Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Camille Paglia still hearts Sarah Palin

Oh, please (via Salon):

"I like Sarah Palin, and I've heartily enjoyed her arrival on the national stage. As a career classroom teacher, I can see how smart she is -- and quite frankly, I think the people who don't see it are the stupid ones, wrapped in the fuzzy mummy-gauze of their own worn-out partisan dogma. So she doesn't speak the King's English -- big whoop! There is a powerful clarity of consciousness in her eyes. She uses language with the jumps, breaks and rippling momentum of a be-bop saxophonist."

Yeah, jazz! That's it! Here is Palin apparently riffing like Coltrane on the economy:

"That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."

Ms. Palin, you insult our intelligence, and Ms. Paglia, you insult be-bop.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I know she relishes being a contrarian, but puhleeze - there's really no post-modern, jazz metaphor bullshit analysis that can excuse the smug, know-nothingness of Palin. Sorry, Paglia, but naked ambition does not greatness make (wow, that last sentence was kind of jazzily syncopated in an Art Blakey-esque way...).

I think Paglia's experiencing a Sapphic version of the same blindness ordinarily smart, reasonable men (like my dad, scarily enough) who confuse finding her attractive with her being competent. Oy...

Unknown said...

In a jazzy kind of way, I left out a word in the second paragraph - because the notes you DON'T play are just as important as the ones you DO!

Nic Fit said...

Actually the notes you don't play are *more* important...