Some timely borrowed content re: the alien landing we saw last night on the TV*
10 Comments Published October 3rd, 2008 in Miscellaney, Nonsense fun.
From Aden Nak, courtesy Tagen Goddard. Though it’s also on DailyKos.
The chart is prefaced by a cathartic rant/critique which, while it suffers from an unfortunate dip in rhetorical grace in the opening ¶, courtesy a ripple of unchecked misogyny, is peppered with some interesting insights and a nice Supreme Court case run-down.
For those of us scratching our heads and wondering what the hell just happened, and/or those of us who spent the vice presidential debate last night yelling at the TV time & again that “That wasn’t an answer! That was yet another meaningless cliché!” this does a tidy job of summing it up.
* [Addenda in the comments.]
10 Responses to “Some timely borrowed content re: the alien landing we saw last night on the TV*”
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Lesbian Dad is written by a parent who answers to the name "Baba" and works toward a world in which amor does indeed vincit omnia. 
We MAY have a minor victory here in my Great Lakes State … it seems the republican camp is packing up their tents and heading to other “important” states where they think they might have a fighting chance. I won’t have to suffer through any more commercials sitting on my hands so I don’t throw things at my TV and I should be able to drive to and from work listening to the radio without becoming enraged at the absolute lies coming from my speakers every three songs. Of course, this also means the democratic campaigns will scale back their efforts here as well and can spend more money combating the republicans in other battleground states. – While this by no means guarantees our 17 electorate votes for Obama, it certainly looks like McCain has tossed up the white flag in that contest.
Addendum #1: Re: her checking her index cards. I thought Aden was kidding. Apparently not: our intrepid Pam, at Pam’s House Blend, passes on this piece from Think Progress: VIDEO: Watch Sarah Palin Read Her Answers in Last Night’s Debate.
Addendum #2: Not like many of us were surprised by Biden’s unequivocal opposition to gay marriage (mitigated by the door prize of separate-but-equal civil unions). The whole point of the CA Supreme Court decision was, SEPARATE BUT EQUAL is LEGALLY INDEFENSIBLE. And, by the way, in effect, unequal. That’s why its being struck down has LGBT civil rights consequences nationwide. California had arguably (? inarguably?) the most widespread rights accorded to domestic partners before the state supreme court decision. We COULD visit partners in hospitals. We COULD be considered legal parents to children born to our partners. And so on. But that is not the ultimate, final point. There is no defensible argument that lesbians and gay men do not deserve access to the same institution afforded by the state to heterosexuals. Period, the end.
Still, it was the low point in the debate for me, and many of my kin. Since I believe Gwen Ifill’s wrap up of their discussion of that topic was something to the effect of, “Wonderful. You agree. On that note, let’s move to foreign policy.”
Many good discussions of this online; here’s one at DailyKos: Biden, Palin, and the gay marriage debate. And another, more a treatise with modest discussion to follow, by Leslie Bradshaw: It’s “Wonderful” – Biden and Palin “Agree.” And finally Pam Spaulding: “Biden, Palin, and that pesky marriage thing.”
Addendum #3: Obama’s position paper on LGBT Rights, for those curious about the specifics. At some later date I might cite some stuff I’ve read by Obama in his book The Audacity of Hope. Confirms the anti-gay marriage stance, but does show he has a degree of humility and an openness.
Pam Spaulding, in her piece on the Biden/Palin thing (linked in Addendum #2 above), is pragmatic:
What got my blood pressure higher than any other part of the debate was when Sarah Palin said something like gays would be “tolerated” by her. I can’t remember what she said exactly because my head exploded. I am a hetero and I was offended by this remark. Is that what Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the founding fathers had in mind when they started this country? I want my goverenment to tolerate me, even though they won’t give me the same basic rights as others? Are we supposed to feel good about this?
Thanks for providing some intellectual insights in the comments! I can’t seem to muster anything to say about her at this point other than, “GAAAAK!”
Sister, “GAAAAK!” may be the most sensible response to it all. You have company, over the “toleration” matter, in Abby Callard at Slate: Is Being Tolerant Acceptable?”
Sigh. Don’t get me started.
Thanks for taking offense. The more this is offensive to more people, the quicker we’ll be done with all this malarkey and get on with the business of attending to global political, economic, and environmental crises.
The chart sums it up perfectly.
Over here in Europe, we watched incredulously as the moderator let things slip by! I mean, answer the question already.
On the gay marriage question, we just looked at one another uncomprehendingly as Biden and Palin agreed.
That said, Palin said one of her best friends was gay in the Katie Couric interviews. Begs the question why said gay friend isn’t basically screaming at her and saying: wake up, step into the 20th century.
She basically reminds me of Bree in Desperate Housewives. Ever impeccably coiffed, the perfect mom, the perfect wife, the perfect woman. And hey, this one can hunt and drink a six-pack. You can just hear a certain male demographic all over the US heave a contented sigh…
Holy hockey sticks, what has the world come to, if this person is elected? The sad thing is that she is playing the popular vote marvellously.
Holy hockey sticks, indeed!
We were distressed on the lack of follow-up from Gwen Ifill, but after reading up a lot yesterday, I understand that was part of the agreed-upon format of the debate. I.e., no follow-ups from the moderator, but instead opportunity within the candidates for rebuttal, etc.:
Dont Blame Gwen Ifill if the Veep Debate Sucks, by Jack Shafer, at Slate, 1 Oct. 2008.
So I suppose we have the Obama campaign to blame for not pressing that matter. Or deciding tactically that it was worth giving that up for whatever other gains they got.
Would have been nice, though, wouldn’t it have been. Just one, eeensy, teensy follow-up. I mean, Gwen Ifill has been my favorite TV journalist since forever.
I remember feeling at that moment like I’d been punched in the gut. I knew the Obama/Biden position on gay marriage, but to hear Biden say it so unequivocally in agreement with the McCain/Palin ticket was something else.
Of course I will still support Obama – it is just too important on too many fronts that we have a major change of course in this country – but the feeling of betrayal lingers.
On the plus side, it has been nice to see some thoughtful and heartfelt response on some of the liberal blog sites.
e.g. http://journals.democraticunderground.com/NanceGreggs/450
“If I Don’t Stand With You…”
Thank you lizk for sharing that. I would recommend everyone click over and read it. It’s refreshing and inspiring.
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times (and since I’ve said it a thousand times, I suppose I’ve said it a million times): the battle against anti-gay bigotry has been advanced all these years by phenomenally brave queer people, but it will be won, finally, by the solidarity of clear-thinking, deep (enough) feeling heterosexual people whom we’ve moved. Or who simply have clear moral vision and the huevos to act on it.
Nance Greggs articulates what I’ve seen so many hetero allies here say (like, e.g., dimplecheeks!) and what I hope we’ll see manifest across Arizona, Arkansas, California, and Florida. It’s about damn time.
As to the close-but-no-cigar positions of national-level democratic politicians: I fully expect they will, before they retire from politics, be embarrassed at the least, ashamed at the most, by what they’ve said at this point in the battle. A decade from now, I’d guess two at the most. About how long it took for the CA state ruling invalidating anti-miscegenation to take at a national level (via that nice Loving couple in Virginia).