[HUMOR/POLITICS] Small-Town America

This is one of the angriest Daily Show clips I’ve seen, about the “small-town" and "real" America that the McCain campaign has been touting so much.



Some highlights:

1. The church-going guy drinking at the saloon during the day, wearing tattoos on his shoulder of half-naked women representing his wife, mistress, and another girlfriend (the last of whom he brags is almost identical to her tattoo)
   
2. The mayor of Wasilla saying, unequivocally, that her position prepares one for the vice presidency of the United States, even though she does not run the fire department, schools, or any social services…and can’t describe what she actually does day to day
   
3. The head of the Alaska Independence Party, who says that Todd Palin was a member

I'd like to say that again: the spouse of a major candidate thinks his state should secede from the United States of America. We have a secessionist standing behind a vice presidential candidate. What am I missing here that makes this okay? Since when is it American to be a traitor to the United States? Please, someone, enlighten me. This is also why I don't understand how a true patriot can fly a Confederate flag. What is America about? Are we about the Constitution? Or is being an American purely about culture, and therefore open to interpretation state by state, region by region, town by town, religion by religion, and race by race?

I understand that there is more to being American than the Constitution, but I lean heavily toward the Constitution as the thing that defines my country, and I'm very, very afraid of people who think that being American has little or nothing to do with our founding document. The content of the Constitution isn't the only thing that makes us unique; it's also the fact that every other country in the 18th century defined itself purely on ethnic and cultural terms. The Russians were Russians, the French were French, and the Japanese were Japanese because of their cultural heritages. Of course, it's more complicated than that, and exceptions abound: human history is marked by constant racial and ethnic mixing, migration, and the expansion and collapse of empires. So to be, say, an ethnic Greek living in the 18th century among Arabs (both Muslim and Christian), Armenians, and Jews in what is now Lebanon was to be an Ottoman subject. (His circumstance and disposition at any given moment may have dictated whether he would identify himself as Greek, Ottoman, or Levantine.)

But by and large, most countries other than the United States identify themselves in ethnic and cultural terms. I believe that the point of the United States was that we had a different idea. This has always been challenged – we have had and always will have our share of ethnic and racial conflicts. But those conflicts can be resolved more effectively in the United States than anywhere else; you don't have to have a certain kind of name, religion, or skin color to be American. Most other countries will always have more of a problem, because to be French or Japanese or Danish means much more. And much less.

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The Daily Show also does us a service by showing us some outdoor scenes of this "small town": Main Street, which is not a small-town street, but rather a massive arterial full of through-traffic; and the huge Target and Lowe's. I admit that I've never been to Wasilla, but it doesn't look like a small town to me, judging from this video. This doesn't look like a place where someone can walk to the local store, or let his daughter walk anywhere for fear of her getting hit by a car.

Then, at the end, is the Ground Zero footage. Like I said, this is an angry segment.

[HUMOR/POLITICS] Sarah Palin Debate Flow Chart

[HUMOR/POLITICS] Veep Debate Drinking Game

This email is going around:

The Presidential VP Debate airs tonight at 9pm ET. The VP Debate "Shots" Game is simple: Whenever you hear one of the following phrases you must take a shot of whatever you're sipping on.

With that said, many will not make it to work tomorrow!

"Great State of Alaska"
"Bridge to Nowhere"
"Russia"
"Hockey Mom"
"Pipeline"
"Reformer"
"Maverick"
"Shore Up the Economy"
"Shake Up Washington"
"Executive Experience"

[HUMOR/POLITICS] Is this a Parody? I Can't Tell

Tina Fey's imitation of Gov. Sarah Palin is frightening for its near lack of exaggeration. It's noteworthy that Fey and Amy Poehler simply replayed some parts of the Palin–Couric interview verbatim, but I'm actually amazed the SNL writers felt compelled to write anything for this sketch.

[JOURNALISM] Pundits' Hypocrisy About Gov. Palin

Thank God for Jon Stewart; he's one of the best media critics out there. In the clip below he skewers Karl Rove, Bill "Papa Bear" O'Reilly, Dick Morris, and Nancy Pfotenhauer – all of whom can't seem to make up their minds on "the gender card."

A highlight: a segment featuring Papa Bear commenting on two different teen pregnancies:

First, on September 2nd, 2008, talking about Gov. Palin's 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy: "Millions of American families are dealing with teenage pregnancy, and as long as society doesn't have to support the mother, father, or baby, it is a personal matter.... It is true that some Americans will judge [Gov. Palin] and her family.... For the sake of [Gov. Palin] and her family we hope things calm down."

Second, on December 9th, 2007: "On the 'pinhead front,' 16-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears is pregnant. The sister of Britney says she is shocked. I bet.... Here the blame falls primarily on the parents of the girl, who obviously have little control over her."

Wow. Just...wow.


In Ms Pfotenhauer's defense, she is a senior policy advisor to Sen. John McCain – of course she wants her horse to win. And if that's not made clear when she makes appearances, that's the network's fault, not hers.

But these other guys? To paraphrase Mr Stewart: in their defense, they're lying sacks of shit.

[DESIGN/POLITICS] The RNC's Designs on Obama's Design?

I just logged onto the Republican National Committee’s website. The centerpiece of the homepage is a series of rotating graphics. One of these graphics – the one featuring Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Sen. McCain’s running mate – caught my eye instantly.


