Meritocracy to Mediocrity

Lately it occurs to me,
What a long, strange trip it's been
--Truckin', Grateful Dead

Over men and horses hoops and garters
Lastly through a hogshead of real fire!
In this way Mr. K. will challenge the world!
--Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,
The Beatles

Instead of trying to build newer and bigger
weapons of destruction,
we should be thinking about getting more use
out of the ones we already have
--Deep Thoughts, Jack Handey
____________________

Sarah Palin, poster child for a new America, was recently given a forum in which to express her scatter-gun anti-Iran thoughts in that paean to journalistic mediocrity, USA Today ("Palin: It's Time to Get Tough on Iran.")

Her lede falls flat precisely because of its hypocrisy:

"Iran continues to defy the international community in its drive to acquire nuclear weapons. Arab leaders in the region rightly fear a nuclear-armed Iran. We suspected this before, but now we know for sure because of leaked diplomatic cables."

So, La Palin brands Wikileaks founder Julian Assange a traitor and a terrorist for his document leakage, but has no qualms about using data acquired by the same dirty deed. Apparently, irony is a lost art among those who hail from the Great White North. Or maybe it is just that expediency trumps consistency.

How do you say, "hypocrite"?

Sweetheart of the Rodeo

Saw your picture on a poster, in a cafe out in Phoenix
Guess you're still the sweetheart of the rodeo
--Everything That Glitters, Dan Seals

You're a liar and you're a cheat
And I don't know why
I let you do these things to me
--I Never Loved a Man, Aretha Franklin

The love that dare not speak its name
--Two Loves, Lord Alfred Douglas
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We elect politicians to be leaders, but politics has corrupted even that concept.

Take two Governors who have shared the spotlight recently -- Sarah Palin and Charlie Crist.

Florida's Governor Crist is an actively serving governor doing what the people elected him to do, for better or worse. However, due to extreme partisanship, the Republican party has emasculated him and thrown him under the bus just prior to party nominations. All because he hugged a man belonging to the wrong party.

Contrast this to the adulation heaped upon the exceedingly mediocre former Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, by elements within the Republican party. She abandoned her elected office and became the sweetheart of the Teabagger Movement, which fancies itself a reformation movement. However, to choose as their figurehead a disloyal betrayer hardly bodes well for their pretensions to integrity and will only serve to further fragment the Republican party.

So one is adored for her lack of leadership, while the other is scorned while doing his duty and not pandering to the vocal reactionaries. When did forsaking one's duties become a family value? Moreover, when did reaching across the divide to one's (ideologically separate) brothers become not a Christian value?

America chooses its leaders by mistaking demagoguery for greatness, when it is really a sign of mental midgetry. Where lies integrity when shirking one's responsibilities is transvalued into a New Age positive: "Going Rogue"?

Bonfire of the Vanities

American woman, said get away
American woman, listen what I say
I don’t need your war machines
I don’t need your ghetto scenes
--American Woman, The Guess Who

Sometimes I think its a sin
When I feel like
I'm winnin' when I'm losin' again
--Sundown, Gordon Lightfoot

Un-slumping yourself is not easily done
--Oh! The Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss

____________

Ranger Observation of the Day:
Indicator that the U.S. has not won the wars--
There is no George W. Bush Avenue
anywhere in Iraq or Afghanistan

___________

Sarah Palin, despite being a singularly unriveting woman, continues to rivet the nation. Since John McCain was a life-long military officer, her selection makes sense, militarily-speaking. In any unit, in any situation, one of the following two power dynamics apply:

• Strong commander + a weak executive officer
• Vice versa

There is never strong-strong or weak-weak. This is necessitated by the need for one commander and one voice within an organization. This applies in the political arena, as well.

For example, in 1944 the U.S. had a strong Franklin Delano Roosevelt teamed with a weak Harry Truman. Probably no Vice President could have been stronger than FDR. The same dynamic applied to Clinton-Gore.

The Kennedy-Johnson pairing showed a President weaker than the VP, with Johnson being the political heavyweight of that equation. The same power reversal is true of the current Bush-Cheney dynamic.

On the other hand, Eisenhower had a weaker VP in Richard Nixon, as did Johnson in Hubert Humphrey, Nixon in Spiro Agnew, Ronald Reagan in George H.W. Bush, and H.W. Bush in Danforth Quayle.

