Skirting the Issues

The GOP harumphed in advance of Sarah Palin’s convention speech that she didn’t have to appear knowledgeable or experienced… all she had to do was make viewers like her. I watched. I listened. But, like her?

It is said that, as a small child, Einstein was terrified by the spectacle of goose-stepping soldiers. With a child’s intuitive awareness, he feared that only harm would come from anything so relentlessly synchronized.

I leap in advance of potential critics to acknowledge that I am no Einstein. But as I watched the inexorable 1-2-3-4-5-6 punch of Ms. Palin’s scripted remarks, I felt the hair stand up on my neck: I am plenty smart enough to recognize a politician skirting the issues.

1. I don’t like it that Palin skirted the issue of our imploding, Republican-ravaged economy by threatening that O’Bama will raise taxes while McCain will make the economy all better and cool and good again. Somehow. (Never mind that Senator O’Bama’s proposed tax increases do not apply to 95% of taxpayers. Remember, Palin doesn’t have to be knowledgeable.)

2. I don’t like it that Palin skirted the issue of our nation’s torture-damaged moral credibility by sneering that O’Bama is …”worried that someone won’t read ‘em (accused terrorists) their rights.” The explanation for this may be, as she stated in her speech, that she is “always proud” of America. I can’t help wondering… how proud did Sarah Palin feel when she saw the photographs of sexually humiliated Iraqi prisoners at Abu Graib, with leering American soldiers pointing to their genitals?

3. I don’t like it that she skirted the issue of America’s health care crisis with an empty promise of being a friend and advocate for parents of special-needs children… empty because the GOP has never, will never, won’t even pretend to ever, consider a national health care system that would benefit these and millions of other children.

4. I don’t like it that she skirted the vital issues of choice and women’s reproductive rights by parading her family before the cameras and lining them up on stage, as if… wink-wink, nod-nod… their sheer number was sufficient comment.

5. I don’t like it that she skirted the issue of our catastrophic need to develop green energy alternatives by paying lip service to “solar, wind and geothermal” options (wasn’t that a 70s rock group?) while making the absurd claim that we have enough oil and gas in Alaska to become independent of foreign oil producers, in this or any other lifetime.

6. But most of all, I don’t like it that she skirted the issue of McCain’s probable extension of a right-wing agenda by claiming, as if describing how Jesus suffered on the cross for our sins, that the torture he endured in Viet Nam means that there is “only one man in this election who has ever really fought for you.” Not so. Endurance is admirable, but it is not the only way to fight. Organizing to empower the downtrodden poor may be a punch line in Ms. Palin’s routine, but it is a courageous effort on behalf of Americans, dignified by real grit without the need for mythologizing.

Like Sarah Palin? She is the hypocritical GOP version of a Trojan horse. If we welcome her through the gateway to political power in this election, we will watch as she unleashes the inevitable outcome of her one-sided, narrow views, as she champions the rights of the Right while ignoring… or harming… those who wish to grow in different directions.

As for my coy reference to the way Ms. Palin skirted the issues, I point out that Hillary, who was narrowly eliminated as a Presidential candidate, never skirts the issues… she wears pant suits.