From Slate Magazine’s Forum, “The Fray” In the middle of a harsh crtique of Palin's new book a contributor wrote the following:
“The apartment was small, with slanting floors and irregular heat and a buzzer downstairs that didn’t work, so that visitors had to call ahead from a pay phone at the corner gas station, where a black Doberman the size of a wolf paced through the night in vigilant patrol, its jaws clamped around an empty beer bottle.”
Wow! That wouldn’t make it through freshman English class, and I mean high school, not college. What’s the sentence about anyway? The apartment? The gas station? The Doberman? How about sticking with one complete thought before going on to three more? Just goes to show that some people should stick with politics and give up any presumptions of being a writer.
As with all web opinion pieces this brought forth a flood of comments from readers such as this one- “That sentence by Sarah Palin could be entered into the annual Bulwer-Lytton bad writing contest.”
However, the author of the article then posted a confession:
I probably should have mentioned that the sentence quoted above was not written by Sarah Palin. It’s taken from the first paragraph of Dreams from My Father, written by Barack Obama.
I post this not to poke fun at the President’s writing, but to challenge people’s knee-jerk reactions. The common meme is that Obama is brilliant and Palin is simple. Clinton was a policy heavyweight; Bush did not have a clue. The truth is always somewhere in the middle and to jump to either conclusion is to give more power to pop culture than your own powers of observation.
4 comments:
After reading several of these blog entries, and your own comments, it's clear that you have no clue about the concept of a Rockefeller Republican.
No, my friend, you are a "Taft" or a "Reaganite" Republican. You are too conservative--from a domestic and fiscal position--to be considered a Rockefeller Republican. Please retitle your blog to reflect this.
I agree with Mister X. You have no clue about Rockefeller Republicans. You're trying to make Nelson Rockefeller's brand of pragmatic politics apply to your conservative values. Rockefeller Republicans are liberal Republicans--yes, they exist; and as one, I find it offensive that you are prostituting the term by attaching it to this ridiculous blog. You need to change the name of this blog. If you don't, you will continue to look like an ignorant pinhead.
Interesting comments. No one has EVER told me I was too conservative.
As a matter of fact many regular readers here seem to think I am too liberal. I guess no term fits my views perfectly, but as a Republican from Massachusetts with a libertarian view on most social issues I felt Rockefeller was as close as I could get.
If you take issue with a specific position I'd love to debate it out- that is what blogs are for.
I eagerly await your response.
Interesting comments. No one has EVER told me I was too conservative.
As a matter of fact many regular readers here seem to think I am too liberal. I guess no term fits my views perfectly, but as a Republican from Massachusetts with a libertarian view on most social issues I felt Rockefeller was as close as I could get.
If you take issue with a specific position I'd love to debate it out- that is what blogs are for.
I eagerly await your response.
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