Categorical Aperitif

Naomi Wolf ties together the sudden rise and careful handling of Sarah Palin, her family's disrespect for law (not to mention her disrespect for truth), her running mate's advanced age and lengthy medical history, the preemptive arrests and harassment of journalists at the RNC, and the general trajectory of Bush-Cheney's America so far into a chilling bundle. This is the sort of stuff that I'd have scoffingly dismissed a few years ago. Part of me still does, but I'm not sure I can trust that part anymore; I worry that a lot of him is just wishful thinking masquerading as healthy skepticism. A few years ago, I didn't think we'd be living in an America of manufactured war, secret prisons, signing statements, cheerleading for torture, extravagant executive-branch powers, degradation of civil liberties, etc. either:

What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years.[I'm skeptical about this particular claim—nash.] I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way [sic] of choice and lies.

I very much want to believe that the "appeal to the fundie base" explanation is the right one because the thought of having to listen to Big Hockey Mom's voice on the telescreen every night (go ahead: imagine it saying "ignorance is strength, Charlie") is too much to bear.

Wolf's The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot is very much worth a read. You can find a distillation here. Read it NOW if you haven't.