As I touched on in yesterday's post, I've been with Obama from the beginning. Initially, I hoped he WOULDN'T run in '08 because as a matter of principle, people should finish what they set out to do, and he was only two years into his first Senate term. Plus, if you're applying to lead the free world, it's nice to have as much political experience as possible.
But once the Iowa caucuses approached, I concluded Obama was the best the Democrats had to offer this time around, and I threw myself passionately behind his campaign. I read "The Audacity of Hope." I deeply lamented that I was not 22 and a senior in college with mountains of free time I could dedicate to volunteering to his historic campaign. I sent money instead, in small, non-sequential bills in unmarked briefcases. And I devoured every piece of campaign news I could get my jaws around. Shoot, I went through eleven computer monitors last calendar year alone.
All hysterical witticisms aside, I glommed on to Obama for three main reasons: future Supreme Court appointments, the need to repudiate eight years of Republican mis-rule, and most fiercely because I believed BHO was a different kind of politician. A guy who might follow his conscience, not his ideology. A guy who invited competing points of view instead of squashing dissent. A guy with some gray matter.
I still believe most of that. But a measure of disappointment might be settling in over the land as the president is forced to put his money where his mouth may or may not be.
Try these Google search results on for size.
"disappointed liberal blogger" yields 41,100 hits.
"buyer's remorse Obama": 195,000
"disappointed Democrats": 242,000
"disillusioned Democrats": 261,000
"disillusioned with Obama": 608,000
"disappointed Obama": 4,060,000
Granted, the last number just barely covers every Republican left in America, so it's no smoking AK-47 (used for deer hunting exclusively). But you get my drift. People all over them internets sure is gettin' antsy. What if our Dear Leader is just another politician, clothed in conciliatory biracial Rorsachness? Let's do some more fun irrandom searches, and pretend they're useful.
(Before we do that, please acknowledge that nobody in the history of the world has typed a paragraph even remotely resembling the one you just read.)
"pleased liberal blogger" yields 40,200 hits.
"no buyer's remorse Obama": 48,100.
"pleased Democrats": 1,850,000
"energized Democrats": 2,170,000
"satisfied with Obama": 3,370,000
"pleased Obama": 4,760,000
Interesting. A media narrative that's been flowing as a persistent undercurrent lately is how Obama supporters are, well, disillusioned en masse after six months of his administration. Since journalists are trained (in J-School, by their editors, by the ratings) to seek out conflict and report it, not harmony, color me unsurprised. The numbers don't bear out a nationwide backlash against the President. Yet.
Still, all that near-nonsense having been said, I do find myself channeling my inner Dennis Green, and wondering if HE IS WHO WE THOUGHT HE WAS! (Repeat until self is worked into a lather.) I mean, he cuddled up to antiwar protesters, built the foundation of his candidacy on undoing Little Bush's warmongering ways, and now we're diving deeper into Afghanistan... And he pledged to close Guantanamo, but results on that one are hard to come by... He railed against immunity for phone companies who played along with dubious wiretapping practices, then changed his mind on that one... He touted the stimulus bill as a buffer against 9 percent unemployment, and here we stand today at 9.7 and rising... He promised his administration would be a model of openness, but last week the White House fought a request to release a list of visitors related to health care reform... It's not pretty.
On the other hand, as I wrote in my last post, his ambitious plans could save America as we know it. That's worth something. OK, I feel better.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
So is he Carter or Lincoln? / 7-23-09
I donated to the Obama presidential campaign in December 2007. I share this not as a badge of honor, but as a way of illustrating that my support for his candidacy and his presidency is relatively deep-seated. I'd never given money to a politician before, for Taosakes. I'd always been a big fan of campaign finance reform and the prospect of publicly funded races at any level of politics.
(That stance made me a fan of John McCain, by the way, in the early part of this decade. The pre-Sarah Palin version of McCain, I like quite a bit. That's a guy who bucked the system on issues dear to his heart. He teamed up with a liberal Democrat to combat the corruptive influence of big donors; he embraced the fight against climate change despite the anti-scientific wing of his party. But I digress.)
