspiciously intelligent Adlai Stevenson ran for President against Eisenhower, a woman at a rally yelled: "Gov. Stevenson, every thinking American is voting for you." Stevenson yelled back: "I'm sorry, madam, but we need a majority."

Since we're in a skeptics forum, it's amazing that even when you have empirical proof of the scientific proposition, "Republicans Suck," nobody will listen.

e.g., many older Americans remember the Eisenhower years as a golden era economically. They don't remember some of the reasons for all that middle-class prosperity, such as a corporate tax rate of 92 per cent. Any American politician recommending such a corporate tax today would be hauled off in a strait-jacket.

As an old-school GOP conservative, Eisenhower didn't really have a problem with those tax rates. He also warned his party against trying to dismantle popular govt. programs like Social Security--the very issue, you may remember, on which GW Bush spent his "political capital" after the 2004 elections. At least that one backfired badly on the GOP.

You'd think we could at least remember the huge surpluses of the Clinton years, which partly resulted from a modest 1993 tax hike on the richest Americans. But somehow, the GOP has convinced many people that George Bush The First was responsible for all that prosperity and Bill Clinton ruined the economy. That one always makes my jaw drop.

Several good books explain how the GOP consistently gets Americans to vote against their own self-interests. A couple of my favorites are The Big Con by Jonathan Chait and What's the Matter With Kansas? by Thomas Frank.

[salvorhardin]

22. No, they're not, not really

And I doubt most people in Europe are either. Oh sure, we're all about the latest and greatest technology, but actual ideas? Not so much.

The difference lies in the antagonism shown to people who are interested in ideas. Decades ago the historian Richard Hofstadter showed how a unique combination of the U.S.'s original settlers (religious zealots), revolutionary history and the frontier mentality all contributed to making anti-intellectualism a defining feature of the American culture. So while there's certainly anti-intellectualism to be had in Europe, the culture there is not rife with it as it is in the U.S.

[TZ]

24. Remember

people actually VOTED for Bush cause he "seemed like someone they'd like to have a beer with"!
There are some voters who indeed vote not for ideas but for the "personality" factor. I am afraid that there are gonna be people who vote for McCain/Palin cause a "she's hot" or cause "wow,she's a mom with 5 children, you go girl!" kind of thing.
Never underestimate the idiocy of the american voting public...

Oh and it isn't just Obama sounds like Osama as well.Its Barak HUSSEIN Obama..Faux news LOVES to emphasize that middle name..Especially since it sounds like the guy in Iraq who helped orchestrate 9/11 and had dangerous WMD's (YES there are people who still believe this crap!)

[LeftishBrit]

23. Agree about Evans-Pritchard and Cockburn.

Interesting that you mention them in the same breath, because I agree that they have quite a bit in common; but I don't think all DU-ers would see it that way. I was once seriously flamed by someone on GD for criticizing Cockburn.

I think that on the whole British TV/radio news reporting is much better than the American equivalent, but our press is worse. Such writers as Melanie Phillips, Richard Littlejohn, Rod Liddle, etc. are our counterparts to American right-wing talk-show hosts.

[onager]

26. Amazing coincidence!

You wrote: But I suspect that many of the Daily Mail crowd here wouldn't vote for Obama because, well, his skin contains rather a lot of melanin, AND his father was an eeeeeevil immigrant!

Just after reading that, I moseyed over to one of my favorite websites, the ARmy Rumour SErvice (ARRSE). It's run by current and past members of the British Army.

One of the first posts I read had these lyrics as a sig line:

The Daily Mail says "The enemy is among us!
Taking our women and taking our jobs!"
All reasonable thought is being drowned out
By the non-stop baying, baying for blood
So I go hunting for witches
Heads are going to roll...

(From "Hunting For Witches" by Bloc Party)

The AARSE-pedia page defining "God" is one of the funniest things I've ever read:

Most practitioners of the above religions engage in some form of communication with their chosen deity, commonly known as 'prayer'.

