Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Note to Cindy McCain

Umm, yeah, here's the thing: nobody cares about what you have to say. Seriously. I don't mean this as an insult, but I just gotta say it. You are not a public officeholder. You are not running for public office. You have no experience in public policy, and what you have to say adds nothing to the conversation. In other words, you have no standing from which to attack Barack Obama, and I don't see why any media outlets would even bother to cover your idiot-ass remarks, but that's a whole other hill of beans.

You are not going to be the new Jackie Kennedy come November 5. You are only going to be the rich wife of a famous senator. Cool your jets. I know this might seem harsh, but it annoys me when the spouses get involved in this way. You can go out stumping and talk about your husband in personal terms, fine. But this sexist idea that the women married to presidential candidates have to or should put their lives on hold and invest themselves wholly in their spouse's endeavours is irritating, and that the media covers the remarks of political spouses as part of the neverending freakshow of modern politics is a pet peeve of mine. I didn't like it when Bill Clinton did it (though he has a bit more standing than Mrs. McCain). I can understand that they want to be famous too, but why don't the candidates rein their spouses in?

Say what you like about Howard Dean, but we didn't have this problem with him.

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.