Wah! (The Cry of the Dingbat)

By Jonathan Bert
The Extreme Moderate

March 2, 2009

The Governor of Alaska, and former vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin is crying because the “Liberal Media” picked on her during last fall’s campaign. I am not liberal, but I picked on her then, and now I’m going to pick on her some more!

First thing to address is her claim that there is a lot of liberal media out there. Looking at the media, most are pretty fair and balanced, except those that claim to be fair and balanced, which are fronts for the right. Some print media leans to the Left, like the New Yorker, but as the New Yorker portrayed the Obamas as terrorists on one of their covers, even they can’t be said to be in the pockets of the left. Very little print media is right wing, unless they are willing to print a lot of pictures. The bumpkins of the extreme right aren’t heavy into reading. Talk radio is very right wing, fronted by Rush Limbaugh followed by hundreds of Limbaugh wannabes. Again, bumpkins don’t read. Television coverage does seem relatively balanced; but of course, we can’t forget Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, which is the bullhorn of the Right.

I agree, the media did kind of fall in love with Obama. In a land hungry for change, Obama clearly represented change. And being relatively unknown, heavy media coverage helped us to understand this complicated man, this man that wanted to run this country.

The problem is Sarah Palin is a Dingbat. She is not complicated at all. She always has been a dingbat, and she always will be a dingbat. She is proud of being a “Hockey Mom,” but if you ever met a hockey mom, you would not be impressed with their rational train of thought. She is a pit bull with lipstick, she hunts wolves from helicopters and calls it “Sport.” She thinks she can understand Russia because she can see it from her front porch. Her views on social issues are from the 19th century. Dingbat!

When Obama and McCain had their nominations sewed up, I still hadn’t made up my mind. I wanted to see who they picked for V-P. I’d liked McCain for a long time, he’d been the voice of moderation for decades, but I wasn’t impressed with the butt kissing he had done to get the nomination. I was hoping he would go back to being a voice of reason once he was free to do so. Obama was a scary choice. Inexperienced, and nobody knew a lot about him. He had held a statewide office for two years, and here he was, claiming to be ready to take the reins of the planet’s most powerful country. I needed to know more.

Obama picked Joe Biden, a solid choice. Biden is not any sort of moderate, but he is of sound mind, with vast knowledge of all of the issues facing this country, especially foreign affairs. This was important to me. One of my favorite quotations came from a “Dirty Harry” movie, “A good man knows his limitations.” Obama’s big limitation is foreign affairs, and he addressed this with his choice of Biden. His first decision as a candidate was excellent. (The choice of Biden, coupled with the choice of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, makes the Obama administration rock solid in an area that Obama, personally, is weak. A good man, indeed, knows his limitations.) I am impressed.

McCain, on the other hand, disappointed me beyond any possible expectation. He chose Palin. A Governor for two years, this really tied Republican hands to paint Obama as inexperienced. A person with total disdain for rational thought, she proposed that dinosaurs roamed the Earth as recently as 5,000 years ago. If she was referring to her fellow Republicans, she would have had a point, but she wasn’t. She was referring to actual dinosaurs! McCain chose this backward bumpkin solely for her appeal to the backward bumpkins that got us in the mess we’re in in the first place! Her only accomplishment that she could point to proudly was killing the “Bridge to Nowhere,” showing that she does have more fiscal restraint than any Republican has had for 30 years. But generally, McCain’s choice was a disaster. He obviously was driven by his ambition, not his concern for the country. Why didn’t he just pick Paris Hilton?

Sorry John, but you lost because you abandoned those that loved you, moderates and independents. You tried to paint yourself as a maverick during the campaign, but your choice of Palin painted you as a butt-kisser. You probably could have been a good President, but you’re in a demographic that is capable of dropping dead, and the thought of President Palin made my sphincter pucker. More so, even, than the thought of a Democratic monopoly in Washington. (Where’s the antacid?)

So Sarah, get real. Any media source that says you are not a dingbat is biased toward bumpkins. Only the most stupid, backward and ignorant people on this the face of this Earth could look anybody straight in the eye and claim that you are capable of running the local PTA, much less a superpower. I wanted John McCain, the real John McCain, to win. But the real John McCain doesn’t exist anymore; he’s sold out to the extreme right. Sarah Palin is living proof.