Prayer takes many forms, from loud verbal masturbation in public (see also: Mosques, daily Mass) to quiet internal contemplation (see: Om).

A few claim that their deity answers back (notably Jesus Jim, T Blair and George W Bush). Remember that's literally, like telling them to do stuff...like invade Iraq. Steer clear of these types and hope they don't get into power...ooops!

http://www.arrse.co.uk/wiki/God

I've learned all sorts of interesting stuff on that website. e.g., I always wondered where the expression "dressed to the nines" came from. Apparently it came from the 99th Regiment of Foot, whose officers were noted for being especially well-dressed. I just love that sort of useless trivia. As everyone on DU knows...

[mr blur]

28. And Littledick actually lives in the US -

Whence he sends home his rants about how awful life in left-wing Britain is. As he would say, "You couldn't make it up!"

[realisticphish]

27. "Bristol" and "Track?"

next will be "Talladega" and "Phoenix," followed by "Daytona" and "Dover"

[moggie]

30. Speaking of misogyny and Egypt

In case you haven't seen this, the BBC has a piece today about public sexual harrassment of women in Cairo. It sounds appalling:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7593765.stm

"more than four out of five women have been sexually harassed, while nearly two-thirds of men admitted assaulting women". WTF? :wow:

[onager]

31. It is appalling, and very common.

I could give you lots of examples, but this is one of the most blatant I've seen with my own eyes here in Alexandria:

A Muslim woman, completely covered from head to toe, with head-scarf, was walking along the street minding her own business. Suddenly a guy sitting on the sea-wall jumped up, ran after her, and grabbed her ass.

What did she do wrong? I'm just guessing, but she was probably a Bad Muslim Woman because she had the gall to go walking by herself. She did not have a male relative with her.

Another man who happened to be passing by started beating the harasser about the head and shoulders. That was fun to watch.

Unfortunately, women can't always depend on a guy like that being around.

Even more unfortunately, officialdom usually blames it on the women.

e.g., the infamous "Eid attacks" in October 2006, when gangs of men and boys roamed thru downtown Cairo attacking just about any female they saw. You can google for lots of info about that:

The first incident Malek witnessed involved a young woman who tried to run away from a crowd of 50 or 60 men.

"The girl tried her best to get away but tripped and was immediately surrounded," says Malek. "They started touching her and attempted to rip away some of her clothing."

At that point a store owner rushed out and pulled the girl into his store, fending off her attackers with a belt. Later the crowd of men attempted to force their way into the shop.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2006/818/eg10.htm

First the Official Spokesmen denied everything, and said this was a bunch of radicals trying to discredit the government.

But too many people had seen the attacks. Store-owners and residents who had sheltered terrified females spoke up.

Then, the O.S. blamed it on a personal appearance by their favorite whipping-girl Dina, a famous Egyptian belly dancer. They claimed that Dina had bared her breasts to the crowd.

And I will NEVER forget the quote that appeared, in a major newspaper editorial, after that lie: The trembling lads couldn't help themselves.

Oh, I can think of several things that might fix the Trembling Lads right up. Mostly involving major damage to the gonads.

Some trivia for our U.K. correspondents: what do current Egyptian First Lady Suzanne Mubarak and previous First Lady Jehan Sadat have in common? Both had mothers who came from Wales.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

25. Wow

I haven't ventured in GD for a while, so I missed out on all that. Misogyny has been present on DU since I joined here in April 2004, but it does seem to rear its ugly head at times like this, especially when the female on the end of it is a republican.

While Governor Palin's positions are contradictory to her own self-expression as a woman in public life, and those positions are anti-feminist, she ought to be critiqued for these positions. Like others have pointed out, when critiques of her (or her family) come from a misogynist perspective it further entrenches misogynist attitudes in public discourse. Using misogynist epithets to describe a 16 year old minor because she's the daughter of a politician from the other side is really low down. It's something that John McCain would do, and in fact he did so in the late 1990s when he cruelly ridiculed Chelsea Clinton.