According to Sarah...
Nine and a half years ago, a young congressional staffer, Chandra Levy, disappeared. Her murdered body wasn't found until many months after the crime. In the meantime, it was disclosed that she had carried on a romantic relationship with her married boss, Congressman Gary Condit, then a Democratic congressman from Colorado. The FOX News network did all it could to tie Condit to the crime, presumably because he was a (D). I recall attending a large extended family dinner in Utah that Thanksgiving. As sometimes happens at these events, discussion of the affair teetered on the edge of control. I insisted to a sister-in-law that even though I didn't know who had murdered Ms. Levy, I was pretty sure that she ( the sister-in-law) didn't either, even though she had her heart set on slipping Condit the execution injection needle.
I bring this up now because I note that another man was tried for the crime and convicted yesterday. So, I can now declare to the world in self-satisfied glee - I told you so! I'm also confident that she (name starts with D) is not among the six or seven worldwide readers of this blog. So, no harm done, right?
If we hear a young person make a declaration of some kind which includes an error of fact, we might offer a correction in the spirit of helpfulness. When Grandma gets her facts tangled over something, we could try to straighten her out or just let it go in the interest of family harmony.
But what if the erring party is your peer, someone who should know certain facts but muddies the water with errors that might or might not be deliberate? And what if the mis-speaker has lots of devoted followers who don't worry much about facts? What should we do then?
Sarah Palin is making lots of speeches these days. It seems that she feels that she could be our president, having served as both a small-town mayor and one half term as governor of Alaska. Her speeches get people riled up, but some bad interpretations are now appearing. In her latest book, for instance, she takes John Kennedy to task for declaring in the 1960 campaign that he would not, as president, be taking orders from the Vatican just because of his status as a Roman Catholic. Palin sees this as "running away" from his Catholicism.
Kennedy's actual goal in the speech was to reassure (mostly Southern) voters that their Protestant institutions would have nothing to fear from a Catholic president.
And poor Reagan gets made over all the time by Palin, leaving out the subtleties of his decisions as well as the long transition he took to becoming a Republican, as well as the years (eight) he put in as governor of California before stepping up to the national stage. It wasn't as though he went from B-movie list star to president overnight, One columnist I read contrasted the two this way: Reagan used his fame as a celebrity to succeed in politics while Palin used her political experience in order to become a celebrity.
I can even envision other Sarah-isms about past politicos:
Nixon: I am not a crook
SP: Crooks employ a lot of people, and should be given tax breaks as long as they don't break any legs.
Clinton: I feel your pain
SP: The Bible had lots of people in pain, but Obama wants to take our God-given pain away with government-controlled health care. I say spare the rod and spoil the child!
Eisenhower: I will go to Korea
SP: Vacations are OK, but we should see our own country first. What was Ike thinking?
Carter: Life is unfair
SP: That's right. Rich people pay a bigger share of their income in taxes. They need a break!
GWB: Bring it on!
SP: Thanksgiving is almost here, and then comes Christmas, which is God's gift to all Americans. Thanks, Lord!
I bring this up now because I note that another man was tried for the crime and convicted yesterday. So, I can now declare to the world in self-satisfied glee - I told you so! I'm also confident that she (name starts with D) is not among the six or seven worldwide readers of this blog. So, no harm done, right?
If we hear a young person make a declaration of some kind which includes an error of fact, we might offer a correction in the spirit of helpfulness. When Grandma gets her facts tangled over something, we could try to straighten her out or just let it go in the interest of family harmony.
But what if the erring party is your peer, someone who should know certain facts but muddies the water with errors that might or might not be deliberate? And what if the mis-speaker has lots of devoted followers who don't worry much about facts? What should we do then?
Sarah Palin is making lots of speeches these days. It seems that she feels that she could be our president, having served as both a small-town mayor and one half term as governor of Alaska. Her speeches get people riled up, but some bad interpretations are now appearing. In her latest book, for instance, she takes John Kennedy to task for declaring in the 1960 campaign that he would not, as president, be taking orders from the Vatican just because of his status as a Roman Catholic. Palin sees this as "running away" from his Catholicism.
Kennedy's actual goal in the speech was to reassure (mostly Southern) voters that their Protestant institutions would have nothing to fear from a Catholic president.
And poor Reagan gets made over all the time by Palin, leaving out the subtleties of his decisions as well as the long transition he took to becoming a Republican, as well as the years (eight) he put in as governor of California before stepping up to the national stage. It wasn't as though he went from B-movie list star to president overnight, One columnist I read contrasted the two this way: Reagan used his fame as a celebrity to succeed in politics while Palin used her political experience in order to become a celebrity.
I can even envision other Sarah-isms about past politicos:
Nixon: I am not a crook
SP: Crooks employ a lot of people, and should be given tax breaks as long as they don't break any legs.
Clinton: I feel your pain
SP: The Bible had lots of people in pain, but Obama wants to take our God-given pain away with government-controlled health care. I say spare the rod and spoil the child!
Eisenhower: I will go to Korea
SP: Vacations are OK, but we should see our own country first. What was Ike thinking?
Carter: Life is unfair
SP: That's right. Rich people pay a bigger share of their income in taxes. They need a break!
GWB: Bring it on!
SP: Thanksgiving is almost here, and then comes Christmas, which is God's gift to all Americans. Thanks, Lord!
posted by Mark at 10:48 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home