John and Sara are so Juan and Eva...

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 10:48am

So McCain appeared without Herself for the first time since the convention, and apparently, there was no there there. Lower attendance, and lots of calls for Obama.

I keep thinking of EVITA, ever since they took to the road. The shouts of "Peron! Peron!" ultimately drowned out by "Evita! Evita!" Even the famous "I will be a great Vice President" keeps popping into my head, to say nothing of "I'd be surprisingly good for you..." Eva's shirt-sleeved ones are Sarah's sahcker maaahms.

What I still believe: Mr. McC is secretly more than a little put off that he's been eclipsed. As Gail Collins wrote today, Barak Obama is now running against the Governer of Alaska. These are not people with small egos.

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 11:00am

Interesting comparison.

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 11:02am

And very apt, IMO.

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 11:11am

Yesterday I heard they cannot keep her eyeglass frames on the shelves, everyone must have the Sarah titanium set at 375 a pop. So much for Obama's old celebrity status vs. her overnight sensation. However, we are a fickle lot, and have only seen the tip of this iceberg, rising in the Alaskan waters. My eyes are still bugging out from the Enquirer thread. Won't that stuff stick? Forget "family's off limits" -- she is prepackaged and sold as a "regular mom." Off limits or not, the kids' behavior will be discussed.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 12:19pm

Excellent analogy, Auggie.

Sarita! Sarita! Sarita!

What's new, Charlie Gibson?
I'm new, I wanna say I'm just a little stuck on you
You'll be stuck on me too

I said "Hello there, Minneapolis!
Stand back, you oughta know whatcha gonna get in me
Just a little touch of star quality"

They filled me up with their heat, with their noise,
With their flags, overpraised me,
If they think I'll just talk to the press after that,
Then they're crazy
I held back, you did too,
All the media do, they're so lazy!

Hello, Charlie Gibson!
Deference is all you need to get to me
Then we'll give em something to see!

Stand back, Charlie Gibson
Because you oughta know whatcha gonna get in me
Just a little touch of
Just a little touch of
Just a lipstick touch of star quality

Updated On: 9/11/08 at 12:19 PM

[uncageg]

Posted: 9/11/08 at 12:23pm

Nice!

[EponineAmneris]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 8:53am

FindingNamo, that is GREAT

[Roscoe]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 9:35am

Let's not insult Juan and Eva by comparing them to John and Sara. At least Juan and Eva inspired a pretty good musical, which is more than those other foul animals will ever do.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 9:42am

Just a lipstick touch of star quality

Perfect.

[violet72]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 9:59am

I literally spit coffee after reading this thread

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 10:07am

After her glorious fiasco with Charlie Gibson, something tells me we're going to be hearing less and less from Sarita as the weeks pass.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 10:09am

What we consider a fiasco is considered a triumph by Republicans.

They think she did great. Seriously. Go on their chat boards.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 10:14am

It seems at this point that all the Republicans need to do is sound like plain ol' folk, without any oddities (a funny name, an odd religious affliation, too much education) poking out anywhere.

Seriously. We used to want the best and brightest; now we want the most "normal." (I'd make those quotes bigger if I knew how.)

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 10:28am

Reggie, I posted this on the Matt Damon thread, but I think it merits repeating in this one:

...the bigger picture of what Matt is trying to say... (without dissecting every single one of his words or references)...

Why do we like to elect these "average people" to hold the most important and complex job we have to offer in the United States?

We don't pick our surgeons, our lawyers or our teachers because they're our "buddies" and we can relate to them. We pick them because of their education, their intelligence and their experience.

If you are stricken with cancer, are you going to look for someone who's "real?" ...who's a socker-mom and comes from a middle class, small town background? Someone you could shoot pool (or wolves) with? Are you going to hold this criteria above all else for the person you select to help you fight your cancer?

This isn't a bid for Homecoming King and Queen, although most people act like it is, when they talk about why they like a certain presidential candidate.

And that's what's frightening to Matt, and to me, and to millions of others... It's come this far.

...but maybe because there are not enough "millions of others" to stop it, which is the nightmarishly disturbing part.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 10:29am

Well said, Besty.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 10:33am

I've said this in other threads: Democrats vote for candidates who are exceptional. Republicans vote for candidates who are ordinary.

That's the scariest thing about Sarah Palin: She's even more ordinary than George Bush, and, therefore, potentially even more electable.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 10:41am

The problem is they don't get the job description.

They think ALL politicians (regardless of duty) should be "representative" of who the people are. WRONG.