Nixon became strong when he adopted law-and-order as an election issue. Humphrey failed to gain the presidency against him, as he did not successfully transition into a figure of power, as had Nixon. In addition, he was another example of a weak-weak pairing in his choice of running mate --Edmund Muskie. H.W. Bush won against another weak-weak combo -- Michael Dukakis and Geraldine Ferraro, but he failed to gain re-election because he did not grasp that it was the economy, stupid.

The same is true of Reagan and Bush. Bush 43 lists Reagan as his ideological father vs. his own biological father. Even he recognized the power disparity. Listing Reagan as his ideological father is a stretch, however, as it is doubtful that Bush has the ability to be inspired by anything other than sports figures and analogies.

Imagine the consequences had either Quayle or Agnew ascended to the presidency. The country can ill-afford such mediocrity.

The Obama-Biden ticket seems an attempt to infuse adult wisdom to the untried upstart, much as Cheney ostensibly did for Bush. However, age and years in does not equate with strength. While Biden may be the experiential heavyweight, the Obama-Biden ticket still fails the strength-weak test. Much as with the Bush-Cheney ticket, neither candidates brings a preponderance of strength. Both are weak-weak pairs. Bluster and bravado does not substitute for strength.

The weak Bush-Cheney pairing won due to the Rove machine which shut down the weak opposition of Kerry-Lieberman. BushCheney won its second term on fear and war alone.

For better or worse, McCain is temperamentally unable to accept a running mate that would outshine him in any area other than conservative/Christian brilliance. Like LBJ, Palin balances the ticket, proving an unrepentant champion of everything far-right. She is the antidote to any questions of McCain's maverick leaping the fence

If McCain is to be castrated, it must be by the lovely Sarah, who will keep him in the fundamentalist pasture. The apparatchiks must be assured of no more of his youthful flirtations with liberal ideology. She imparts a virility, with a femininity more robust than his masculinity.
Palin has become the dominant member of the McCain-Palin ticket, despite lacking all depth.

She seems the stronger member, yet she is weakness personified. Per our paradigm, this weak-weak matchup would seem to be a losing hand. if this ticket flies, this would be the first case in American politics of pigs having wings.

In their rush to mediocrity, the republicans are exploiting and contending for the heart of a degraded nation. They fail to address the real issues which will dog this nation for generations to come, causing a reification of what it means to live a "good life."

Palin may have knocked Obama off the front page, but she is a disaster waiting to happen.

She's Like Me!

Americans want someone who is like me, or worse
--Rob Riggle, explaining the Sarah Palin phenomenon
on 9/11 Jon Stewart show

I can rub & scrub this old house
'til it's shinin like a dime
Feed the baby, grease the car,
and powder my face at the same time
--I'm A Woman, Peggy Lee

So-uh, are you experienced?
Have you ever been experienced?
--Are you experienced?, Jimi Hendrix

______________

Ranger Observation:
Every time Palin and McCain are photographed together,
body language suggest Palin is the alpha
______________

Sarah Palin is everywhere. She was in Barney's Cafe in Mt. Airy, N.C.; she was in New York, Vermont and Maine, too. She is all over the Deep South.

All of these everyday women look so very much like her, and drive the same SUV's I imagine Ms. Palin to drive. Their prime concern is their backyard, and they don't know too much about the news cycle. They don't need to.

With Sarah Palin's VP nomination, we see the great leveling impulse in America reaching for the highest office of the land. Sarah Palin is us, or at least, a large portion of us. She is the Obama antivenin.

Why? Because he is too slick, too cool, too modern. We are not there yet, aside from some privileged East and West Coasters. We are potato and corn eaters, and when we vacation, a hunting trip and a little venison might be a big treat.

JFK spoke in his 1961 inaugural speech of a "new generation of Americans—born in this century, tempered by war. . . proud of our ancient heritage—and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world."

Today's generations do not know their history, and they stand mute witness to the slow undoing of their own civil rights, and the violation of others human rights around the world. They are prey to the dictates of the media. They imagine they are free, because they do not know from absolute servitude.

Talk about your Equal Rights: Sarah Palin, can shoot, field dress AND cook the moose. She is both 1808 and 2008 for much of America. Forget the bits about rolling back reproductive rights and all the rest. Palin is a palliative, a sop to Americans for whom America is moving too fast.

She is not slick with that Midwestern nasal accent, but she is a bulldog. We have never had a Winston Churchill, but she will suffice. Basketball player/beauty queen contestant, every schoolboy's high school dream. And life gets so complicated after high school, so Palin is a happy throwback. She is the John Mellencamp nee Cougar of the political scene. She is "Jack and Diane," and sometimes girls get knocked up when they dribble off their Bobbie Brooks without using a prophylactic.

