Monday, September 15, 2008

Does the right realize what they've bought with Palin?

I find this interesting (via Ross Douthat): Cowen suggests that the right has unwittingly lost control of their movement by pegging it to a blank slate from Alaska. What if she turns out to be a Buchananite? What if she's uber-neocon? The right wing doesn't know, and they don't really seem to care, because all the factions think she's "one of us". It's interesting how all the criticisms that the right has made about Obamania over the past year or so have all come true, even more so, on the right. People projected (and still project) their hopes onto Barack Obama, but he has become the embodiment of the Democratic Party at this point in history. He stands for what Democrats stand for, and has said so many times. Palin doesn't seem to stand for much aside from untruth, and Republicans are so desperate for something to save them from a richly deserved political oblivion that they've basically handed everything over to Palin on some pretty flimsy evidence that she's really one of them. God only knows.

The Man, The Myth, The Bio

East Bay, California, United States
Problem: I have lots of opinions on politics and culture that I need to vent. If I do not do this I will wind up muttering to myself, and that's only like one or two steps away from being a hobo. Solution: I write two blogs. A political blog that has some evident sympathies (pro-Obama, mostly liberal though I dissent on some issues, like guns and trade) and a culture blog that does, well, cultural essays in a more long-form manner. My particular thing is taking overrated things (movies, mostly, but other things too) down a peg and putting underrated things up a peg. I'm sort of the court of last resort, and I tend to focus on more obscure cultural phenomena.