"I consider it cowardly. It's not true. That's cruel, it's mean-spirited, it's immature, it's unprofessional and those guys are jerks if they came away taking things out of context and then tried to spread something on national news that's not fair and not right."
(Sarah Palin, responding to attacks by McCain Aides, NYT 11/8/2008)
I always marvel at conservatives who get hurt feelings when someone says something untrue or outrageous about them even after months of their doing the very same thing against someone else.
Palin’s hurt and surprised reaction to the barbs being cast toward her by her own party, in fact the crew of her own campaign partner, would be pathetic and disingenuous if they weren’t also so funny.
Why should she be surprised, when the campaign that she and McCain ran was dishonest and vicious, accusing Obama of “paling around with terrorists” (when he didn’t), inciting cries of “kill him” at her rallies without comment or criticism of those cries, and ridiculing Obama’s community organizing efforts (see Giuliani’s notorious snickering disdain: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HahW5Qd_-7o&feature=related).
(I love the irony that Obama’s skills at community organizing were the very things that buried Palin and McCain in the national election!)
The Republicans have for the last 8 years at least, been extremely skillful at creating moods, atmospheres, climates wherein a certain psychological playing field is encouraged within which the rules for engagement are carefully established.
Cheney created a climate of fear, so that anything that seemed to challenge his definition of what constituted a terrorist threat, including any kind of negotiation or peace-seeking round-tables, could be labeled un-patriotic or dangerous to national security.
Bush created a culture of acceptance and excuses for blatant stupidity, and by that I mean actual stupidity, not just bad decision-making, encouraging suspicion against intellectuals and in fact, any sign of intelligent thoughtful consideration. Over time, Republicans managed to re-create a new America in which intellectuals were to be distrusted and ridiculed.
Since America exports nothing more than services, entertainment and money, we have fallen behind China and Japan (which we also spent many years making fun of). When was the last time you bought anything – I mean anything! - that was “Made In the U.S.?
Our last actual exportable product was cars, but our cars couldn’t compete with Japanese imports, which were pursuing fuel efficiency for 10 years before American carmakers stopped to think about it. The only things American cars had to offer was brawn, sort of the image of America itself, and since ‘”brawn” has become the last thing a consumer (other than someone who hauls or farms for a living) wants in their vehicle, our car companies are failing. Executives of these companies had all the same information available to them as the rest of the world (news of global warming, knowledge of increasing fuel prices, the fact that we are dependant on unfriendly countries for oil) and yet they ignored the handwriting on the wall, and, because our Republican administration encouraged a climate of American distrust of innovation and a blithe ignorance of the concept of “the Future” (as well as “The Past”: see 1970), they kept building the same big cars, consumer desire for which was soon to be obsolete.
[I feel enormous sympathy for those who work for GM and Ford. They trusted their executives to do the right thing; after all weren’t these executives making millions for their good judgment? This year alone, the CEO of GM will make, as base salary, over $1.5 million. But then again weren’t the executives of Enron and World Com and Bear Sterns and Washington Mutual and Tyco and all those other tanked companies doing the same? And didn’t their employees end up on the same unemployment line with nothing to show for their loyalty as car workers will soon be standing?]
Now of course, after years of Republican disdain for negotiating and coming to the table to try to understand America’s problems along with her enemies, the current Administration has finally recognized their folly. They’re finally listening to their generals in the field of war (something Rumsfeld was notorious for refusing to do), as General Patraeus tells them that one of the best strategies for achieving stability in Iraq (and, ostensibly, Afghanistan) is to meet with our enemies and negotiate (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1FK-JdLEN4).
So perhaps when Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld created and honed a new American sensibility of fear and paranoia, along with the dismissal of the possibility of war fought not only on the ground, but in the hearts and minds of the enemy, maybe they wasted some time. Maybe they wasted 7 and a half years.
When you create a culture of loathing for new ideas, for distain of alternate strategies, for the castigation of whistle-blowers, for hatred of those who ask questions, and an utter disrespect for truth, you reap what you sow.
And so, to Sarah Palin who is shocked, shocked! when her own team turns against her with anonymous attacks that resemble nothing more than schoolyard backstabbing, I say: “Welcome to Your World”. Welcome to the world you and your party created. Deal with it. Or better yet, change it. After all, now is the time for change. Yes, you can.
