My friend Erin, a rock for me since midway through high school, is inspiring me to try harder with this blogging thing. Her blog is funny and interesting and smart, and I aspire to be more like her with this blog. She's naturally much funnier than I am, and without the sarcastic edge I tend to use to slice through life. Read her blog.
This post isn't going to be funny, however, but I mention Erin because she wrote a post that got to the heart of my biggest frustration with Sara Palin. I have a number of issues with her on the merits, but the biggest is how underwheliming her brand of "leadership" is. I don't want some "average, Joe six pack, soccer mom with lipstick on her pitbull" running our country. I know, I know, she's "only" running for VP. But can't we find two big thinkers out of the millions and millions of people who are in this country? She's carrying on the Bush tradition of relishing her own lack of vision and celebrating the very ordinariness (not a word, but whateva) of her being. I want GREATNESS, I want VISION, I want someone who thinks bigger and better and smarter, and who may not always hit the mark but is throwing him- or herself at the wall trying.
I don't generally think of myself as patriotic, mainly because the notion has been co-opted to mean that I have to drive a pick-up, have a flag pin, and drink shitty beer. I am, though, in the sense that I love this country and all of the possibilities that we celebrate every day. The fact that there are so many idiots on TV running their mouths and so many morons in Congress that I disagree with is a testament to what is so great about this place: there are possibilites to make a difference everywhere, no matter your abilities or beliefs. There are a lot of caveats and complications to this of course, but for the purposes of this discussion, it's true. There is no country on earth like America, and there is nowhere in the world I could have the life I have now, and I am thankful every single day.
When I really became interested in politics, I was about 13 years old, and my interest grew from an intense belief in social justice and the possibilities that exist if we all work together to make things better. I still have that belief, and a drive to make things better. This, despite working in professional politics for years and growing increasely jaded and disgusted with how our dear "leaders" behave. Even the ones that gross me out are generally there because they want to DO something and change things, an absolute imperative if America is to continue to be the great great place that it is.
Back to Lipstick Lady. Her race to the bottom of the bell curve is disturbing, but I'm even more bothered by how it is being embraced. I'm also disturbed by how the media is giving her a pass on her nonsensical verbiage and answers totally lacking in logic, reason, or depth. Enough. We have a great legacy of brilliance in this country: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Susan B. Anthony - all people who saw beyond what was to what could be and worked their asses off to get there and to get the rest of us to see it, too. America is not average, and our leaders shouldn't be either.
Seriously?:
SERIOUSLY? Watch just a few minutes of this, and listen for any kind of vision or aspirational thought:
I want this:
And this:
And this:
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