Something About Sarah

[MissusDe]

From Jay Nordlinger at The Corner

Earlier this morning, I wrote that the attacks on Governor Palin ? particularly the breaking into her e-mail ? were making me sick. (Here.) One reader wrote, ?I, too, have been feeling a physical revulsion over the Left?s determination to destroy Sarah Palin, by any means necessary.? That reader spoke for many.

One of them said, ?What would be the general media reaction if Obama?s e-mail were hacked and disseminated? It would be a lot stronger.? That, too, is a common sentiment.

In my earlier post, I wondered whether Palin would be permanently stigmatized and caricatured ? ? la Bork, Quayle, and Thomas. Or would she escape the noose, like Reagan? Many readers thought she would ? given her communication skills, and given the multiplicity of media now: We have websites, talk radio, etc.

Yes, but there were plenty of outlets in the 1980s and ?90s. And no one?s communication skills are better than Bork?s or Thomas?s. Quayle isn?t bad, either ? you don?t rise that high in politics without knowing how to communicate.

Other readers said that Palin was finished, done: ?I see that the polls have dramatically switched in Obama?s favor within just one week. I guess that the Borking ? the destruction ? of this governor is complete.? Another reader said, ?I thought Sarah Palin would be a superstar. Now, she?ll be nothing more than a national joke. The Republicans haven?t fought back. The MSM has won.?

Then there is continuing amazement over the sheer hatred that Palin has aroused: ?I am almost 60 and come from Massachusetts. In all my years, I have never seen anything like this, and don?t want to see it ever again. I have a friend who is both feminist and left-leaning. I asked her why they hate Palin so much. She said, ?Because she?s had it all: family, career. And she did it without a man like Bill Clinton helping her. She did it on her own.??

I have said it before: Hillary Clinton?s husband was president of the United States. Sarah Palin?s works the night shift in an oil field. Who is the feminist hero? Bien s?r.

I myself have a tale to relate. An episode left me kind of shaken, honestly. Last week, I was talking to a friend of mine ? a very warm and humane woman. We?ve been friends for years. I had been away, and we hadn?t talked politics ? but then, we never do. We never had. She?s a liberal, of course ? virtually everyone here in NYC is. And I never, ever bring up politics (with pretty much anyone ? not worth the trouble) (and, of course, I do it professionally).

But she said to me, out of the blue, ?What do you think of Sarah Palin?? And while I was drawing breath to answer, she said, ?I hate her.?

That kind of took my breath away ? because this friend of mine is no hater. But she said it with firm, horrible conviction. She said it with true emotion in her eyes. Frankly, I was too taken aback to reply, other than to say, ?Well, my feeling is the exact opposite.?

I can see how you might disagree with Governor Palin ? she?s a conservative, after all. I can see how you might find her unprepared even for the vice-presidency. But hate? Hate a woman who rose from a modest background to be governor of her state? Who is obviously a warm, civic-minded, talented mother of five?

Hate?

It must be abortion, religion, and culture. If she were pro-choice, went to a mainline church (only on Christmas and Easter), and didn?t hunt, she?d be okay. At least less attacked. But then, she wouldn?t be herself, would she?

I consider myself a very patriotic person, and I have been teased or damned all my life for my pro-American views ? particularly in academic settings. But, I?m sorry, this is, in many ways, a sick country.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjFjZDM0YmRlY2MyNWRiMzEzOTdlY2IyYjQyNzEyNzg=

[Michael Tee]

<<And while I was drawing breath to answer, she said, ?I hate her.?>>

I had almost the exact same conversation earlier this evening with a 70-year-old friend of ours from Michigan.  She said "can't stand her" instead of "hate her" and she also used the term "dangerous" a lot, as in "she's the most dangerous politician I've ever seen."

Sarah Palin is what has been called a "passive-aggressive personality."  She excites hatred against herself through an apparently passive statement which is actually meant to be both hurtful and hateful at the same time.  But the statement itself is at least superficially innocuous, so that when the target responds with anger and real hatred, the initiator of the attack can pose as the injured victim:  "What did I say?"

Her anti-abortion stand is one which for many women, particularly those without the means, the support network or the savvy to outwit the law, means a wasted life, a life of poverty, of missed opportunity and in some cases, a horribly painful death at the hands of an amateur abortionist, but it's a position delivered in a chirpy voice, with a toothy smile on heavily lipsticked lips and a perky lilt.  She's Hockey Mom delivering death and ruination to millions of teenage girls like her own daughter (especially her own daughter!) whose only sin was to get a little too enthusiastically involved in pre-marital sex.

Our friend is a long-time social worker, old enough to have seen first-hand the differences wrought by Roe vs. Wade in the lives of girls and young women, and to know first-hand what tragedies would unfold it that decision were ever to be rolled back, as is undoubtedly the ambition of Palin and her ilk.

 So, yeah, among women who know the score, there is real, visceral hatred for someone like Palin.  And that's a good thing.

[BT]

If the rationale behind deciding Roe vs Wade on constitutional grounds is so tenuous perhaps the dems need to pass and ratify an amendment to the constitution to settle the issue once and for all.

[Michael Tee]

<<If the rationale behind deciding Roe vs Wade on constitutional grounds is so tenuous perhaps the dems need to pass and ratify an amendment to the constitution to settle the issue once and for all.>>

There's no need for a Constitutional amendment - - the only "tenuous" thing about the Constitutional grounds of the decision today is the fact that Republicans have been appointing right-wing ideologues to the bench, one (Clarence Thomas) without even the basic legal scholarship expected of Supreme Court justices.