So I sent off some of my semi-hard-earned dough to a heavy underdog in the race for the Democratic nomination. I re-donated several times in small increments throughout 2008. $25 or $30 at a time. I'm not wealthy. Just hopeful.
And my guy won. Twice. He cleaned clocks belonging to Clinton and that McCain fellow, who I think would have won every other general election since Reagan. Obama won blood-red states like Indiana. He took North Carolina. And Florida. And Virginia. He threatened in Georgia, Missouri and Montana. It was a good year to be a inexperienced biracial candidate with the middle name "Hussein" -- which still blows my mind -- and a big fat "D" next to your name on the ballot. (Let's get real. A gay atheist might have won the presidency last year with all the sh*t Bush handed down to McCain.)
Well, after the election, then came the small matter of governing. Hey Barack, welcome to the Oval Office, how about the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? And how about a bank failure each day for a year? And crashing housing markets? And a stock market plunge? And bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler? Did we mention spiraling health care costs?
What I'm trying to say here, as I finally, at last, none too soon, reach the actual point of this post, is that BHO has the opportunity to be the greatest president in the history of the United States.
Sure, you can call that an easy statement. Every president has that opportunity. Even Little Bush. Imagine a 9/11 followed by a surgical strike on Al Qaeda leaders, the capture of Bin Laden, and all the fortune spent on two ill-conceived wars instead funneled to preserving Social Security benefits, establishing a fair health care system (even from a conservative vantage point) and continuing the balanced budget reached by Clinton and the GOP Congress of the nineties. Imagine no waterboarding memos, no dismantling of the Justice Department, no bungled response to Katrina. Remove that myriad of catastrophic errors -- and others -- and we'd be looking for a way to rescind the two-term limit we impose on presidents. (Also, the Democratic Party might have ceased to exist, so there's that to consider.)
I believe Obama will make some egregious mistakes. He's not actually ever been president before just this January, so some on-the-job learning is inevitable, and some of his ideas will probably crash and burn, maybe even after they're enacted into law.
But the man could leave office with the following accomplishments.
1) An overhaul of the health care system that empowers the little guys, like the needy families and the small businesses. And saves us trillions of dollars really quickly.
2) A revamping of our energy policy that places new emphasis on energy independence, nuclear power, renewable sources and greens our economy and our world while reducing our dependence on foreign oil, which threatens our national security. And saves us trillions of dollars in the long run, not nearly as quickly.
3) A replenishment of the prestige of America on the world scene. This is an important thing; even when overstated, it remains underrated. And saves millions of lives.
4) The establishment of a formula that preserves most Social Security benefits through the end of the century. And saves millions of heartaches.
5) Finding an acceptable conclusion to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush got a clue regarding Iraq just in time, now Obama has to stay the course there; his job is much more challenging in Afghanistan. I'll add, predictably, that victory or something close to it in both places would save millions of lives and some insane amount of euros /yuan.
And he could muck it all up on a grand scale. The recovery could take years to arrive, health care reform could turn into a colossal waste of money, our troops could continue to die in Afghanistan for decades because of a poor decision he makes. Out-of-control budget deficits could cripple us and cause long-term economic crisis or the elimination of the dollar or a serious setback in our living standards. All that is possible.
Or he could be. The. Greatest. President. Ever.
(That stance made me a fan of John McCain, by the way, in the early part of this decade. The pre-Sarah Palin version of McCain, I like quite a bit. That's a guy who bucked the system on issues dear to his heart. He teamed up with a liberal Democrat to combat the corruptive influence of big donors; he embraced the fight against climate change despite the anti-scientific wing of his party. But I digress.)
So I sent off some of my semi-hard-earned dough to a heavy underdog in the race for the Democratic nomination. I re-donated several times in small increments throughout 2008. $25 or $30 at a time. I'm not wealthy. Just hopeful.
And my guy won. Twice. He cleaned clocks belonging to Clinton and that McCain fellow, who I think would have won every other general election since Reagan. Obama won blood-red states like Indiana. He took North Carolina. And Florida. And Virginia. He threatened in Georgia, Missouri and Montana. It was a good year to be a inexperienced biracial candidate with the middle name "Hussein" -- which still blows my mind -- and a big fat "D" next to your name on the ballot. (Let's get real. A gay atheist might have won the presidency last year with all the sh*t Bush handed down to McCain.)
