September 28, 2008

Palin Season: Hiaasen Makes some Good Points

Carl Hiaasen has a great column in today's Herald. And he makes the kind of observations that Republican hardliners have come to loathe: accurate ones.
If Palin were a male candidate, for example, she would again be asked (as Charles Gibson did) why she took credit for killing Alaska's notorious Bridge to Nowhere, when in fact she supported the $223 million boondoggle until Congress turned against it.

If Palin were a male candidate, she might also be encouraged to discuss why she chose a high-school pal to head Alaska's Division of Agriculture at a $95,000 salary. Among her flimsy qualifications, the woman, a former real-estate agent, claimed an affection of cows.

If Palin were a male candidate, she'd be asked why she put another childhood friend in charge of a money-losing, state-subsidized creamery that was supposed to shut down until Palin reversed the decision. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the doomed dairy cost Alaskans more than $800,000 in additional losses before it was finally closed.

One has to wonder how it would be sexist to ask these questions; the answer, of course, is that sexism isn't in play. It's nothing but a red herring tossed in to the foray by an essentially dishonest campaign.

Why? Carl tells us why:

If she were a man, they wouldn't be praising her for being a hockey dad. They'd be calling her a lightweight who shouldn't be a hundred heartbeats from the Oval Office, much less one.

No comments:

Post a Comment