MCCAIN - SABOTAGED BY HIS OWN PARTY?

Even to an only mildly interested foreigner whose politics are - to the minds of most Americans - stuck to the far left wall, the recent debacle within the Republican Party was puzzling.

That a man of John McCain's calibre should choose, as running mate, an unknown - to him - untested, venal, fourth-rate neophyte hick like Sarah Palin, is too bizarre for comfort. At worst, it indicated a fatal hubris, a cynical political trick to pick up votes from that great, unwashed, amorphous entity known as the "base" (a truly appropriate word in at least two of its meanings). At best, it suggested that the man was getting a bit old and fuzzy thinking had set in.

Now that the extent of the damage to the Grand Old Party is beginning to be revealed it is time to think about this person's "anointing" as a "star" by the very political insiders against which she railed so strenuously.

The Obama phenomenon - that a politician could speak in rational, adult terms, to an audience presumed to be equally rational, equally adult - is something new in politics. Even the revered JFK had bags full of dirty tricks, or rather, his father, who bankrolled his campaign, did.

But Obama, to warm to whom it took us some time, never deviated from his intent to keep the discussion on that narrow path. Time and again there were opportunities to turn into a pit bull - lipstick-wearing or not - to attack his opponents, particularly once Palin entered the arena. But he resisted. Since it is necessary to be attacked so that it may be returned in kind, this sort of refusal to play by the established rules must have been intensely frustrating to the GOP strategists. Their purpose, after all, is to return the party to power, by hook or by crook.

Knowing that there is a significant doorstop in the White House, a drag on their fortunes, not a dead duck so much as an albatross, some of the high muckety-mucks in the party must have realized that they were not going to win.

These people are the same ones that were highly antagonistic to their own candidate. Make no mistake about it, McCain was, and is, deeply distrusted and reviled by a large chunk of the party. The man, after all, had integrity in buckets, the man never hesitated to tar and feather his own, if need be. The man, in other words, did not embrace the concept of standing behind one's party at all costs. And that did not endear him to a number of major GOP players. Oral Roberts, for example, refused to permit him to speak at his university. . . so much for intellectual freedom.

The majority of people are weary of the Republicans. Eight years of Dubya is more than eight years too many. The excesses and criminal activities of the last eight years are now coming home to roost on the Republicans' heads, and they might squat there for a long time. But - hey! perhaps some within the party thought McCain would make a fairly good scapegoat.
He is old, after all, and won't be back in four years, or eight. Hardly universally loved by party members, he could wear a target on his back without taking too many of his clique with him. And, as he is loyal, and a gentleman, he is unlikely to speak out against his own.

So we can look at Palin in another light. Dumb as a stump but photogenic, ignorant but capable or rousing the rabble, she made a convenient anchor. And by the sounds of it, McCain permitted this anchor to be affixed firmly around his ankle without a peep. In one fell swoop the people could be given "hope" by the "star quality" of this "fellow maverick"; after the inevitable defeat McCain could be conveniently blamed for picking her and thus "sealing the party's fate".

Sounds possible. Yes, we know that there is an enormous difference between possible and probable. But it is plausible and it remains a tantalizing possibility.


As for Palin, she is finished. No amount of tutoring, no amount of whitewash, rebranding or reinvention can return her to the supposedly squeaky-clean state in which she was presented to the world. Listening to the prank call by two Quebecois comedians one is struck by the number of opportunities she was given to realize that it was a hoax, opportunities she did not take because she is DUMB AS A STUMP.

One cannot do much with deadwood except to burn it, or ignore it and leave it to all the little critters that will, over time, turn it into something useful. Over a loooong time.

Meanwhile, though, there is something to be said to John McCain:

Time cannot erase the sacrifice you made for your country, nor can it dull the keen edge of the gloss of your honour. But perhaps time can eventually wash the stain of the Palin choice from your name, because of all the available, talented, photogenic, young, intelligent people from which a future leader could have been chosen, hers should have been the last to be considered.


c2008 bluemlein.blogspot.com