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E-PrinceLast semester, I argued that I found it difficult to find men comfortably in the role of the feminist. With the presidential candidacy of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) coming as close as it did to success, plenty of men ...(back to the article)
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"How a group of young voters as educated and informed as Princeton's College Republicans can support Palin exhibits a severe lack of faith in what a female leader can do in her own right."
So, Republicans supporting Palin = sexist. Got it, thanks for the clarification. You can say what you will about Palin's competency, that is certainly up for debate, but this conclusion is nothing short of a...stretch.
Lets be fair here. The glass ceiling does not only concern women. This is politics and using the gender or race card to break that glass ceiling is a tool used by Republicans and Democrats alike. If the author’s assessment is that Palin is being used, and represents “two steps backward” for women, what does that make Obama? If you bring questions of image into your assessment of this year’s election campaigns, how is Obama, with his carefully arranged image of the black man who beat all odds, any different than your description of Palin as “the malleable hockey-mom?” For the sake of exercise let’s apply your assessment of Palin to Obama. To be as clear as possible, I will replace “Palin” with “Obama” in many of the author’s statements and replace snippets of her campaign pros/cons with those of Obama. (My words are capitalized, the rest are the author’s own.)
START
“With a candidacy like OBAMA’s, which means a BLACK MAN has come closer than any other since JESSE JACKSON OR ALLAN KEYES to the highest reaches of our government, one could point out how far we have progressed as a nation. But the nature of OBAMA’s performance showed me that if he were to ever become president, it would be the worst setback for MINORITY POLITITIONS in at least my lifetime. If OBAMA, by some stroke of fate, were to step into the presidency…HE would be forced to surround HIMSELF with policy experts to help inform the decisions HE makes. Sound familiar? The presidency of our current leader, George W. Bush, has come to be defined as an office where a poorly informed figure allows those around him to dictate the direction of his administration. As we come to the end of the eighth year of this, we as a nation find ourselves in the midst of two wars, an unfavorable image in the international sphere, an economy that worsens by the day and the reemergence of powers like China and Russia.
***Note on the above causes for concern: Obama’s responses to such international situations such as Georgia have shown that he is playing catch-up to McCain. In the first presidential debate, McCain could cite complicated overseas locations and historical examples with ease and Obama attempted to ride the wave, repeatedly saying “Senator McCain is correct, but…” Did someone ever “vet” Obama in the same manner the media wanted to “vet” Palin? But let’s continue…***
Now, OBAMA has made no secret of the kinds of vice-presidents HE admires most: George H.W. Bush (SEE BOTTOM OF BROOKS NYT ARTICLE http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/opinion/16bro..., OBAMA HAS “enormous sympathy”FOR BUSH 1’s FOREIGN POLICY)…who later ascended to the highest office in the land. What pains me, however, is what a OBAMA presidency in the Bush mold will do for the image of a NON-WHITE MAN in power. Many people within the LIBERAL base don't mind having a figure like the MIDWEST SENATOR who appeals broadly to their interests and is fairly easy to manipulate. Yet how does that in any way break any kind of glass ceiling for MINORITY MEN AND WOMEN if the figure they rally behind is just the means to achieve LIBERAL ends? OBAMA’s candidacy has come to embody the MALE-CENTRIC traditionalism and OPPORTUNISM of the DEMOCRATIC Party and how unwilling it is to move forward. Clinton's candidacy showed us a female candidate in control of her vision for the presidency with her own approach to 21st-century issues. But placing dependent, malleable "JUST YOUR AVERAGE ALTRUISTIC COMMUNITY ORGANIZER" OBAMA under the guise of progress for ALL MINORITY POLITITIANS sets a dangerous precedent for the kind of MINORITY leader to which young people should aspire. IN HIS DEPENDENCE ON SUPERFICIAL IMAGE AND MARKETABILITY, HE represents a setback for MINORITY POLITITIANS of our generation, who will eventually become the leaders of tomorrow.” END
The similarities are frightening, right? Despite their inexperience, both Palin and Obama rose to their current positions in great part due to the diversity they could bring to their parties. After his 2004 convention speech, Obama became the “anointed one,” picked from the pack for his star potential. But the Democratic Party had Hilary Clinton! She could have broken the glass ceiling and with the foundation of solid experience and knowledge to support her self-promotion! If we want to take the comparisons one step further we can compare Obama to W. Bush himself, as the author did with Palin. Replace the Bush cabinet with Nancy Pelosi and other powerful senatorial or congressional liberals who will be content to hear only their own opinions and pat each other on the back while moderates (the truest vectors of change in our currently stagnant, fiercely bipartisan government) watch the impenetrable circle helplessly. But I digress….
And so we come to unhelpful conclusion that Palin and Obama have both become means to conservative/liberal ends. The difference: Obama is at the TOP of the ticket. (And no one is arguing that Biden is comparable to McCain. So let’s add up the points…) To borrow your sentence construction one more time I will say: “How a group of young voters as educated and informed” as Princeton’s College Democrats can vote for a candidate whose good rhetoric and celebrity image mask a very empty record, appalls me. The good that can be seen in all this is that minority men and women can finally make it to the top, a most wonderful and necessary change. But just because they can, does not excuse our country from evaluating who is best suited for the job at hand. Give us an Obama in 10 years with additional experience beyond the scope of his own campaign and the writing of two memoirs and I will be the first in line to vote for him as a future president. But this November I will not be voting for a figurehead.
As an actual woman, i think that it is an insult to display Palin as the archetype for a female leader. She not only displays women as incompetent but she also trivializes the role of VP. The fact that the GOP picked a community college, culturally isolated, pageant queen as the VP nominee is simply astounding. How about someone with intelligence who doesnt need to "get back to" Katy Couric on McCain's deregulation record. He could have picked a more qualified woman as a running mate, Condi Rice??? But i guess she wasnt pretty enough to run on a ticket with a man who divorced his first wife after a fire destroyed her good looks. The fact that Sarah Palin is even this close to becoming VP is a serious slap in the face to the advancement of women in America.
War has terrible effects on relationships and even Carol McCain (wife 1) said of her divorce from John McCain: "The breakup of our marriage was not caused by my accident or Vietnam or any of those things. I don't know that it might not have happened if John had never been gone. I attribute it more to John turning 40 and wanting to be 25 again than I do to anything else." (http://www.azcentral.com/news/election/mccain/a...)
While this is a far cry from a perfect happy divorce (are they ever?!), it is slanderous to accuse McCain of being "a man who divorced his first wife after a fire destroyed her good looks." Correction: She was in a car accident, not a fire, and after reconstructive surgeries was confined to a wheel chair.