Well, after the election, then came the small matter of governing. Hey Barack, welcome to the Oval Office, how about the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? And how about a bank failure each day for a year? And crashing housing markets? And a stock market plunge? And bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler? Did we mention spiraling health care costs?
What I'm trying to say here, as I finally, at last, none too soon, reach the actual point of this post, is that BHO has the opportunity to be the greatest president in the history of the United States.
Sure, you can call that an easy statement. Every president has that opportunity. Even Little Bush. Imagine a 9/11 followed by a surgical strike on Al Qaeda leaders, the capture of Bin Laden, and all the fortune spent on two ill-conceived wars instead funneled to preserving Social Security benefits, establishing a fair health care system (even from a conservative vantage point) and continuing the balanced budget reached by Clinton and the GOP Congress of the nineties. Imagine no waterboarding memos, no dismantling of the Justice Department, no bungled response to Katrina. Remove that myriad of catastrophic errors -- and others -- and we'd be looking for a way to rescind the two-term limit we impose on presidents. (Also, the Democratic Party might have ceased to exist, so there's that to consider.)
I believe Obama will make some egregious mistakes. He's not actually ever been president before just this January, so some on-the-job learning is inevitable, and some of his ideas will probably crash and burn, maybe even after they're enacted into law.
But the man could leave office with the following accomplishments.
1) An overhaul of the health care system that empowers the little guys, like the needy families and the small businesses. And saves us trillions of dollars really quickly.
2) A revamping of our energy policy that places new emphasis on energy independence, nuclear power, renewable sources and greens our economy and our world while reducing our dependence on foreign oil, which threatens our national security. And saves us trillions of dollars in the long run, not nearly as quickly.
3) A replenishment of the prestige of America on the world scene. This is an important thing; even when overstated, it remains underrated. And saves millions of lives.
4) The establishment of a formula that preserves most Social Security benefits through the end of the century. And saves millions of heartaches.
5) Finding an acceptable conclusion to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush got a clue regarding Iraq just in time, now Obama has to stay the course there; his job is much more challenging in Afghanistan. I'll add, predictably, that victory or something close to it in both places would save millions of lives and some insane amount of euros /yuan.
And he could muck it all up on a grand scale. The recovery could take years to arrive, health care reform could turn into a colossal waste of money, our troops could continue to die in Afghanistan for decades because of a poor decision he makes. Out-of-control budget deficits could cripple us and cause long-term economic crisis or the elimination of the dollar or a serious setback in our living standards. All that is possible.
Or he could be. The. Greatest. President. Ever.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
No vacancy / 7-22-09
With the public support of two prominent Republican senators (him and her) firmly in hand, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor will coast to confirmation later this summer. She'll replace David Souter. She'll be the first Latina (I'd like to say first Latino, too, but she has no such secret) to serve on the Court. Probably not the last.
I'll cut to the chase. Is it important that the SCOTUS be diverse? Is it important that it feature a black dude and a Puerto Rican lady? Is it crucial that it be populated with jurists of different age groups, like a few 40-year-olds, a few boomers and a few geriatric cases? Is it important for the genders to be split 5-4? Should an atheist get nominated soon? A Muslim? A homosexual? (Let's not wait for a hypothetical Republican president to get started on the last three categories.)
Oh. I get the feeling you expect answers. I don't have a whole lot of them. The only "answer" I like is that the Court has been far too Protestant, far too white and far too male for far too long. A non-answer I like even better is that as long as the nominees are all competent, their background and/or their skin color and/or their gender and/or their sexual orientation matters not a whit. I don't like pigeonholing people based on one facet of their being.
(Besides, let's acknowledge that it's a certainty, probability-wise, that a gay man has served on the Supreme Court already. I won't bore you with all the math or the regression analysis involved, because my inferior explaining skills are... inferior.)
The most interesting suggestion I've heard recently on this topic is to expand the size of the Court itself. Jack it up to 15, 21 justices. Diversity will practically do itself without trying. It'll take itself out of the conversation after the third Latino, the second paraplegic and the first completely out-of-the-box nominee.
