As I Was Saying (IV)

I got an email from a buddy of mine, who's telling me lay off the political stuff for a while and get back to talking about important things like baseball and sex. He says politics is boring and that he doesn't want to read political screeds every day.

He has a point. But after a long summer hiatus of more or less keeping my mouth shut, I've got to weigh in on the most interesting presidential race I've ever seen (I wrote a few months back that I wouldn't be talking about the race until I saw how things shook out; consider them shook).

Here's another update from my As I Was Saying series. This is from Froma Harrop. See what you think of this little piece of high-brow journalism:

"I had dinner last night with a Republican-leaning independent who was despondent over John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. She had been looking forward to supporting McCain as a fiscal conservative with a deep understanding of foreign relations. But all she could now see was that picture of Palin's pregnant 17-year-old looking defiant and stupid as she held mom's fifth baby."

Nice. A great cheapshot. Nothing like beating up on a teenager to make a professional journalist feel mighty and brave. As for me, I didn't see Palin's kid as "defiant and stupid." She just looked like a teenager watching a speech, one of the hundreds we've seen over the years in those "cut away to the family while the candidate speaks" shots. However, I've never seen a journalist actually comment on those shots in order to indict the candidate.

Harrop ends off her sharp political analysis this way: "Palin supporters insist that her out-of-control home life will resonate with many American families. Yes, if they're from Mars or perhaps on welfare."

I don't get it. Only Martians on welfare have problems at home? But that's the way it is now. All it took to make kids eligible receivers for the mud journalists sling is a woman on the Republican ticket.

I am screaming with laughter at how quickly and violently these journalists' views have come to the fore.

Remember, I have no problem with people picking on a politician for the issues and some parts of their own personal life (Kids? No. Hooked on heroin? Yes). It's when they go after the kids that I think it's gone too far. Journalist Nick Clooney (George Clooney's pop) said that he wouldn't have gone there in the past, and he wouldn't do it now. An editor from Time magazine was asked about Palin's kid, and he asked for another question, refusing to talk about it. That pissed me off, because it meant I might actually have to subscribe to Time.

So yes, this election might really be about change.