great comment on brooks article

I saw the same speech you did, David, and I listened to your remarksafterward with Mark Shields and Jim Lehrer. While I also saw aconfident, savvy, and smart woman, I heard, too, the stridency ofpartisan politics, smugness, and sarcasm. Although a Democrat who willvote for Barack Obama, I had entertained the hope that if McCain wonthe presidential race, he would not further deepen the toxic partisanand cultural divisions in this country. Palin sarcastically belittledBarack Obama's community service in Chicago of twenty years ago whiletotally ignoring his more recent work as a civil rights lawyer, hisservice in Illinois state government as well as in the United StatesSenate. Her comments so clearly followed and echoed the sneeringremarks Rudy Giuliani made about "community service." You could hearthe quotation marks around the words--and Republican delegatesdelightedly laughed both times. Her comments also echoed earliercampaign statements of McCain's, suggesting that Obama puts his careerover patriotism. I am a fifty-year-old woman, a first-generationcollege graduate, a child of farmers and blue-collar workers. I ammighty tired of the old cosmopolitan/small town dichotomy. Sarah Palinmarched out those same cliches. She belittled me and all those who planto vote for Barack Obama with that sarcastic phrase "devotedfollowers," as if we have all been hoodwinked by "the idealism ofhigh-flown speechmaking," just stupid little people in crowds who are"stirringly summoned to support great things." Well, David, I'll takeinspiration over sarcasm any day of the week. Finally, Palin's sneeringcomment about criminal suspects' lawful rights (using the bogeyman of"Al-qaida terrorists") reminded me all too well of what I don't likeabout the present administration. No, I felt the chill of an ill wind,not a breath of fresh air.

— Anita, Decatur, Georgia

in response to http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/opinion/05brooks.html

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