I mean, it makes sense. 220 years ago, the pool of SCOTUS candidates was shallow. Finding nine qualified white male Episcopalian or Methodist landowners with lots of free time can't have been easy every day of the week. Now, we've got a slightly deeper swath of hopefuls.
In a way, that mega-court idea fits with my earlier suggestion that we extend representatives' and senators' and presidents' terms. We need better representation across the board in American government, and that includes a bigger Congress that spends less of its time campaigning, plus a wider court that reflects America's diverse identity better, because on a superficial level, that's important. Plus, we won't have to have the tired, worn-out "Wow, look, that nominee's not an old bald white guy from Harvard" conversation as much any more.
And no, I don't think my man Barack should appoint another 12 justices to get us to the magic 21. You could do it gradually, like over the course of four more Democratic administrations.
I'll cut to the chase. Is it important that the SCOTUS be diverse? Is it important that it feature a black dude and a Puerto Rican lady? Is it crucial that it be populated with jurists of different age groups, like a few 40-year-olds, a few boomers and a few geriatric cases? Is it important for the genders to be split 5-4? Should an atheist get nominated soon? A Muslim? A homosexual? (Let's not wait for a hypothetical Republican president to get started on the last three categories.)
Oh. I get the feeling you expect answers. I don't have a whole lot of them. The only "answer" I like is that the Court has been far too Protestant, far too white and far too male for far too long. A non-answer I like even better is that as long as the nominees are all competent, their background and/or their skin color and/or their gender and/or their sexual orientation matters not a whit. I don't like pigeonholing people based on one facet of their being.
(Besides, let's acknowledge that it's a certainty, probability-wise, that a gay man has served on the Supreme Court already. I won't bore you with all the math or the regression analysis involved, because my inferior explaining skills are... inferior.)
The most interesting suggestion I've heard recently on this topic is to expand the size of the Court itself. Jack it up to 15, 21 justices. Diversity will practically do itself without trying. It'll take itself out of the conversation after the third Latino, the second paraplegic and the first completely out-of-the-box nominee.
I mean, it makes sense. 220 years ago, the pool of SCOTUS candidates was shallow. Finding nine qualified white male Episcopalian or Methodist landowners with lots of free time can't have been easy every day of the week. Now, we've got a slightly deeper swath of hopefuls.
In a way, that mega-court idea fits with my earlier suggestion that we extend representatives' and senators' and presidents' terms. We need better representation across the board in American government, and that includes a bigger Congress that spends less of its time campaigning, plus a wider court that reflects America's diverse identity better, because on a superficial level, that's important. Plus, we won't have to have the tired, worn-out "Wow, look, that nominee's not an old bald white guy from Harvard" conversation as much any more.
And no, I don't think my man Barack should appoint another 12 justices to get us to the magic 21. You could do it gradually, like over the course of four more Democratic administrations.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Ichirobama / 7-16-09
Been on vacation for a while. I think I'll ease back into things with some fluff.Set aside the fact that this picture is just pretty cool. I mean, it's two men at the top of their game, professionally, having a chat. One of 'em, completely and totally out of character, has that giddy schoolgirl look. And then the non-baseball player of the two is signing a baseball for the other guy.
No, set that aside and ponder the common points of these two dudes' lives. Both lefthanders, they broke new ground in each of their fields. Ichiro was the first Japanese position player in the majors, owns an MVP award and two batting titles, and was the catalyst in driving the 2001 Mariners to win more games than any other team in history. He'll be inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame someday. Meanwhile, you'll be no doubt shocked to discover that Obama was our first African-American President. I kid you not.
They each had to overcome mountains of prejudice. They've each had to have heard "No, you can't" more than their fair share. They each are tremendously poised, preternaturally calm, confident, cool cucumbers... despite the fact that they can't go anywhere in public without being mobbed.
Okay, okay, I'm going to try and put the man-crushes away for a couple of days at least and get to some serious work. But no guarantees.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Think again / 7-5-09
Steve McNair, renowned quarterback, died from a gunshot wound to the head this past weekend. And as the investigation into his death intensifies, it brought an oft-discussed issue to the forefront: why do guys from the NFL always seem to get into trouble?
