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Color me baffled. In response to a question about Sarah Palin’s qualification to be president, John McCain talked first about her credentials as a reformer and then moved swiftly to explain that Palin “understands special-needs families. She understands that autism is on the rise, that we've got to find out what's causing it, and we've got to reach out to these families and help them, and give them the help they need as they raise these very special-needs children. She understands that better than almost any American that I know. I'm proud of her.” Later on, he added—again regarding autism—that “Sarah Palin knows about that better than most.” Now, we know Palin has a special-needs child: Her infant son, Trig, has Down Syndrome. So it’s fair to suggest that she understands special-needs families and that—even though it’s not clear what she’s ever done or even proposed doing for them—she might one day be an advocate for them. But I can’t figure out why McCain was coupling Palin with autism, rather than Down Syndrome. Yes, his comment started as a testimonial to her concern for those with special needs, but it came off sounding like he just didn’t know that autism and Down Syndrome are very different. A quick Web search reveals that the main connection between Palin and autism appears to be that, like McCain, parents of autistic kids are blogging hopefully that she will have some special sensitivity to their situation. (Also, it seems Palin has an autistic nephew.)
As panders go, I am finding this autism gambit baffling. Did McCain just get confused about the fact that Trig has Down Syndrome? Or was he trying for some kind of broad-brush special-needs appeal, only to end up awkwardly implying that all special-needs families are the same? So much so that you can swap out diagnoses and nobody will notice? That same broad brush was slapping around later when, in discussing abortion, he started sneering about the trickiness of allowing exceptions for the mother's health. No nuance here. Just the bold implication that all health exceptions represent some kind of female trickery. Last time I checked, women thought their health was sort of important. Toss in his eye-crossing claim that anyone who supports abortion rights is, by necessity, not going to be qualified to sit on the Supreme Court, and it was time to kiss women voters goodbye. How can a man who can see all the complexity and subtlety in foreign policy and health care reform talk to and about women and families in terms that persistently read like cave drawings?
McCain really proved tonight that his brand of feminism is frozen in 1960—an artless pander to the mommies tacked onto the claim that he is “proud” of his vice president. It's all reminiscent of the ad men on Mad Men, chivalrous but wrong.
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I didn't hear every word of the debate, because along with most of the other passengers waiting for the 10:35 flight from JFK to National, I was straining to make out what the candidates were saying over the general airport din, plus the patter of an Australian guy who found McCain ridiculous—his mention of Obama's support for a slide projector in a planetarium struck him as especially hilarious—and an unhappy Republican who grumbled, "Nothing new, nothing new'' every time "that one'' opened his mouth. Though they proved oblivious to the subtle cues the rest of us were working so hard on, leaning forward intently and frowning, a whole planeload of us non-Washington insiders nevertheless refrained from telling these two to zip it; from Wasilla to the Upper West Side, Americans are in some ways shockingly well-behaved.
From what I could tell, however, the candidates were as rude as their hecklers, proclaiming the questions excellent and then ignoring them. (I did not think McCain calling Obama "that one'' was so insulting, though; I could be wrong, but I thought he meant to do it jokingly —sort of like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler always calling each other "this one''—and didn't quite pull it off.) Their mutual refusal to stray from their stump speeches is what offended me; we're in a crisis here, as we all agree, yet most of what they had to say last night was a remix of the same old musty talking points they've been spouting for months. And with McCain pacing around behind Obama, with all the glassy-eyed steadiness of that New York mafia don who used to pad around in his bedroom slippers pretending to be out of it while secretly still running the whole operation, I at one point thought they might burst into song, call it a comic opera, and basta. McCain's "cut taxes and earmarks" aria really was ridiculous, mate, and Obama's "the middle class needs a rescue package'' refrain so vague that it really was "nothing new, nothing new.'' Sadly, I'm not sure the rest of us who were leaning forward so expectantly missed a single thing we hadn't heard before.
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