I totally get why the senate and the house are made of "folks just like us," because they are supposedly representing the voice of the people who elected them.

But the president is the chief executive officer. He or she isn't "one of the boys." And shouldn't be. The prez is the Big Boss. The one who SHOULD be smarter, more informed and more intelligent than "normal" people.

He/she isn't a congressman. The prez is making executive decisions, and should be leading a nation, not mirroring it.

Why do people forget this? They use the same exact criteria, values and experience for congress as they do for PoTUS. And... IT'S NOT THE SAME JOB.

[violet72]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 10:51am

I also think that if people elected a president based on "someone I can have a beer with", handsome, not too educated(aka elitists), then half of our greatest presidents would never have been elected

Surely FDR, Lincoln, Truman, couldn't be elected now

They would also have issues with some of our founding fathers like Adams and Jefferson, who were insanely intelligent. Ben Franklin was someone I would have liked to have a beer with but he was smart

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 11:02am

I think the shift in attitude started after Nixon. Smart started to equal untrustworthy.

[shira467]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 11:03am

Besty, I totally picked my plastic surgeon because he's cute. I mean, how can he be expected to make me beautiful is he's not?!

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 11:05am

That's because we used to elect the person we looked up to.

We don't anymore. We want eye-to-eye.

It's almost narcissistic. They're electing a reflection of themselves to the highest office in the land. Almost as if to say, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and DOG GONE IT, people like me."

Talk about pride. "We" actually think that "we" are worthy of this job. When in truth, "we" are dumber than a post, collectively. But we're proud to be Americans.

We don't want what's best anymore. We want what we know, and what we already have. We want "ourselves." That kind of pride is blinding, and ultimately sad, disgusting and crippling.

Americans used to know that they couldn't read, or knew their history, or grammar, or weren't educated in general, or didn't have broad experience. They were STILL proud of themselves as people (rightfully), but they also looked up to the people out there who could lead them and improve and inspire their lives. Now, they're "challenged" by those who would be "better." Threatened by them. They actually think so much of themselves that they almost feel it's a direct competition. "He thinks he's smarter than me!" sort of thing.

I hope to GOD that my president is smarter than me!

That's what we've lost, over the years.

And that's why we'll never have another Lincoln, FDR, TR or Kennedy, until that mindset changes.

Updated On: 9/12/08 at 11:05 AM

[Auggie27]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 11:47am

Totally agree with Best12.

Somewhere along the line, the widening gap between what we know and what we should know became unmanageable to the average American. Rather than face shortfalls in education, knowledge, or even just curiosity, we opted to expect our leadership to reflect our inadequacies. The learned who know more, demonstrate wisdom, are now said to "talk down to us." Those who recycle talking points, define crises and solutions in black and white terms, are "clear and strong." It's a revelation that keeps on giving, and it's frightening as hell.

[best12bars]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 12:22pm

Just some additional thoughts...

I'm not trying to say that the president can't be a soccer mom, or a backwoods senator from Illinois. We know the latter was pretty impressive, historically.

But they need to be smarter than me. Where they came from, or where they learned their smarts (on their own, or from a fancy facility) doesn't matter.

But we need to starting "hiring" people smarter than us again, for the most important job in the United States.

The problem with that is the "trust factor," as Auggie says. We trust ourselves. It's easy to look in a mirror and say, "Yeah, I know that. I can relate to that." So that's how we vote, collectively. Then we end up electing "ourselves" to an office that we aren't qualified for. It's much harder to judge someone that we DON'T know, or fully understand, and say, "I trust him or her. This person has the intelligence, the experience and the savvy, and is going to make a difference."

That's a much braver move. Why? Because we've been burned by it in the past, and I agree that Nixon was a major turning point in the "trust factor" of the voters. He was outwardly smarter than us, but he was also a crafty, cunning crook, and he got caught. The trust of these so-called intellectual leaders went completely out the window.

We would rather elect someone we "know" and trust over someone that's smarter than us who were not sure of. Then we can say, "well at least he wasn't a crook!" When in truth, what we get is, "at MOST he wasn't a crook. He didn't do anything at all except not burn the White House down."

Updated On: 9/12/08 at 12:22 PM

[violet72]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 1:25pm

It's like what John Adams said

" I would to god there were more ambition in the country...by that I mean ambition of the laudible kind, to excel"

[NGD2225]

Posted: 9/12/08 at 3:18pm

Hey! I came up with this analogy 2 days ago after "Les Misbarack"