Look familiar? Just in case it doesn’t, now look at this:


It’s part of the banner on the Obama campaign website. Compare the fonts, the colors, the poses. Now check this out from the homepage of the Obama campaign website:


In the graphic featuring Gov. Palin the word "from" is italicized, just as is the word "of" above. This is not that unusual a typographical feature, but it's also not that common, and the RNC's use of it is striking.

Similarly, blue is very common among campaigns. Having been proven again and again to be especially appealing to consumers (esp. when compared to red), this is no surprise. But the shade of blue in the Gov. Palin graphic is remarkably close to the one that the Obama campaign uses.

You’d think that the RNC would want to differentiate its design from that of the Obama campaign – that it wouldn’t want anyone to be struck by similarities. What’s going on here?

I have a quick and dirty theory. The Obama campaign’s logo and fonts have been hot topics of blog posts and in the press throughout the past year. Google “obama design” and you get nearly a million pages on the topic (or so it appears). From what I’ve read, the consensus is that the Obama campaign’s graphics – and its control of the visual message – are brilliant; for instance, Newsweek's "Stumper" featured an analysis back in February that included color commentary from Michael Bierut. Could the RNC be trying to get a little of that marketing and design savvy to rub off on it?

[JOURNALISM] When It Comes to Doing Its Job, CNBC Won't Drill

From what little I've seen of what passes for news journalism on TV, I'd already been unimpressed. But I was still shocked by what I saw on Meet the Press today.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Sen. John McCain's choice for his running mate, was the topic of the segment I saw. Maria Bartiromo came on to talk about her interview with Gov. Palin, which was to be aired on her show after Meet the Press. Ms Bartiromo didn't report the news. Instead, she gave us her opinions. Ms Bartiromo said,

I think the biggest value [Gov. Palin] brings to the ticket is her expertise in energy. This is her comfort zone. She made a very compelling case to me that the area that we're talking about that is being debated about whether or not to drill, ANWR, as you mentioned, is 2000 acres in a 20,000,000-acre plain. This is her comfort zone. This is really what she's overseeing. Alaska is one of the few oil-rich areas we have in this country alone....So this is a very, very important piece of the picture and I think she brings great value there, making the point that it is a small swath of land and it really will not impact the wildlife, as of course is the concern, because we've got caribou and bears and moose there, and the upset or the worry is that it's going to impact the breeding of the wildlife. She feels very strongly that that is not the case. And I think that that knowledge of energy is going to be very important for the McCain ticket.

When Tom Brokaw asked Ms Bartiromo about Gov. Palin's expertise in other economic issues “of the day” besides energy, such as the liquidity crisis, she replied, "I don't think that she's necessarily well versed in the liquidity crunch, but I think she came across so strong with regard to economic matters as they relate to energy and as they relate to overall economic growth." She sounded like a high school sophomore trying to make an argument, deflecting a question that she saw as a threat to her case that "it was a very savvy pick, actually."

There's a lot of talk of balance in the news, with people on the left decrying the "MSM" for being corporate shills too afraid of Bush to report the real news, and people on the right slamming the media for being "liberal." But it's worse than that.

I know I’m not saying anything original here, but it bears repeating: the problem is that so much of the "news" is not really news at all. When people talk about "balance" they're talking about providing balanced opinions. I don't want balanced opinions – I want the damn news!

Ms Bartiromo, in this case, did not describe for us Gov. Palin's energy expertise; had not done an ounce of research about ANWR in order to be able to provide more information and context on the controversy when it came up, or to do more than lob softballs at the Governor; and did not describe other people's assessments of Gov. Palin's expertise in economic and energy issues. Instead, Ms Bartiromo gave us her opinions based on what appeared to be a Barbara Walters-like interview. What I learned from Ms Bartiromo is that she thinks that Gov. Palin has energy and economic expertise – I did not learn anything about Gov. Palin's expertise.

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It can be argued that I should accept Ms Bartiromo’s assessment of Gov. Palin’s expertise. She is, after all, host of CNBC’s The Wall Street Journal Report, and she did interview the Governor. Well, I watched the interview (see the clip below – unfortunately I couldn't find the entire interview online), and still learned nothing. Actually, that’s not true; I did learn that Gov. Palin seems to think that we’re in Iraq for oil – and here I’d thought that only some anti-war protestors said that!

Gov. Palin said that there’s really nothing remarkable about ANWR, repeating the pro-drilling argument that, since it’s not on postcards, ANWR can’t possibly be ecologically significant. She also said that the proposed drilling site, the "1002 area," is only 2000 acres, analogous to a postage stamp on a football field. Ms Bartiromo didn’t ask about any of the anti-drilling responses to the Governor’s arguments: nothing about the coastal plain being extremely narrow (15–40 miles), or about the porcupine caribou’s extreme sensitivity to disturbance and its avoidance of roads and other human activity by up to a mile. Ms Bartiromo did not point out that it wasn’t a bunch of Democrats who assessed the 1002 area’s ecological value as "high" and concluded that development impacts would be "significant," but rather the Biological Research Division of the USGS. Nor did Ms Bartiromo ask Gov. Palin about the argument that the fruits of any drilling work in ANWR would not come to be in other 20–30 years, or that the impact of the estimated amount of oil there would have no significant impact on the global supply – and therefore the price – of oil.

From what I’ve read about ANWR, I do fall on the anti-drilling side; I am therefore always eager to hear good, well-reasoned arguments supporting drilling. I did not hear them from Gov. Palin. Instead, her arguments were very simplistic, and have already been addressed again and again. For this reason, I need more than Ms Bartiromo's opinions about Gov. Palin's expertise.