Wednesday, September 03, 2008

George Will Defends McCain's Choice of Palin by Comparing Him to Nixon and Buchanan



Ha, ha! This is twisted logic even by Will's standards. And then he tries to compare Sarah Palin to James Madison*! Please tell me if you can make sense of this:

In his Denver speech, Barack Obama derided the "discredited Republican philosophy" that he caricatured in four words -- "you're on your own." Then he promised to "keep . . . our toys safe." Among the four candidates for national office, perhaps only Palin might give a Madisonian answer -- one cognizant of the idea that the federal government's powers are limited because they are enumerated -- if asked to identify any provision of the Constitution, other than the First Amendment, that imposes meaningful limits on congressional or executive authority to act.

If so, she would be a good influence on Washington, including McCain. But is there any evidence that she has thought about such matters? McCain's selection of her is applied McCainism -- a visceral judgment by one who is confidently righteous. But the viscera are not the seat of wisdom.


Wait... what?

*James Madison! The man who said, "An alliance or coalition between government and religion cannot be too carefully guarded against." That James Madison.

11 comments:

Matthew Hubbard said...

Princess, you want to beat up Richard Cohen, and do so brilliantly in the satisfying medium of Photoshop. I almost always want to give George Will a smack.

As for James Madison, if he didn't play for the Edmonton Oilers, I don't think Sarah's gonna know who he is.

Karen Zipdrive said...

Sarah will think he's the owner of Madison Square Garden.

Steve said...

That would be the same Madison who had to flee a burning Washington?

Anonymous said...

I found your site last week thanks to a link from BlueGal. Since you were on vacay, I amused myself reading some older posts. Thanks for everything. The post about the mouse under the flag pile: priceless. All hail Princess Sparkle Pony and her PhotoBlog(tm)!

Anonymous said...

Let alone the contextual cherry-picking George does here in criticizing Obama.

Let alone his invoking of James Madison, whose notoriety with most people consists of a vague recollection of his marriage to the world's first cloned sheep.

Let alone his maligning of viscera, which will no doubt lead to a series of televised debates between him and Stephen Colbert.

I want to talk about (read: flame) his grammar!

Dude, I like to write convoluted sentences as much as the next person. But the last sentence of the first paragraph of that quote... wow. Boasting over 55 words, tossing out clauses and phrases like they were candy from a volunteer firetruck, and containing multiple complex-convex modifier relationships, one needs differential calculus to diagram it. Adding a brief primer on constructionist constitutional theory only makes it that much more accessible! Way to go, Mr. Writer!! The young folks are swayed!!

dguzman said...

What a blowhard.

Anonymous said...

any plans out there for a harriet myers-type blog on our li'l sarah on the tundra?

Anonymous said...

Will is a pompous ass, part of the fraudulent Republican "intelligentsia" the star of which is the soon-to-be-forgotten "Dr" Rice.

Anonymous said...

He's risen to new levels of flatulence. Hell, I'd rather read Milton at his worst!

Jess Wundrun said...

I bet you a dozen mooseburgers that Shotgun Granny Palin doesn't have a clue what 'enumerated powers' even means.

Anonymous said...

You need to read the Will piece again. He is not being kind or complimentary to Palin at all.