…and the politics of Minnesota:
Like Palin, she paints with broad strokes, which makes her opponents deeply concerned about the level of rhetoric in this troubled land. Rep. Alan Grayson can say Republicans want Americans to die, and Howard Dean can say the GOP doesn’t care whether kids go to bed hungry at night — these are regarded as piquant phrasings of an essential truth. Bachmann calls scooping up the health-care system into the arms of the government “socialism,” and she’s a shrieking know-nothing. For some, Bachmann is regarded as Palin’s Mini-Me, minus the high-powered weaponry. She’s one of those inauthentic women who has not realized that the possession of ovaries requires one to fight for social justice and greater regulation of everything except the Department of Regulations.
Go read the whole thing, from the best writer in Minnesota, if not the country.
I’ve given Palin AND Bachmann money. Does that make me sexist?
BTW Rand, 2 n’s
Does that make me sexist?
Well, DUH…
Fixed the spelling.
Minnesota is the state that elected its second least funny “humorist” to the US Senate.
Rand, you shouldn’t have dissed Iowahawk. When Burge & the boys come over with a case of Pabst and give you a prison tattoo, you’ve only yourself to blame. But you do have to like Lileks, though.
@ Bill Maron…it depends on what you gave the women money for…
She’s kinda hot, too.
I’d have no trouble voting for Bachmann or Palin. Or the combo, regardless of who had the top slot. (no matter how I worded that sentence it had a creepy Penthouse bent to it) And the fact that they are not male bothers me not.
I’d much rather vote for a woman with good conservative ideals and strong love of America as it should be, than another McCain or (God forbid!!!) Romney. When I see these ladies, I think of Thatcher, or Meir, and now Merkel.
Women strong enough to say and do the right things at the right time. Something many MALE candidates / leaders don’t do any longer for sure or we wouldn’t be in the financial and military messes we’re in right now.
I think there are two reasons the libs talk them down.
First and foremost, the idea that the first woman President will probably be Republican drives them insane.
Second, I’m convinced that for ALL their equality blathering, the libs DON’T want a (mere) female in charge. It goes hand in hand with them NOT having very many minorities in positions of authority in their admins and about as many as elected members with dark skin or outdoor plumbing.
She’s one of those inauthentic women who has not realized that the possession of ovaries requires one to fight for social justice and greater regulation of everything except the Department of Regulations.
.
Rand, you shouldn’t have dissed Iowahawk.
I didn’t diss Iowahawk. He’s the best satirist, but even he would admit that Lileks is a better writer.
philw1776 Says:
Careful, they have husbands.
Second, I’m convinced that for ALL their equality blathering, the libs DON’T want a (mere) female in charge. It goes hand in hand with them NOT having very many minorities in positions of authority in their admins and about as many as elected members with dark skin or outdoor plumbing.
I think Palin’s problem was that she was the only high profile conservative woman at the time. It’s like the idea in the First World War that the first soldier over the top of the trench gets shot a lot.
Bachmann would have it easier, if only because opposition that targets her for what sex and ethnicity she is would be divided, and a bunch of the opposition would be desensitized to the idea of conservative women in positions of power.
Just looking out for you, Rand!
I think the specter of Margaret Thatcher* haunts the simple minds of American liberals. There she was, a woman, but she betrayed them all by not being a leftist — but the betrayal wasn’t so much politics (most American liberals know very little about foreign politics except the pabulum that they get in the professional news media about it) as it was she made British lefties mad. American liberals are all Europhiles (they think of Blighty as part of Europe) so if you upset their heroes in what they think of as their spiritual home you’ve become their enemy as well.
So anyway, when they see another conservative American politician, they see Margaret Thatcher. They also see to a lesser extent such old conservative stalwarts as Phyllis Schlafly, but that’s the older libs — the younger set probably doesn’t know who she was because she was never actually in the government.
*Yes I know she’s still living — it’s the specter of Prime Minister Thatcher, though, that liberals fear. Just as they are mortally afraid of Richard Nixon, as if he were still in the shadows, ready to jump out and yell “Boo! I’m baa-ack!”
I think one reason conservatives like them is that they are, as Der Schtumpy termed them, ladies, rather than the steamrollers in drag many progressive female politicians (e.g., Pelosi, Hilary, Boxer, Michele O.) give evidence of being.
But, really, from the left’s perspective, what gives them the right to the political spotlight? I mean, it’s not like they’re Kennedys, Gores, or Rockefellers. They’re just ordinary women with traditional American values, and, who in the heck ever heard of their husbands before their names became household words? Upstarts.
Danae, consider “steamrollers in drag” stolen. Further, women like Palin remind lefties of the conservative Christian home they ran to here, California, to get away from. She reminds them of dishwater dull meals around a table, thanking Jesus before digging-in and watching O’Riley afterwards on the barcalounger. I get it, but it doesn’t follow that one’s favorite movie/rockstar should be gov/prez.