And it happens everywhere. Locally, Seahawks star Lofa Tatupu was busted for a DUI last year, right about the time former Hawks star Koren Robinson had finished drinking and driving himself out of the league. Seahawks announcer and record-setting QB Warren Moon had already managed to get himself arrested on his own set of DUI charges near Christmas 2007. By the way, I'm going to leave out the rest of the Hawks' trouble, for space reasons. Away from Seattle, Hall of Famer Bruce Smith joined that same stupid club earlier this year. The capper: in March, Cleveland receiver Donte Stallworth killed a guy while driving drunk.
And then there's Michael Vick. Ugh... I don't even want to link to him anymore, I'd rather just forget he existed.
Wait... didn't O.J. play a down of football here or there?
So what kind of animal house is the NFL running anyway?
Not a very efficient one, I'd say, if the goal is to get guys into heaps of trouble. Pro football players are FAR LESS LIKELY to be arrested than the general population. No typo. Proof:
"We find two striking observations. First, we note that the NFL rates [of arrest] are less than half the general population rates for both whites and blacks. Second, we find that the NFL fraction is strikingly close for the two racial groups. Thus, even though our initial assessment was that the NFL rates looked very high, we find them well below the rates for the general population."
(Got that from a study published at Duke University in 2007. Done by scientist-type humans.)
LESS THAN HALF!
Well, that's just one study... except another one done by an intrepid reporter last year duplicated the results. 1 in 45 NFL players arrested in his research, compared with 1 of 23 of the rest of us.
So I'm hoping you'll forgive the caps, and twice at that, but I get really sick of people dumping on athletes who don't deserve it. Especially with the stickiness of racial stereotypes right beneath the surface of the conversation. (USA Today put 41 arrested NFL players on its covers throughout 2007. Care to guess how many were black? No, more. Higher. Almost there. Yep, bingo, 39.)
Can you be pissed at Tatupu for making an idiotic choice? Sure. Can you lament that McNair associated with the wrong people? Your call. Can you opine that oft-convicted cornerback Adam "Pac-Man" Jones is a complete waste of human cell tissue and all his talent should be transferred to someone who won't throw it away? Please do.
But cool the stereotypes, already.
(I'm really, really, really ready for some football.)
And it happens everywhere. Locally, Seahawks star Lofa Tatupu was busted for a DUI last year, right about the time former Hawks star Koren Robinson had finished drinking and driving himself out of the league. Seahawks announcer and record-setting QB Warren Moon had already managed to get himself arrested on his own set of DUI charges near Christmas 2007. By the way, I'm going to leave out the rest of the Hawks' trouble, for space reasons. Away from Seattle, Hall of Famer Bruce Smith joined that same stupid club earlier this year. The capper: in March, Cleveland receiver Donte Stallworth killed a guy while driving drunk.
And then there's Michael Vick. Ugh... I don't even want to link to him anymore, I'd rather just forget he existed.
Wait... didn't O.J. play a down of football here or there?
So what kind of animal house is the NFL running anyway?
Not a very efficient one, I'd say, if the goal is to get guys into heaps of trouble. Pro football players are FAR LESS LIKELY to be arrested than the general population. No typo. Proof:
"We find two striking observations. First, we note that the NFL rates [of arrest] are less than half the general population rates for both whites and blacks. Second, we find that the NFL fraction is strikingly close for the two racial groups. Thus, even though our initial assessment was that the NFL rates looked very high, we find them well below the rates for the general population."
(Got that from a study published at Duke University in 2007. Done by scientist-type humans.)
LESS THAN HALF!
Well, that's just one study... except another one done by an intrepid reporter last year duplicated the results. 1 in 45 NFL players arrested in his research, compared with 1 of 23 of the rest of us.
So I'm hoping you'll forgive the caps, and twice at that, but I get really sick of people dumping on athletes who don't deserve it. Especially with the stickiness of racial stereotypes right beneath the surface of the conversation. (USA Today put 41 arrested NFL players on its covers throughout 2007. Care to guess how many were black? No, more. Higher. Almost there. Yep, bingo, 39.)
