not like the others...

Isn't it interesting that the two people getting the most attention/the most vitriolic scrutiny in the election are the two who aren't white men?

Now, i love white men. I happen to be on the planet because of one. But it does seem to betray our general unease with the idea of really having one of "them" at the helm, as the figurehead representing "us".

It's striking, isn't it, that Pakistan had a female Prime Minister before the United States had a woman in executive office?

And if you try to tell me we aren't, in general, suspicious of men who are clearly of African or South American descent, i will pinch you to wake up.

But to make a start on my promise of a post in favor of McCain/Palin, i offer the following editorial by Michelle Malkin. "The Four Stages of Conservative Female Abuse."

Here's a juicy snippet to whet your appetite:
"...Liberals hold a special animus for constituencies they deem traitors. Minorities who identify as social and economic conservatives have left the plantation and sold out their people. Women who put an "R" by their name have abandoned their ovaries and betrayed their gender. As female Republican officeholders and female conservative public figures have grown in number and visibility, so has the progression of Conservative Female Abuse...."

I'm not sure if it's kosher to paste the whole article here, so click here to read it in its entirety.

I was delighted to sit at the breakfast table yesterday with my roommate, her sister, and their mother, discussing politics, and hearing a smart woman, who has raised cosmopolitan, brilliant children, declare her strong Republican stance despite her respect for the Obama family and her distaste for McCain. Doubleminded? No. She just knows (as a Cuban) what she believes about socialism and charismatic organizers, and what she believes about free market and foreign diplomacy. Doesn't see the Democratic Party as the one that will lead the direction she wants to see our country go.

I love that we can have this debate. Sometimes i feel we may be close to Nero's fires and a Barbarian invasion to cure us of our complacent stuff-centered lives, but consider that we had such strong disagreements in the last election, and yet the opposition didn't rise up and take control by force (Republicans are laughing at the image of Democrats taking anything "by force", but consider how the other Socialist states came about--not because they were pansies, that's for sure).

In the last four years, how many countries around the world attempted a change in leadership only to break down into violence? Perhaps we repress our violence so that it comes out in other ways, but remarkably, ultimately, our common committment to freedom of speech/choice/vote seems to be keeping our experiment in throwing multitudes of huddled masses into the same "nation" from completely burning to the ground.

It seems appropriate to end with Churchill--come on, say it with me, "Democracy is the worst form of government. Except for all the rest."