Alaskan Vikings Put Eastern Establishment Types on Their Buffet Tables

I only watched a bit of the Republican Convention last night including Governor Palin’s speech. I feel asleep before she brought the family up on stage including her pregnant daughter and future shotgun wedding husband. Incidentally, isn’t it rather odd that the McCain spinmeisters continue to huff and puff that the pregnancy issue is a private matter and continue to throw the underage mom and future husband into every photo opportunity possible? This is a classic Rovian ploy-dangle the red meat in front of the ravenous 24-hour news cycle and then admonish the media for wanting to take a bit of it!

It was rather silly to see Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and McCain’s talking heads resort to railing at the eastern elites and media. Mitt made his fortune in bed with Wall Street financiers and was Governor of the most liberal state in the USA. Rudy’s only claim to fame was two terms as Mayor of NYC, another staunch member of the eastern establishment. And Big John, who spent 5 and half years as prisoner of war, has been working in Washington DC for the past 26 years.

This is Republican politics at its best and worst. Ignore the very obvious contradictions. Mitt, Rudy and John are card-carrying members of the eastern establishment. Last night they took off their silk ties and put on straw hats and bib overalls and went about demonizing all those city slickers east of the Delaware River. I have to admit they have big cahoonies. Most of the time I thought I was watching a No Nothing National Convention in the 1850s. I never heard W’s name mentioned and only rarely the Republican Party.

And Sarah. Well, Governor Palin can certainly read from a teleprompter. She has some experience as a sports announcer on local Alaskan TV reporting on dogsled races and moose hunts. Everyone knows this transition from Governor of Alaska to the Vice Presidency is a real stretch and another wonderful example of gimmicky Republican politics. At the end of the day, we all know she isn’t qualified.

Whenever Republicans nominate individuals for positions that they clearly are not qualified for such as Sarah Palin, Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, W for President, or Dan Quayle for Vice President, you never heard about the injustices of affirmative action. Somehow these individuals don’t need to be qualified because they either are born again, good friends or just good looking. Apparently those qualities supercede the need for experience or gravitas.

On a serious note, I do believe Palin's family issues should be off the political radar, yet Sarah, John and his minions keep putting the Palin clan into the spotlight whenever possible. Karl Rove should be very proud.