The Bopst Show - Episode 20

by Chris Bopst

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• The Bopst Show — Episode 20

Man, what a week. Comcast announced that they are going to place limits on customers’ broadband usage, eleven decapitated bodies were found outside the city of Merida on the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico as part of our neighbors to the south’s ongoing and increasing violent drug war and the possible impending doom of hurricane Gastav as it makes it’s way to New Orleans.

Oh, and I almost forgot the really big news. Actor David Duchovny entered rehab for a sex addiction. We’re all praying for you, brother. Stay strong…

Also worth mentioning is some guy named Barack Hussein Obama became the first African-American to accept the presidential nomination of a major political party in America.

Less than 24 hours after Obama’s acceptance speech in Denver, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain proved that he would not be undone in this campaign of historic moments. On Friday morning, he announced that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin would be his vice-presidential running mate marking the first time that a woman would hold that distinction on a Republican ticket. It truly is a mystifying pick considering that slamming Obama over his lack of experience has been the defining theme of his campaign. Still, it was a gutsy political move by the 72-year old senator who desperately seeks to reclaim his image as a political maverick to pick an unknown whom he met only six months ago and with whom he spoke just once on the phone about the position before offering it in person early last week. When she was asked last month by Larry Kudlow of CNBC’s “Kudlow & Co.” about the possibility of becoming McCain’s ticket mate, Palin responded, “As for that VP talk all the time, I’ll tell you, I still can’t answer that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the VP does every day?”

Two words sprang into my head when I heard the news that McCain had picked Palin to be his Vice President: Harriet Miers. Remember her? She was Bush’s nominee to replace Sandra D. O’Conner on the Supreme Court back in 2005. When Miers met with senators after her nomination was first announced, it became readily apparent that the former White House counselor was ill-prepared and uninformed on the law. In mock sessions with lawyers, Miers had difficulty expressing her views and explaining basic constitutional law concepts. It soon came out that she had no experience in constitutional law, and did not have extensive litigation experience; at her Texas law firm, she had been more of a manager than a lawyer worthy of sitting on the highest court in the land. Miers had rarely handled appeals and did not understand the complicated constitutional concepts senators asked of her. To White House lawyers, she was less an attorney than a law firm manager and bar association president. Facing a firestorm of disapproval from all sides of the political spectrum, Bush was forced to withdraw her name for consideration.

And Palin is McCain’s Miers. He picked her not because she was the most qualified candidate, he picked her because of circumstance. No one would argue that if this election was the usual rich white guy vs. another rich white guy that this Alaskan mother of five would have been picked to anybody’s vice president, but this election is different. And in order to prove how truly different he is, McCain nominates a soccer (or in the case, hockey) mom to be his vice president. I mean, what better way to appeal to soccer moms than to have one on your ticket? See America, he seems to be saying, I too can think out of the box.

Palin, to be fair, has her qualifications. She was the first woman to be elected governor of Alaska and has served in that capacity for a little over a year and a half . Before that, Palin was mayor of Wasilla (population 5,470), a small town outside Anchorage, and then was appointed in 2003 as ethics commissioner for the Alaska Oil & Gas Conservation Commission after an unsuccessful bid to become the state’s lieutenant governor the previous year. The former beauty queen (she was the runner-up in the Miss Alaska beauty pageant in 1984) and once aspiring sportscaster has a track record of standing up to her own party. She exposed ethical violations by the state’s Republican Party Chairman, Randy Ruedrich. In 2005, she co-filed an ethics complaint against Attorney-General Gregg Renkes, whom she found had a financial interest in a company involved in a trade deal that he was helping to craft. As governor, Palin killed the infamous “bridge to nowhere,” project which had become a symbol of wasteful spending, and took on the oil industry, leading to a tax increase for oil companies.

What truly makes her appealing or, as Rush Limbaugh, a man known for his enlighten thinking, put it on his radio show concerning her vice-presidential nomination, “the babe on the ticket”, is her impressive list of cherished neo-con credentials. She is a devout evangelical Christian, a member of National Rifle Association, staunchly pro-life (opposing abortion even in the case of incest or rape), hates same-sex marriage (though she did comply with an Alaska Supreme Court order to implement same-sex benefits) and believes that creationism should be taught in public schools. In 2000, she didn’t support Bush for president; she supported Pat Buchanan. Concerning global warming, Palin told conservative magazine Newsmax that “a changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.” She is the perfect person to placate social conservatives concerns about John McCain. She is one of them.

One of the funniest things I’ve heard concerning her nomination is that disgruntled Hillary Clinton supporters will flock to her with their votes. The laughable theory here is that women are going to vote for the ticket with the most breasts regardless if that candidate believes what they believe or not. The power of pussy is just too strong for them to not vote for her. Also comically sexist in the extreme is the notion that Democrats have to be careful how they approach Palin so as to not offend woman voters by being too tough on her. That sentiment has been echoed all over the news as if a different set of standards has to be applied when you are debating a woman and I laugh every time I hear it. Sure, the mentally deficient may believe that, but are we really to believe that in a battle wits, a woman should be dealt with delicately? Please. Did anyone think that Margaret Thatcher couldn’t hold her own against any man? I think not. How about Indira Gandhi or Golda Meir? They eviscerated the competition. As her record indicates, Palin isn’t in the same league as these former world leaders (or Hillary Clinton for that matter), but, in an election of this magnitude, the fact that she is a woman is of little consequence. She’ll stand or fall on the merits of her ability and not her gender. In the the world of endlessly pontificating pundits, no one seems to gasp that women time and time again have proven to be just as capable for political office as any man.

Everyone together now, “Duh…”

And isn’t that what this election is all about? The color of your skin or if you have a penis or not is no longer relevant. All that matters is your ability to govern. I don’t give a shit that Barack is a mulatto or that Palin is a PTA mom with 5 kids. It doesn’t matter to me. Hell, I’d vote for a crippled Asian midget with 6 eyes and 4 heads if I thought doing so was the best for the country. While it would be foolish to dismiss the historical significance of this presidential campaign, the true victory we should all rejoice in is that we are finally living up to our nation’s creed that all men and women are created equal.

Accept nothing less.

The set list for this week’s show is posted on my MySpace page. Previous show set lists are on my blog.

The Bopst Show Request Line: 804.767.2550

Until Next Time:

Stay Clean,
BOPST

Previous Episodes

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19