Lest anyone is questioning Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's bona fides as a hockey mom.
Rest assured, she does bring to mind any number of unpleasant memories of the small-town power-trippers whom you might have had the misfortune to meet in your travels, right down to the propensity for money mismanagement and narrow-minded nastiness tinged with racism.
There's no plan to post about the U.S. election, or the Canadian election. This is a blog about sports. It's presumed people want a little respite when they turn to sports, which in the big box store of life, still is just the toy department.
Related:
Palin's Hockey Rink Leads To Legal Trouble in Town She Led (Wall Street Journal)
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19 comments:
I've had fantasies of Palin takin off those glasses and removin the pin from her hair...
mmm, Sarah Palin...
Wonkette has called her a GILF. I'm not sure I could argue that.
I'm John McCain and I approved that last message.
Mmmmm....Hockey moms, toys and sports...knew there was a reason I'm a referee and a sports photographer
Nice article on Palin. What I particularly liked was the fact that the author didn't rely almost exclusively on unattributed quotes. (/sarcasm)
I'll just give two points, then go back to my regularly scheduled sports snark. Firstly, ham-handed, amateur hour hatchet jobs like that article are actually serving to increase support for Palin, not decease it.
Secondly, this reminds me of the kind of articles the right was authoring and digging up in 1992 on Bill Clinton's gig as Arkansas governor. We all know how that one ended up. Personally, I love the fact that Palin is causing all the right people to break out into hives. I don't agree with all of Palin's views, but I do love her for the enemies she is making.
Fair enough, D.P. I'll take a god hard suck on a lemon and say that I have never liked anyone primarily for the enemies they make (although I leave the door open that you're not being 100% serious) ...
David Frum, that notorious bomb-throwing leftist, outlined 4 criteria for leadership I can agree with, although I don't share his politics.
"A good executive needs a solid floor of background knowledge so that he / she can sift sense from nonsense in policy proposals. A good executive must be willing to listen to a wide range of views, including some that are not immediately acceptable. A good executive must have a sense of timing: avoiding the equal evils of haste and procrastination. A good executive must have the power to explain and defend his / her actions to a wide variety of audiences, from the largest to the most specialized."
No one has any reason to believe that exists with this individual, while we have more knowledge that Obama/Biden do.
The bottom line, who knows what it does to race relations in the U.S. if Obama can't get in and this quarter-wit gets the second-highest office in the most powerful country in the world (well, second-most behind China).
I'll get some sports stuff up as soon as I can, because even my response makes me sick.
Dennis has a point in my mind. The Wall Street Journal article linked is much more credible in my mind than the L.A. Progressive one, given both outlets' reputations and the massive amount of anonymous sources in the latter.
The blatant editorializing Charley James puts into his Progressive piece is also suspect, and makes me question his credentials as a "journalist": "No wonder the vast sea of white, cheering faces at the Republican Convention went wild for Sarah: They adore the type." There's no way in hell that gets filed as a news story at any reputable outlet: an opinion piece perhaps, but James advertises it as news and as such, it should subscribe to those rules.
It's pretty easy to find people willing to criticize any public figure: those criticisms go way up and their accuracy goes way down when those people are granted anonymity. For most of the sources used, there isn't really a compelling reason to grant anonymity in my mind: they don't have influential positions and the fear of retribution probably isn't a realistic one. You could dig up anyone with a grudge and give them a big axe to swing against the politician who stepped on their toes a few years ago, and all of a sudden, they can say whatever they want thanks to the protection of anonymity.
Plus, with the anonymity provided, we can't properly evaluate these sources and their bias for ourselves, and have to rely on what James says. Should people really be making a decision about who to vote for based on what some so-called journalist tells us some anonymous waitress says she heard in a restaurant?
