Musing

By: kathstack
Published On: 9/27/2008 8:34:36 PM

The one thing that makes me believe that this economic meltdown thing is real and ominous is the timing. Oh, everyone knew that the whole American "economy" was a massive pile of perhaps unpayable debt. But I also thought that would be another thing Bush and the boys would kick down the road to explode in the new president's term. The new guy would have the economic crash, be forced to raise taxes, curtail programs and deal with massive unemployment, all the while Republicans on talk radio and in the amen corner minority would be pointing out how well things went when they were in charge.

The fact that they weren't able to bring it off, that it's crashing on Bush's watch, says to me that it's bad.
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Imagine the howls of outrage Biden would face were he to be one-tenth as condescending and dismissive of Sarah Palin in the vice-presidential debate next week as McCain was of Obama in yesterday's Presidential outing. Can you see him saying: "Governor Palin, once again, does not understand the issue and is speaking naively"? The moderator would doubtless expire of shock, and the condemnation would come from all quarters--despite the fact that, on the available evidence, Governor Palin really DOESN'T understand much about the world outside Alaska. Well, life is not fair and Obama seems to have survived.
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Speaking of Sarah Palin, she is confirmation of my long-held theory that Republicans actually like to appoint spectacularly unqualified women and minorities to prominent positions. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a case in point. How insulting to the hundreds if not thousands of brilliant African American jurists for the Republicans to imply that this--THIS--was the best they could come up with. Pretty much how, I suspect, the qualified (it pains me to say it, but there are some--or at least, some more qualified than Palin) Republican women politicians probably feel about Palin's elevation.

Such selections are at least two-fers. First, the chosen one may escape the various obstacles and attain the position in question. They then--obviously--need a "trusted advisor" to actually run things. Someone, perhaps, too nasty, brutish, inarticulate or ugly to attain the position themselves, but capable, and ideologically sound. (Bush/Cheney is a variant of this.) Further, when the brain trust convenes on the golf course, members can exchange horror stories of narrow escapes and naive proposals, confiding that "they" of course, "just can't run things."

But second isn't bad either. Should your token not ascend, you can wait decades before trying another. After all, "you just can't win" with one of "them" on the ticket.
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I was watching the commentary after the debate for a while, and then, for some reason, muted it. Watching the talking heads without sound made me notice how unhappy most of them look. Try it--they have sour and gloomy expressions and down-turned mouths, almost to a person. I can think of lots of reasons why that might be so.  

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