Like the kinds of blog posts that people keep coming back to on your site. In my case, the second most popular entry on this blog is here. The source site, somecards.com, wants to do for e-cards what The Onion does for news. I'm all for it, but you do find out how hard it is to be very funny all the time. Funny's not too hard, if you're irrevocably in the mood. Very funny is a wholly different order of production. My hat is off to anyone who commits to such projects and can live with the lulls.
For the record, this is my favorite Onion headline to date: social insight and a standup-quality slam, all rolled into one.
But I'm not so interested in culling the 'net for amusements, much less reporting what I think is worth repeating. I give you today's e-card not because it's funny. It's my worry. I've been wrong before, see. Nothing tells me I am more out of touch with the will of my own country than to see an average mind, a lackluster businessman, an inept public speaker, and by a measure of his record, a brutal man -- not firm in character, mind you, just thick in hide -- voted to the US presidency. Twice. And not just by electoral votes, mind you, but by the inability of the Democratic party to put a candidate, a campaign team, and a backbone together. Twice.
Sarah Palin might even be a more absurd choice than Dan Quayle, but for different reasons. Quayle was the crazy pill. No GOP oligarch would dare leave George H.W. Bush exposed, knowing who was next in line: a man so numbingly daft you could never be sure you had control of him. If you're not sure how smart choosing a clueless VP can be, look at Cheney. That's a guy who will take a swing at anyone. A guy who has shot a presumed colleague in the face. If I saw that kind of crazy in my political future, my running mate would be Crispin Glover.
Palin's not that kind of problem, other than being an avid "hunter." No, this pick does something else. It turns the current campaign into a limbo dance of suitability for world leadership. Even Quayle had driven on a freeway before, and knew not to pick out his glass frames from 80's MTV videos.
Are you supposed to prefer Palin because she's a woman, you undecided female voter you? Or because Hillary didn't win the Democratic nomination, and you're supposed to feel cheated? Are you tired of having the right to determine whether you must carry a child to term, even if the pregnancy was forced upon you? Maybe you're tired of hearing about alternative energy and just want more oil, darn it, and you want Big Oil companies to drill for it as they please, and charge you at speculative global rates, because baby, that's how they price it, fellow Americans or not. Or maybe you just think it's time a plucky, small-town gal got her shot at running a world power that's currently in not a little geopolitical hot water.
I'm hoping not, but not out of faith. My trust is in Hollywood. If I trust anyone to raise cynicism, demographics, and low-brow junk mind tastes to an art form, it's Hollywood. If there's no major motion picture about some random female Klondike vice-president, it's safe to assume a) no focus group has brought it up; and b) no crazy-ass writer like Joe Ezsterhas has convinced a studio we need that story, much less starring Elizabeth Berkley and her signature style of dancilepsy. (Or has that been done? The closest thing I can think of, beyond a woman strong enough to become the president's high-class tail, is Protocol.)
I sure hope I don't ever need to send this card. I can tell you though, after eight years of the moral, philosophical and spiritual breakdown of this country's image, to itself and to the world, I will, if I see you looking at Palin just because of her gender. I won't be laughing though, not like I am trying to now.
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