The Journal article, on the other hand, is a much better piece of journalism in my mind. It gets both sides, it portrays real problems, it doesn't use anonymous sources and it's got the cold, hard facts. It also doesn't come off as a blatant attempt at character assassination. Think of how people on the left (bloggers and the mainstream media) have reacted to similar "articles" about Obama full of old grudges and anonymous sources: are right-wing candidates less deserving of fair treatment and accurate coverage just because of their political affiliation? Not in my books.
If I was an American voter, articles like the Journal piece would raise concerns about Palin much more than an anonymous, secondhand rumour picked up over a long-distance telephone call about a supposed slur Palin tossed out over breakfast several months ago.
P.S. Not complaining about the link to James' article: I just felt Dennis offered some valid criticisms of it. I'm not particularly trying to defend Palin, either: it certainly looks like there's some skeletons in her closet, and they should be looked at. David Frum, as shown in Neate's link, and others have also raised legitimate concerns about Palin's experience that should be addressed.
If I was an American, I'd be voting Obama/Biden: however, I'd make that decision based on their policies and actual, detailed and fair information about the candidates, not secondhand anonymous criticisms packaged as a news story that they don't deserve, delivered through a biased media outlet by a so-called "American journalist" who lives in Toronto. Just my $0.02.
P.P.S. There's a funny rebuttal here that shows the downside of anonymous sources. They're not always bad, and in many political, business and even sports pieces, they're often necessary to get the news out. However, those people have real reasons to seek anonymity beyond some imagined threat of retribution, and they're important enough to get it under the right circumstances and if and only if they prove to be reliable. A waitress at a restaurant who claims to have overheard something nasty? Not so deserving of anonymity, in my view.
Oh hell, I don't think anyone's comparing the L.A. Progressive to the Wall Street Journal ...
Anyway, considering what a server in the typical restaurant in the States makes per hour and receives in benefits, none of us is in a position to say whether she warrants anonymity to guard against possible retribution. (Especially considering how they play for keeps in American politics -- and especially given "Sarah Barracuda's" already established penchant for vindicativeness.
And what's worse -- liberals questioning Gov. Palin or conversatives mocking Sen. Obama's post-college career earning $19,000 doing work in crime-infested areas of Chicago?
I'm just amused that she self-identifies with unquestionably the single most psychotic group of people around.
Maybe it is appropriate.
Hey, we think that hockey moms are very balanced people.
Yours sincerely,
Gymnastics and Tennis Parents
Congratulations to everyone on getting this far without a Lynne Spears reference.
By the way, which youth sport has the most well-adjusted parents?
Best adjusted parents? I would say house league soccer, simply because no one really cares about what is happening out on the field. It's just the weekly outing - most of the kids wander around the field looking for interesting cloud formations, while mom and dad get caught up with their friends over a coffee. They will cheer the occasional goal, and that's the end of that. Now, competitive soccer is no doubt different, but the house league version is only one small step removed from the softball game at the church picnic.
Dennis,
I'm not normally a fan of the "yours sincerely" jokes, but....well played. Very well played.
My vote for best adjusted goes to...
Um...
Hmmm...
That's a tough one. I might actually go with football. I've never had a problem with football parents.
A hockey parent once threw coffee on me when I was refereeing his son's game. I was 17. His son was in a league playoff game for teams already eliminated from the OMHA playdowns. It was an atom game.
And US politics desperately needs a third party.
Dear Mr. Sager
Since when have I become a bomb throwing LEFTIST?
I don't apprxtbeciate someone who obviously does not know me from Adam, using the dreaded L word to describe me....especially since I am a former speech writer for the great George W Bush.
Signed indignantly
David Frum
Nice ... I highly doubt the real David Frum would be so dense as to not pick up on sarcasm.
If I was any less dense I wouldn't be reading your damn blog now, would I?
Hey, don't be upset ... I liked the Frum joke, whoever made it.
I'm not upset...though I guess I shouldn't have used the word "damn" cause it makes me sound angry.
And BTW, the only reason I post as "anonymous" is because I'm too dense to figure out the other ways of doing it.
That's not sarcasm, that's the absolute honkin' truth.
No worries! I probably set this off with my big mouth.
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