[BT]

Roe v Wade would not have been found the way it was without the courts being stacked with activist jurist. Thus the fear of strict constructionists on the bench.

[Michael Tee]

<<Roe v Wade would not have been found the way it was without the courts being stacked with activist jurist. Thus the fear of strict constructionists on the bench.>>

Oh, I wasn't aware.  Who stacked 'em?

[BT]

Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower.

[Xavier_Onassis]

This is like saying "Mommy, he hit me back first".

Without "activists" on the Supreme Court, there would have been no Brown vs Topeka Board of Education.
In PRINCIPLE, separate and equal schools are technically possible. It is pretty obvious that the Founding Fathers had NEVER intended there to be integrated schools, and probably no schools from Blacks at all. The XIV and other amendments passed after the Civil War say nothing about education at all.

"Strict constructionists" are overjoyed with the idea that corporations have the same rights as citizens, and of courser, since a corporation can live forever, that actually gives them MORE rights. Their strict constructions always seem to favor the rich over the poor, the corporations over the people.

They recently ruled that a woman who was discriminated against for 20 years and paid less than men at the same job could not sue, because she had to sue within 6 months of the discrimination. Of course, her employer did not inform her that she was paid less, shje only found it out many many years later.

When the Democrats tried to right this wrong thru legislation, who voted against it?

Bogus "Maverick" John McCain. And most of the GOP senators.

[BT]

When the Democrats tried to right this wrong thru legislation, who voted against it?

Who wrote the original legislation that limited the time frame to six months.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Who wrote the original legislation that limited the time frame to six months.


This came down in a ruling from the Supreme Court.

Here is an article on the story.


Decrease font Decrease font
Enlarge font Enlarge font

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Senate Republicans blocked a bill Wednesday that would make it easier for people to sue over pay discrimination, an effort to roll back a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that limited such cases.
art.scotus.stormy.jpg

The Supreme Court ruled unequal pay claims must be filed within 180 days of the first discriminatory paycheck.

Republicans complained that the bill would produce a flood of lawsuits and criticized the chamber's Democratic leaders for putting off the vote until the party's two presidential candidates, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, returned from the campaign trail.

"Here we are, shut down on a Wednesday afternoon, no action in the Senate, in order to accommodate the Democratic candidates for president's schedule," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Wednesday.

Though several Republicans joined Democrats in voting to break the filibuster, the 56-42 vote was four short of the needed 60.

McConnell urged senators to block the bill and stick with a debate on a veterans benefits bill pending in the Senate. But Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada blamed Republicans for stalling action on that bill to complain about the equal pay bill.

"I have trouble understanding how my friend would have the gall to stand on the floor and make the comment he did, but he did," Reid said. He joined Republicans on the vote, a tactical move that allowed him to request the measure be reconsidered.

The bill, dubbed the Fair Pay Restoration Act, is a response to a 2007 Supreme Court decision that ruled a person who claims pay discrimination must file a complaint within 180 days of that discrimination taking place.

That deadline is specified in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines, and it "protects employers from the burden of defending claims arising from employment decisions long past," Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority in the 5-4 decision.

The bill that stalled Wednesday would have reset the clock with every paycheck, with supporters arguing that each paycheck was a discriminatory act. But Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, said the bill would allow retirees drawing pensions to sue their old companies over allegations of discrimination that happened decades ago.

"We're about having integrity in the system, so we have timely complaints, we have timely evidence, and the parties that are there can quickly be remedied," Isakson said.

The case was brought by an Alabama woman, Lilly Ledbetter, who claimed that her employer, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co., paid men doing similar work 15 to 40 percent more. Ledbetter said she discovered the discrepancy late in her career -- too late, the court ruled, to go to court. Video Watch woman who found out too late she was paid less »

Clinton and Obama spent most of the day in Indiana, one of the two states in the next round of Democratic contests, but both returned to the Senate in time to vote for the bill.

"I'm hoping this chamber will stand up for fundamental fairness for women in the workplace," said Clinton, of New York. "I'm hoping you will stand up and vote to make it clear that women who get up every single day and go to work deserve to be paid equally to their male counterparts."

And Obama, of Illinois, added, "If you work hard and do a good job, you should be rewarded no matter what you look like, where you come from or what gender you are."
advertisement

Sen. Barbara Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, called Wednesday's vote "a call to arms" for the women of America.

"We will take it out to the voting booths. We will go on the Internet. We are going to go on TV. We are going to go on the blogs. We're going to tell everybody about this ignominious vote that just occurred," she said. E-mail to a friend E-mail to a friend

CNN Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

[BT]

That deadline is specified in Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines

So when was that guideline published and what statute was it based upon, and whowrote that same statute?

[Brassmask]

Now, the attack is "the angry left and their hate".  Saw Doocy and Barbie talking about New York women "hating" and "filled with white hot rage".

[Xavier_Onassis]

So when was that guideline published and what statute was it based upon, and whowrote that same statute?


Why should that matter?

The fact is that in order to accuse someone of discriminatory salaries, one has to know what others are being paid, and the company withheld this information for something like 20 plus years. It was only when a co-worker informed her of this that she filed a suit.

Fair is fair. She was paid less for the same work because she was a woman. The employer does not deny this. McCain is clearly against women being able to sue for discrimination, and that is just wrong.

[BT]

If the problem was the wording of the original statute, and that was what the courts ruled on, don't you think it matters who wrote the questionable wording to begin with? Doesn't that go hand in hand with legislative intent?

[fatman]

Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower.

Don't forget Nixon.  Blackmun (who wrote the decision for the majority, and laid out the trimester argument) was his appointee.