Can you be pissed at Tatupu for making an idiotic choice? Sure. Can you lament that McNair associated with the wrong people? Your call. Can you opine that oft-convicted cornerback Adam "Pac-Man" Jones is a complete waste of human cell tissue and all his talent should be transferred to someone who won't throw it away? Please do.
But cool the stereotypes, already.
(I'm really, really, really ready for some football.)
Mariners 2009: Must-see TV? / 7-5-09
One word sums up the Mariners' 2008 season: Unwatchable.
With the bar set so low, the 2009 edition of the M's only had to be mediocre, and the year would be considered a success.
Well, these guys have leapfrogged mediocre and are threatening to become good. In the past ten days, they've won series at Los Angeles AND Boston... oh yeah, did I mention those are the two best teams in baseball. They beat C. C. Sabathia in New York. Felix Hernandez is the best starter in the American League, and currently (this won't last) David Aardsma is the best closer in the league. Ichiro is on track to score another batting title.
This surprising Seattle club is turning heads without:
*a catcher, third baseman or shortstop of note
*three of its starters from April
*anything substantial, offensively, from its DH and bench.
The M's will finish above .500 unless injuries ravage the team further. They may fall just short of a playoff spot, but the future is bright. Imagine if GM Jack Zduriencik can find a couple more decent players to plug in at the trouble spots... they'll move from watchable to ready for prime time.
With the bar set so low, the 2009 edition of the M's only had to be mediocre, and the year would be considered a success.
Well, these guys have leapfrogged mediocre and are threatening to become good. In the past ten days, they've won series at Los Angeles AND Boston... oh yeah, did I mention those are the two best teams in baseball. They beat C. C. Sabathia in New York. Felix Hernandez is the best starter in the American League, and currently (this won't last) David Aardsma is the best closer in the league. Ichiro is on track to score another batting title.
This surprising Seattle club is turning heads without:
*a catcher, third baseman or shortstop of note
*three of its starters from April
*anything substantial, offensively, from its DH and bench.
The M's will finish above .500 unless injuries ravage the team further. They may fall just short of a playoff spot, but the future is bright. Imagine if GM Jack Zduriencik can find a couple more decent players to plug in at the trouble spots... they'll move from watchable to ready for prime time.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
House of Palin / 7-4-09
Sometimes I feel like the last two years have been the golden age of U.S. politics.
We elected a black man president after he redefined campaign finance strategy. He defeated a woman for the nomination of his party, a party which was left for dead seven years ago but now trounces the opposition at every turn. Unthinkable deficits, brought on by the worst economic crash since the Great Depression, threaten the administration's overdue plans to reform health care and fix our broken energy policy. A Senate race that gives one party a filibuster-proof majority took eight months and several recounts to complete. As two wars rage on, you can look out and spot three bogeymen on the horizon: terrorism, climate change and Social Security.
And then there's Sarah Palin. In her persona, we have ourselves the most polarizing, unpredictable, riveting, intriguing, flabbergasting, compelling train wreck of a gifted politician since Ronald Reagan.
So when Palin, in her mavericky way, announced on Thursday her resignation from the governorship of Alaska, effective in three weeks, the Internet almost broke.
Theories explaining her stunning decision have cascaded online in waves of millions. There are a few that are gaining traction, best as I can tell. They are:
a) She thinks resigning is a good move politically; why waste time governing a piddly state when you can be a national figure at the time of your party's greatest need?
b) Criminal charges are coming. (Try this one or any of these on for size.)
c) She's got some personal troubles or family troubles to attend to, and she'd rather do so as a private citizen. (Substance abuse, even greater family dysfunction, blackmail, grave illness all spring to mind.)
These theories have merit. In fact, why not two or three at once? This is, after all, Sarah Palin we're talking about here. But, in boring fashion, I'm simply of the mind that she's like everyone else: she's cashing in while she still can.
Faced with a job with little security, intense public pressure and a looming mega-crisis (Alaska's future budget woes are said to be on par with California's), who wouldn't be looking for something cushier? And what if that cushier job paid in the millions of dollars annually? And involved soaking up gallons of love on a daily basis from adoring fans? And getting to say the mavericky things you always wanted to say but didn't, out of what little self-preservation you had?
