Catholic and Enjoying It!
Various folk in my comboxes are mad at me because I don’t think Sarah Palin is the Savior of the GOP. One guy (whose post full of vituperation and name-calling was sadly deleted) freaked out in a particularly memorable way and, before bravely signing off anonymously as “Sick of Shea’s BS” wrote: “I can’t read this blog. It’s worse than the pro-abort websites. Dishonest scum like Shea make me ashamed to be Catholic.” All because I posted a Tom Tomorrow cartoon spoofing the kerfuffle over Palin. Some people really need to cut their caffeine intake.
Ahem: A clue to the inner workings of the mind of Shea:
When I title something “Obligatory X Post” that is a clue that I don’t have a burning passionate interest in it. “Obligatory”: as in “having to eat your liver and lima beans. “Obligatory”: as in “You are obliged to do your stupid math homework before you can go out and play.” “Obligatory”: as in “an onerous, tedious duty that I must perform. “Obligatory”: as in “I’m neither burning with hate nor with love for the subject. But I know that somebody is demanding my view on the matter, so I’m giving it (such as it is).”
When I go even further to communicate my general disinterest by letting a cartoon (sort of) stand in for a tediously typed out thought, that should be your next clue that, so far from being filled with some newfound, intense hatred of Sarah Palin (in sharp distinction to everything I’ve written about her before in the rare moments where I’ve written about her at all), I’m just giving a quick answer to people who are demanding I have some in-depth take on the whole thing.
My stance is basically the same as it’s been. She seems likeable, but likeability does not mean she’s competent to be President of the US. I greatly admire her championing her son Trig and her championing disable kids against the fashionable “just kill ’em” attitude of Blue state elitists. The press and the liberal elite hates her guts with an incandescent passion, precisely because Trig threatens their most cherished dogmas. I salute and celebrate her openness to life and her refusal to let such freakish enemies of nature attack her children or any people struggling with disabilities.
But guess what? That doesn’t make her competent to be President. And if she had been elected Veep she would have been subjected to just as much abuse, indeed more. If McCain’s health had failed (a very good chance of this), she could be President right now, and subject, if anything to even more abuse and scrutiny from the media.
And, if McCain’s health had failed, she’d still be quitting right now if her reason for quitting was elevation of her family’s needs above the demands of public office.
So: McCain nominated somebody who was not, in fact, capable of doing the job she was trying to get elected to do. Sorry, but that’s the facts. She’s not a political genius for quitting. She’s somebody who cannot take the heat it requires to do the job of Veep, much less Prez. It’s not “hatred” to say that. Nor is it agreeing with the anti-life monsters who genuinely hate the fact of Trig Palin’s existence. It’s a sober observation of reality. I wish her well on whatever she decides to do. I hope she continues to advocate for the rights of children, both unborn and disabled. I just don’t think she’s ready to be Prez and I think her resignation bears that out.
I also think that Palin fans, by their not-infrequently demented reactions to *any* questioning or criticism of her are simply forcing the GOP deeper into the Bubble of Unreality that has increasingly come to afflict it as the Bush/Cheney machine drove it into the ground. Prudence, the ability to see what is, is the first virtue. When the GOP again gains the capacity to look at what is so and stop trying to make reality conform to delusional wishes, it will take the first step on the road to recovery.
And not a minute too soon either.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In