Sarah Palin--Pig in a Poke

[dtotire]

Sarah Palin can dress a moose, can't hide her true self

Sunday, September 14th 2008, 5:35 PM

Ours is a country capable of almost constant surprise, especially when the chips are down. That is why the appearance of Sarah Palin is the most startling thing to happen in American politics since Barack Obama took Iowa last January.

Give them a reason, and they will gather behind you. John McCain gave them Sarah Palin and they gathered.
Whether through a combination of desperation, condescension and sheer lucky nerve, or something else altogether that no one can explain, John McCain and the Republicans have taken charge for the moment. They finally have succeeded in completely appropriating and redefining all of Obama's campaign themes of change while pretending 24 years after Geraldine Ferraro that the elephants are far more willing to shake things up than the donkeys have ever been.

Sarah Palin even lifted Obama's unprecedented theme of embracing miscegenation, perhaps to fight liberal stereotypes of conservatives as white racists. Plucky to nearly the bursting point, Palin observed her husband was proud of his Alaskan Indian blood, which was another way of saying, "Hey, guys and gals, our kids are all American and they aren't pure white, either! Barack Obama, you can sit down and stop bragging."

Yes, Sarah Palin comes from the kind of women who helped win the West, no doubt about it. They walked next to wagon trains across the country, had children under the most hazardous circumstances imaginable and lived through weather as bad as the country could be beautiful. They fought, killed or were captured and enslaved by the Indian tribes who resisted the expansion of the United States. If her membership in the NRA did not imply all of that, Fred Thompson did when he asserted that she would be the first VP candidate capable of correctly dressing - meaning butchering - a downed moose.

These are the kinds of things that make Palin more one of the boys than even most of the boys are. So while remaining the loving mother of five, Palin also has the credentials to be a proxy male who can go in the door of the men's club and not be sneered at unless one is willing to take her on in a target shooting contest.

Like it or not, that is a big step.
But hunting moose, owning a firearm and being opposed to abortion are not the things that bother me most about Palin.

Here's a short list: It can easily be proven that she did not lead the fight against "the bridge to nowhere"; that she is not opposed to pork-barrel earmarks and has actually fought for them; that she seems to believe as much or more in a Christian theocracy than in American democracy. And in one of the most well-received moments in her RNC speech Palin made it quite clear: Terrorism is a good enough reason to destroy or ignore the Constitution.

"Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America ... he's worried that someone won't read them their rights," she said in ripping her Democratic rival.
She might be pretty enough for Rush Limbaugh to call "a babe"; she might shoot well enough to be nicknamed "Annie Oakley" and she may even have squeaky clean but gritty charm. But, when the sun goes down and nobody else is around, Sarah Palin kneels to and bows low before the language that can prepare the way to totalitarianism. Always a dangerous thing.

She does not seem to realize - though all of our friends and every last one of our enemies do - that the constitutional rights at which she sneers are what separate this nation from the totalitarian regimes in most of the world.

Changing from what we are into one of those kinds of regimes is not what I believe the American people want and that is what I believe will save us from embracing a self-described pit bull with lipstick.

For all of the indications to the contrary, I think that Barack Obama is right when he says that the American people are not stupid. They might not be able to dress a moose, but they can usually recognize a pig in a poke. With or without lipstick.
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http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2008/09/15/2008-09-15_sarah_palin_can_dress_a_moose_cant_hide_.html

[ladjf]

1. The "pig" is no longer in the "poke".

[htuttle]

4. Indeed -- the cat has been let out of the bag.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. A poke was a term for a bag in the middle ages

The seller told the buyer it was a pig inside but couldn't open the bag.
Usually the animal turned out to be a dead rat or cat after the buyer got home

[aquart]

3. Nuh uh. She's the "lipstick."

Lipstick in the Republican makeup bag? Lipstick in a toolbox? Lipstick on a bathroom mirror saying, "HELP! My country has been kidnapped by fascists!"???