Yep, Mrs. Palin is bound for a good old-fashioned ka-ching payday. Or five. Her book advance is -- cue the violins -- a paltry $7 million. Her potential radio audience should rival Rush's. She'll always automatically have a job with Fox News and a hundred speeches lined up on the lecture circuit at any given time.
But like I said, just because she's takin' it to the bank, that doesn't exclude a) or b) or c) from earlier on. I'd even expect one or more of those scenarios to play out. She probably would envision herself as a tested, wiser outsider in the 2016 presidential primaries. She probably has broken various laws as governor. She probably has plenty more personal drama up her sleeve.
I could write five hundred words on her incoherent, oddly puerile resignation letter, posted here. I could spend another five hundred discussing the political strategy and timing, or lack thereof, she exhibited this week. I could write five hundred more on how I personally feel about her. (Since she and I are such great friends, yeah ya betcha!)
But I'm not sure she's all that complicated, and I'm not sure it's really a hard choice for her to leave the difficult job with the decent paycheck for the undemanding job with the filthy salary. Would that very same choice be agonizing for any of us?
We elected a black man president after he redefined campaign finance strategy. He defeated a woman for the nomination of his party, a party which was left for dead seven years ago but now trounces the opposition at every turn. Unthinkable deficits, brought on by the worst economic crash since the Great Depression, threaten the administration's overdue plans to reform health care and fix our broken energy policy. A Senate race that gives one party a filibuster-proof majority took eight months and several recounts to complete. As two wars rage on, you can look out and spot three bogeymen on the horizon: terrorism, climate change and Social Security.
And then there's Sarah Palin. In her persona, we have ourselves the most polarizing, unpredictable, riveting, intriguing, flabbergasting, compelling train wreck of a gifted politician since Ronald Reagan.
So when Palin, in her mavericky way, announced on Thursday her resignation from the governorship of Alaska, effective in three weeks, the Internet almost broke.
Theories explaining her stunning decision have cascaded online in waves of millions. There are a few that are gaining traction, best as I can tell. They are:
a) She thinks resigning is a good move politically; why waste time governing a piddly state when you can be a national figure at the time of your party's greatest need?
b) Criminal charges are coming. (Try this one or any of these on for size.)
c) She's got some personal troubles or family troubles to attend to, and she'd rather do so as a private citizen. (Substance abuse, even greater family dysfunction, blackmail, grave illness all spring to mind.)
These theories have merit. In fact, why not two or three at once? This is, after all, Sarah Palin we're talking about here. But, in boring fashion, I'm simply of the mind that she's like everyone else: she's cashing in while she still can.
Faced with a job with little security, intense public pressure and a looming mega-crisis (Alaska's future budget woes are said to be on par with California's), who wouldn't be looking for something cushier? And what if that cushier job paid in the millions of dollars annually? And involved soaking up gallons of love on a daily basis from adoring fans? And getting to say the mavericky things you always wanted to say but didn't, out of what little self-preservation you had?
Yep, Mrs. Palin is bound for a good old-fashioned ka-ching payday. Or five. Her book advance is -- cue the violins -- a paltry $7 million. Her potential radio audience should rival Rush's. She'll always automatically have a job with Fox News and a hundred speeches lined up on the lecture circuit at any given time.
But like I said, just because she's takin' it to the bank, that doesn't exclude a) or b) or c) from earlier on. I'd even expect one or more of those scenarios to play out. She probably would envision herself as a tested, wiser outsider in the 2016 presidential primaries. She probably has broken various laws as governor. She probably has plenty more personal drama up her sleeve.
I could write five hundred words on her incoherent, oddly puerile resignation letter, posted here. I could spend another five hundred discussing the political strategy and timing, or lack thereof, she exhibited this week. I could write five hundred more on how I personally feel about her. (Since she and I are such great friends, yeah ya betcha!)
But I'm not sure she's all that complicated, and I'm not sure it's really a hard choice for her to leave the difficult job with the decent paycheck for the undemanding job with the filthy salary. Would that very same choice be agonizing for any of us?
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