Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Mean Girl

I'm really surprised with the level of vitriol that the GOP came out with tonight.  Palin's sarcasm, snide asides, and the glee she showed mocking Obama were unworthy of  high office. The winks to the crowd in the hall reminded me of Regina in "Mean Girls" giggling with her in-crowd while mocking the smart kids.  
  
On a practical level I don't know that they'll work particularly well with the independents that the Republicans need in order to win.  As my fiance noted after the speech, the only ones who like the mean girl are her friends.   

I'm also not sure about the political utility of dumping on cities, given that 80 percent of Americans live in cities or their immediate suburbs.  There's also something absurd about Giuliani, who probably breaks out in a rash every time he crosses the Hudson, criticizing cosmpolitan cities.  

2 comments:

Unknown said...

JW-

Given how closely you follow politics, I am surprised that you would be surprised by the level of Republican vitriol last night or on any other occasion. There is an element of real sneering nastiness to the American right, and last night was a perfect example of it.

For me the low point was Palin's mocking of Obama's work as a community organizer as she compared it to her tenure as a small-town mayor. (Great point in your earlier post re the absurdity of comparing her time as mayor to his first job out of college.) According to his Wikipedia page, Obama's work as a community organizer included "set[ting] up a job training program, a college preparatory tutoring program, and a tenants' rights organization." This sounds like the sort of thing that would make a real difference in the lives of poor and working-class citizens. And to the Republican-party faithful, it is literally a joke - the subject of the biggest laugh-line of Palin's speech. The right's contempt for the work Obama did on behalf of the poor in Chicago is simply disgusting, and perfectly in accord with the tone of modern American conservatism.

Unknown said...
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