Saturday, October 04, 2008 - Posts
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Dahlia, you've put your finger on the reason my initial enthusiasm for Sarah Palin evaporated the minute she opened her mouth; it isn't her conservatism that rankles, but her bile. (Today, for example, she accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists who would target their own country'' because he happened to serve on a charity board on education reform with a '60s radical whose views he has denounced. According to the New York Times story Palin was referencing—and deliberately misrepresenting—"[t]he two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of [William] Ayers, whom he has called 'somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.' ")
We could have disagreed on every issue in the multiverse, and I would still have applauded John McCain's choice of a strong, conservative, pro-life feminist—yes!—who actually walked the walk. But Palin's whole up-your-nose-with-a-rubber-hose presentation—it's us-vs.-them on steroids, really—gives the lie to her talk of bipartisanship. She sells herself as a can-do frontierswoman, but also as the poor-me victim of reporters so mean that they dared ask her what she believes. And her overt contempt for difference makes a joke of her promise to bring all Americans together; her loudest shout-out at the debate wasn't to third graders, but to haters. She bragged that she's such a tolerant person that "I have a very diverse family and group of friends and even within that group you would see some who may not agree with me on this issue, some very dear friends who don't agree with me on this issue'' of gay marriage. But people who really are tolerant of other viewpoints are not quite so painfully aware of their own saintly forbearance; that she finds it worth reporting that she has friends who have friends who might be gay—at least, I think that's what she said—in fact suggests a lack of respect. And except for killing her own meat, she has nothing in common with my grandma.
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My apologies, all, for being late with this. I'm en route to San Francisco for the wedding of dear friends—two fabulous and widely, deeply loved women—who've been together for 26 years. (It'll be my first Chinese wedding banquet!!) I dearly hope and pray that California voters will on Nov. 4 see fit to approve their marriage rights—and to say yes to recognizing many more such joyous marriages.
And so thank you, Abby, for noting how odiously Palin used the word tolerant in the debate. When Palin used it to talk about gay folks, she tensed up and all but wrinkled her nose, as if smelling something disgusting. In fact, although she briskly announced that she and Biden agreed, her entire way of answering the same-sex marriage questions were in very careful code that made clear how far apart she and Biden actually are.
I don't have a transcript here, but as I remember it, she carefully said that she wouldn't oppose hospital visitation or "private contracts" but that she opposed "redefining" the "traditional definition" of marriage as between one man and one woman. Now, let's leave aside both the tautology and the simple falsity of that statement; marriage has never been one static thing, but has been constantly shifting to suit each era and class, as I discovered when researching my book What Is Marriage For? More important here, though, is that Biden signaled he would support civil unions, domestic partnership, and possibly some now-banned federal recognitions like allowing an American to sponsor her foreign-born female beloved for immigration, say. (Now they'd have to move to Europe or Canada to stay together.) Most of the developed world, and some underdeveloped parts of the world, now have these interim recognitions. The U.S. anti-marriage movement has used state marriage bans to also try to erase these intermediate statuses—saying that any state recognition of a same-sex pair (even sharing health insurance benefits) is a redefinition of "traditional" (by which they mean "recent" or "conventional") marriage.
Biden was announcing, generously and enthusiastically, his support for these ABM (anything but "marriage") measures. Palin was signaling her opposition to any such things that governments might do to allow two people of one sex to honor their bond—and doing it in a way that only very attentive pro-gay and antigay folks would notice. Very smart. And not very nice for my dear California soon-to-be-newlywed long-coupled friends.
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Rachael, I think you’ve put your finger on Sarah Palin’s “heartland” problem, but perhaps not in a way for which you will thank me. Accepting your premise that Palin deploys the term not in a geographic sense, but to express her “experience, ideology, and personality,” it seems Palin can’t stop herself from using the word in the way she uses so many other regional terms: as a way to rope off the Americans who matter from those who do not.
Palin’s constant use of geographic and class code words—“East coasters,” “media elites,” and “Washington insiders”—reflects just how steeped she is in Ginsu politics: The slicing and dicing of Americans into those who deserve her respect and those who warrant only contempt. As you have eloquently observed, “People are similar wherever you go.” But Gov. Palin just does not seem to share that worldview. I am trying to think of a single sentence she has uttered that has evinced compassion for the residents of downtown Seattle or for the entire East Coast she likes to write off with a wink and a sneer. Whatever you may say about Barack Obama, his 2004 convention speech was transformative in that it renounced the view that some Americans count more than others, based on artificial geographic or religious divisions. Rachael, try as I may, I cannot think of a single compassionate, elevating, or ennobling sentiment Palin has ever expressed toward Americans with which she disagrees—unless you count parroting Ronald Reagan. I can’t think of a single instance in which she has expressed or implied that Americans have more in common than not, and that were she to be elected, she would be respectful of and accountable to all of them, including East Coasters, environmentalists, and community organizers.
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