But the "sin" is turned into God's will, transmuted into a miracle which thereby obliterates the stain. When you give humans dominion over the earth, dismiss evolution and subjugate the reality of the biological imperative to procreate in everything from amoebas to yaks, it is easy to do.

What if Trig, Palin's Down Syndrome baby of questionable parentage, were not seen as a gift from God, but rather a curse? It has been speculated that Trig is actually Palin's daughter's illegitimate child. In any event, Trig, and every other difficult offspring of such unions may just be God's punishment to the offenders of his law. Just a thought.

And what if Trig were not born into the family of the lady governor. What if he were the spawn of a crack whore, a child that ends up in the state orphanage system. Is he still a "gift"? If so, who is gifted? Trig works well as a prop to buoy up the rhetoric of the "beliefs" of a conservative fundamentalist politician. But all is perspective.
Palin is the champion of every woman who conceives out of wedlock, especially those hypocrites who claim to be religious adherents, condemning fornication. She symbolizes shotgun weddings, both hers and her daughter's. Obama declaims that the press mayn't probe into Ms. Palin's family secrets, much as he told the press his own family was off limits. But Obama's perorations are off-base.

Candidate Obama was supposed to bridge the gap, bringing black and white worlds together, co-opting the ministerial oratory of Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Rev. Martin Luther King. Raise us up to another level. The problem is, most Americans like who they are, just like most people in general. They resent uppity Michelle Obama telling them her husband will take them to a new place, from which they will never be able to go back. We are Green Mountain Boys, not Red Octobrists.

Outdoing Obama on the in-the-hood street cred comes white bread Ms. Palin, daughter preggers at sixteen or seventeen by another high schooler. Palin thrives precisely because she is lacking. Her rhetoric and stated ideals are not consistent with the messy realities of her and her family member's lives. With every new revelation, every attempt to skewer, comes a greater sympathy, because "She is like me."

For many black Americans, the Huxtables of the Cosby show are not their reality. It takes a village because there is a daddy dearth. Obama and family present a tidy image, but the dream is not the reality.

The dream of Camelot may have flown in JFK's day, and Jacqueline Kennedy was an image of refinement to which many aspired, but today, we have the apotheosis of "Lost" team members and reality shows whose members are admired for their thick carapaces and willingness to eat grasshoppers.

Madison Avenue has known this little secret for ages. The women in your household ads must not be too glamorous, for the consumer must relate to your product, and even feel a little better than the actor, if possible. All of this is written in full understanding that politics should concern itself with matters of state, but in full sorrowful realization that it is in fact a beauty contest.

Ergo, Sarah Palin, American candidate extraordinaire. Karl Rove would be proud.

Oilgarchy, or, The Grand Oil Party

You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen
--Dancing Queen, ABBA
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First, we can almost promise you never to run ABBA lyrics again. Next, we loved this cartoon showing our own Governor Christ, always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Odds are on his engagement to Ms. Rome falling through the cracks. These are tough times for true love.

A feeling of disquiet surrounds the choice of Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as McCain's running mate.

She is being billed as a "regular guy" (provided your regular guy is pro-NRA, pro-life, Big Oil, pro-war, pro-drilling, pro-Bush) concerned with the everyday woes of the average American, but Ranger believes neither party addresses the real strifes facing the average taxpaying citizen. There are not Two Americas as John Edwards contended, between his long thrust and crossover series with his sharp little bayonet. There are three Americas: The Republicans, the Democrats, and the rest of us not clearly represented by either party.

We The People allow this. McCain claims he will rejuvenate the GOP with honor and integrity, but what is the motivation behind elevating an unknown short-term governor to the VP slot? Our own Vice President Cheney may have had a hand in this selection.

What we do know about Alaska connections:

• The husband of the governor is a productions operator for BP.
• U.S. Senator Ted Stevens (AK) was indicted by a federal grand jury on seven counts of failing to report gifts received from oil field contractors.
• VP Cheney writes the Alaska legislature on Stevens' behalf, bringing illicit if not illegal pressure on the legislature to favor Stevens' proposals.
• Cheney's role was ignored in Stevens' trial.

What are the linkages between:

• Governor of Alaska and Cheney
• Cheney and McCain
• Cheney and BP
• Sarah Palin and Ted Stevens

If these connections are explored and drilled, Ranger bets we'll hit oil.