Snobby Brits and Redneck Americans
About the Author: To change this standard text, you have to enter some information about your self in the Dashboard -> Users -> Your Profile box. Read more from this authorMinette Marrin, writing in today’s Sunday Times (London) has written a rather typically (for the British media) snobbish piece about McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin. If there is one thing the British love to do, it is look down their noses at Americans, and this article of hers does it in spades. She clearly hadn’t done her homework before writing it, but why should she have? I wouldn’t call her an Obamaite, as she says she doesn’t vote, but she’s writing from their playbook regardless. Most likely because it dovetails with the prevailing mood in the UK, which pats itself on the back every chance it can for not being American. I’ve a semi-fisk response to it below the fold, it annoyed me that much.
Like Minette Marrin, I am a Californian too. I too hold dual citizenship, American and Irish. I am American, and have no shame about being one nor do I feel I need to qualify it in my introduction or apologise to readers for being one.
She is right to say that last week everything changed with John McCain’s pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Unlike her, though, I believe it was a positive change and one that has renewed my faith in the country of my birth. Unlike her, I have voted in the past - usually Democrat. When I send in my absentee ballot this time around, I will be voting Republican, for that ‘moose-hunting pitbull with lipstick’. That fact that there is a Palin bounce in the polls - the extent of which we will see in the coming days - fills me with glee, not dismay.
I differ elsewhere with Ms Marrin, in that she venerates Margaret Thatcher, and her record in Ireland is one that will always, always condemn her in my eyes. However, I do recognize the contribution she made to women’s equality and I admire that she did it without a thought to the women’s movement - she did it all on her own terms. Much like Sarah Palin.
I do not understand, however, how Ms Marrin can so blithely claim that Palin is “clearly entirely unfit” to be vice president or president. She berates McCain for not giving serious consideration to his choice, giving power “to a woman he had barely met”.
I wonder how Ms Marrin can condemn Sarah Palin out of hand so easily without having met the woman herself?
Obviously she seems to think she knows better than the McCain team.
As it is unlikely Ms Marrin has flown to Alaska, I will assume her intimate knowledge of the woman comes from her careful reading of the media. Well, that’s alright then. The media has proven itself to be unbiased and factual when it comes to reporting about Sarah Palin. Certainly that qualifies her to know far more than McCain what an awful choice Sarah Palin was. Doesn’t it?
Ms Marrin seems to think that Sarah Palin was chosen merely on the basis of her sex. Does she not think that Palin has a modicum of self respect, enough to say no to an offer of tokenism?
I take issue with Ms Marrin’s playing fast and loose with the facts in her piece. She claims, when explaining how Palin compares “feebly” with previous vice-presidential choices, that Palin’s education is minimal. No, she holds no Masters or PhD degree, and she thankfully is not a lawyer, but she does hold her Bachelors and is university educated. Ms Marrin seems to think that if you were a Governor, you aren’t qualified to become president - yet Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all were governors before they became President. Contrary to what Ms Marrin writes, Sarah Palin certainly brings to the table far more than “PR and homespun rhetoric”.
We get to the heart of the matter of Ms Marrin’s problem with Sarah Palin in this one sentence: “Even a brief consideration of Palin might suggest that she is not the straightforward redneck hockey mom she claims to be.” And there it is. Now I understand what Ms Marrin’s problem is. Sarah Palin is a redneck. It is bad enough the idea of having a redneck man in the office of President, but lord save us from having a redneck woman in there. This speaks more to Ms Marrin’s prejudices than it does to Sarah Palin’s failings.
Another contrast between myself and Ms Marrin - it appears she is not a feminist while I am proud to call myself one. She seems to think that the more kids you have, the less you can do; the more you belong at home and, presumably, in the kitchen. She seems to think that a husband and father is not someone you can count on to help out with the parental responsibilities, or that a mother should not hand her children over to him if the demands of her job so require. Everything we have seen regarding Sarah Palin’s family shows that she is very hands-on, bringing her children into work with her, and that her husband is also very involved in their care. To claim that she could not be Vice President of the United States because she should be staying at home with her children is a very archaic attitude to have. I have no doubt she will bring her kids with her to Washington and they will no doubt have the run of the White House, when they are not being minded by their father. But that image no doubt horrifies Ms Marrin, as the idea of it is so redneck.
To the rest of us mommies, it is empowering. To Sarah we redneckedly say, You go, girl
In short, it is not Palin that is “ill-educated, inexperienced” or “a hypocrite”. She certainly has more American experience than Ms Marrin. The Republicans, if they are at fault for anything, are selling Sarah Palin as one their grassroots: a real, ordinary, American woman. This is something McCain had the guts to do. It is about time America had a working class woman in the White House. Unlike Ms Marrin, I think this is a great time for my home country, and when Sarah Palin is sworn in it will be a great day for America
Tags: Minette Marrin, Rednecks, Sarah Palin, Snobs, Sunday Times
Nice piece. The very same qualities that drive the liberals crazy are the qualities that have helped to solidify the base.
First, welcome to American Sentinel, Coyote. Looking forward, which is always better than looking backward, to more things from you.
Good piece.
And you pegged it, IMO. But not just for the Brits but for the liberals, leftists and Demockacrats in America, regardless of where they live: Sarah Palin is a redneck.
What the lookers-down-their-noses don’t know or are afraicd to admits is this: Redneck is state of mind. Have seen them in Harvard Square, in its coffee houses and bookstores and nearby university; elsewhere all over the Boston area; NYC in the artsy-fartsy crowd or intelligentsia faction; Philly, including some of its finest colleges; San Francisco; Pacific Northwest; and Colorado.
Even in the middle of the South, in urban areas.
Some of those rednecks had lots of academic degrees, money, good looks, spoke different languages, etc.
It’s always easier for them to deride someone that look in the mirror and take an honest look at who they are, what biases they have, their ignorances–and their stinking attitudes.
Hi, CKA, thanks for the welcome. You got it, 100%. Rednecks are everywhere because what rednecks are is the “underclass”. [insert eye-roller here]
Another thing I really like about this ticket is that it is Western (AZ, AK) — not cowboy, maybe frontier, but definitely Western. I think this ties into it as well - it is almost like the cliched Easterner not fathoming the code of the Western town. That’s the sort of reporting we’re getting, the snobby Eastern coming in on the train and just not getting it at all, more annoyed at the dust on his fancy clothes, that he is aware of how rude he is being.