GOSSIP TIP

For those of you who cannot get enough of Palin debunking, the prime site is Andrew Sullivan's blog [google it]. Sullivan, a bright, articulate, gay conservative having serious problems with the contemporary turn of the Republican Party [he supported Obama in the campaign] is obsessed with Palin -- her lies, the mystery surrounding the birth of her youngest child, Trig, her endless self-promotion. His latest post concerns the things that Levi Johnston [the father of Bristol's baby] has been saying about Palin. There is something deliciously low about reading Sullivan's endless ruminations about Palin -- rather like slumping in front of the tv eating Smorrs from the carton and watching reality shows. It has absolutely no redeeming value, which is to say it is political pornography. I, of course, would never read it. I just pass this along as a public service.

SARAH PALIN: BRIEF THOUGHT

Selfishness is the unwillingness to distinguish between one's own interests and some larger purpose. Hypocrisy is the pretence that there is no distinction. Narcissism is the inability to make the distinction. The first is immoral. The second is contemptible. The third is pathological. After listening yet again to Sarah Palin's explanation of her decision to resign the Governorship, I have concluded that she is pathological.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

All right, let me see if I have this straight. Senator John Ensign's staffer and her husband have their house broken into by thieves. The house is so messed up that they and their children move in with the Ensigns, who live in a neighborhood nearby. While they are all living together with the Ensigns and their children, Ensign starts shtupping the staffer. This causes some difficulties, which lead to the staffer severing her connection with the Senator's staff. Senator Tom Coburn, who is both a doctor and a lay minister, counsels Senator Ensign, and then, when questioned, says that as both a doctor and a minister he claims the privilege of keeping what he and Senator Ensign talked about private, except that Senator Coburn's office puts out a press release full of details about which the Senator has claimed privilege. Meanwhile, Senator Ensign's rich father and mother make eight gifts of $12,000 each to the staffer, her husband, and the two children, for a total of $96,000 totally free of all tax consequences [anyone can give anyone $12,000 a year or less with no tax consequences], ostensibly to tide them over the difficult time they are having.



Meanwhile, Senator Larry Craig is emplying a wide stance in the pubic bathrooms in an airport, Senator David Vitter is frequenting a DC madam, Governor Mark Sanford is explaining that though he crossed the sexual line with his Brazilian bombshell, he did not cross the sexual line with a number of other women, though he did cross a line nevertheless. And Governor Sarah Palin ups and quits her governorship, in order to show that she is no quitter, and then, having decided that her first attempt at explanation left something to be desired, gives a series of hastily arranged interviews with representatives of the hated Mainstream Media, wearing waders even though she gives no evidence of being actually engaged in fishing.

When I was young, the Republican Party was the party of grownups. Dull, unimaginative, out of touch with whatever happened to be the popular culture of the day, but manifestly grownups. What is going on? The Democratic Party is now the party of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, as sober and serious a pair of grownups as you could find.

What happened?

SARAH PALIN, NUCLEAR WEAPONS, AND STUFF

I have returned from a four day weekend trip back to Amherst, MA, which Susie and I left almost exactly one year ago. When we arrived at our motel, I turned on the tv and stumbled on the live feed of Sarah Palin's resignation speech. For the next seventy two hours, when we weren't seeing friends or attending a splendid early music concert in Great Barrington, I was glued to the coverage, both on television and on the web. There are two questions that need answering: Why did she resign?, and Why did she choose to resign in such a hurried, incoherent, bizarre fashion? I don't know the answer to either question, of course, but the only speculation that makes any sense is that something really bad is about to surface that she had to get out in front of immediately. If three or four days pass and nothing surfaces, then we will all be left to meditate on one of the truly strange episodes of recent American politics.

HOWEVER: While we were yet again enjoying a full helping of schadenfreude, something genuinely important happened. Obama and Medvedev [which is to say Putin] agreed to reduce their holdings of nuclear weapons by twenty-five percent. If this agreement is carried out, it will be the most important thing Obama has done with his presidency thus far.

Nuclear arms reduction has been one of Obama's central concerns since he arrived in the Senate, of course, so it is not surprising that he should have pursued this issue in his 'summit' with Medvedev. But it is welcome news, nonetheless. I have been deeply concerned for fifty years about the dangers of accidental nuclear war, and more recently about the promiscuous spread of nuclear weapons. Indeed, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament was my introduction to politics. So, while we all enjoy the further disintegration of the Republican Party, let us pause to offer up a silent prayer of thanksgiving for this significant step toward the control of nuclear weapons.