By Yul
Republicans are now fixating on who’s “real.” Sarah Palin recently told North Carolinians that certain parts of the country are more “American” than others. She meant small towns like Wasilla and wide-open spaces like the Alaskan tundra. Anywhere the inhabitants are sparse, live simply, and may be poorly educated.
It’s those evil city slickers with diplomas who read books and newspapers (and can name titles) and care about the world around them who aren’t “real” Americans.
They think too much and ask too many questions.
North Carolina’s Representative Robin Hayes, while campaigning for McCain, recently added that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”
The McCain campaign has declared Northern Virginia “not real” because it leans Democratic. McCain’s brother Joe went so far as to jokingly call it “communist country.”
For a party that side-steps facts like the cast of River Dance – on the reasons for invading Iraq, stem cell research, healthcare, teen sex, evolution, global warming, Palin’s qualifications, you name it – their sudden zeal for real is truly bizarre.
Columnist Leonard Pitts asks, if they’re real, what does that make the rest of us? Fake?
Well, you can dress a Barbie Doll in a $150,000 wardrobe (Mrs. Joe Six-Pack should be so stylish) and program her to chirp platitudes when you pull her string, but that doesn’t make her a real choice for VP.
Palin still doesn’t even fully understand the job.
Unable to bring himself to play the court jester for his party (again), Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama. I guess that makes Powell fake, too.