Sunday, August 31, 2008

the big picture

While I was savoring the election this morning, a thought occurred to me. Accusations of all sorts of prejudices have been floating around the media and campaign trails. I wonder, which ones will be judged as valid concerns by history and which ones will be totally embarrassing to talk about with my future grandkids?

Like, was all that scrutiny of Clinton's wardrobe based in social reality or manufactured by a bored and sexist media? Is it acceptable to objectify Palin's body now if she did it first in past pageants? What if there are more than cosmetic concerns involved? (P.S. Thanks to Bryan for that last link.)

How are we going to justify to generations after us that in 2008, a good number of United States citizens and journalists were still so racist that they actually believed that Obama = terrorist business? What's it gonna take to get us to a point where we can laugh at that?

And how about the matter of McCain's remaining life expectancy? Is it ageist or a legit numbers game? Would it be more ageist to bring this up if there weren't concerns about Palin's qualifications?


I suppose we'll see.

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