Dolphin’s Dock

I’m first to admit that I underestimated the ability of the McCain campaign to put together a strategy for most effectively using Sarah Palin. Palin single-handedly (well, actually it was thanks to genius work by her handlers) tied the race. How? They’ve played up her celebrity status (hey, didn’t they attack Obama for that?), while they’ve downplayed her politics and kept whatever substance she has out of the lime-light. She’s been touring the country with McCain, giving the same speech at each site (literally editing only a word here or there to tailor it to the new audience). She hasn’t been allowed to be interviewed at all except grudgingly agreeing to a single soft-ball interview with Charlie Gibson that, by all accounts, was carefully conditioned and regulated by the McCain campaign. Any and all criticism of her on any and all issues has been dubbed sexist. Essentially, the McCain strategy for Palin is to go out and look the part while doing whatever they can to hide whether she actually fits the role.

That strategy was a resounding success. The people have all gone out and bought their Palingotchis. They like her, she’s good-looking (though apparently that’s an insult now. Oh that people were so “insulting” to me) and fun to listen to. But look at the polls, they are a shifting. Now people are starting to realize that while keeping a virtual pet on your keyring is a clever idea, it’s kind of boring if it can’t actually do much more than be a trendy fashion accessory. People are getting tired of Palin for the same reason people got tired of the Tamagotchi: There’s no “there” there. They like the idea of the first female Republican VP pick, but now that they’ve actually got her they’re wanting to see what she can do, and thus far, they’re not seeing much. For all the talk of reform, her politics sure look a lot like George W. Bush’s, and with her being stuck on the same script, there’s little that’s going to change that. In other words, the Palingotchi needs more than just three buttons to be entertaining.

If McCain/Palin wants to win, they need to open the feature set of the Palingotchi. That is, if there are any new features to be opened.

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

The phrase is even older than McCain, and in fact he and his cohorts have used it, regularly, in the past. ABC's Jake Tapper notes that McCain himself said it about Hillary Clinton's health care plan less than a year ago. Where was the outrage then? His former press secretary even put it on the cover of a book. McCain used a similar pig-related colloquialism ("Never get in a wrestling match with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it." Perhaps that's advice that Obama should heed in this case) in the GOP primaries when discussing Mitt Romney. None of those spawned outrage or ridiculous accusations that McCain and staff were calling anybody a pig. It's not like this is the first time Obama has ever uttered the expression either, having declared that President Bush and Gen. Petraeus were trying to put lipstick on a pig with their carefully tailored Iraq War report.

Still, Gov. Jane Swift is now making a fool of herself, on behalf of the McCain campaign (and the "Palin Truth Squad*") by accusing Obama outright of calling Palin a pig, and demanding an apology. She's positive that it was a direct reference to Palin because Palin was the only one of the four candidates on both parties' tickets who wears lipstick. Apparently Swift can't comprehend that the lipstick, and the pig, of "lipstick on a pig" aren't to be taken literally. It's ok, metaphorical speech is lost on some folks. But even if Swift just isn't intelligent enough to understand how a colloquialism works, she still contradicts herself in the next sentence. Her entire quote below (which of course includes her mistaken reference to Palin as a candidate for President (who knew?):

"She is the only one of the four candidates for president, or the only vice presidential candidate who wears lipstick, I mean, it seemed to me a very gendered comment.
But, Swift added, if "as part of his apology Sen. Obama wants to say, no, he was calling Sen. McCain -- who is a true hero in our country -- a pig, then I suppose we could wait en masse for an apology to that, as well."

There you have it folks, she knows it's a reference to Palin because Palin wears lipsticks, but if Obama says it's a reference to McCain, who (presumably) does not wear lipstick, then that's ok too. You get that? She's willing to completely obliterate her own attempt at logic so long as it still comes off as Obama name-calling. That should be more embarrassing than anything. She KNOWS she makes no sense yet she keeps pushing it anyhow.

Asked about McCain's comment towards Romney during the primaries, and if he was calling Romney a pig, Swift replied "Of course not." Because you know, you only take colloquialism's seriously if it's the other guy saying it. The Republican ticket is tryng to run on "change" (before Palin joined it was "experience," who knows what they'll be for next week), yet their resorting to the same lying, hypocritical, distraction-based tactics of the Bush campaign. Seems to me Obama was right; you can put lipstick on a pig, but it is definitely still a pig.

*As an aside, isn't it a little eerie that there's another lying "Truth Squad" out run by somebody who happens to be named "Swift." I know she can't help what her last name is so it's a total coincidence, but if this were a novel, it'd be a pretty obvious literary parallel to the Swift Boat guys from last election.

Now the reality is that "human-power" will likely never give us back the amount of money we spend growing and shipping the food the fuels that human-power, but really, that's the cool part of this kind of "out of the box" thinking; it allows us to reclaim some of the energy we've already used. It's the ultimate expression of the Reuse and Recycle parts of the Three R's. There's no question that we need to find new ways to harvest "new" energy, but once it's harvested, why not get the most out of it by using it to it's fullest potential? What if all the surfaces we walked on day in and day out were similar to the (uber-cool) electricity-generating dance floor at the Sustainable Dance club mentioned in the news story? What if we all had steam turbines built in over our showers? Or in our chimneys? I've also heard of hydraulic systems being experimented with in some cars that capture and store the energy lost in braking; it's the same idea. There's no way to "create" energy, however all most everything we use energy for is incredibly inefficient. Huge percentages of the energy we put into our daily tasks is wasted. Can you imagine if we could collect and re-purpose even 1% of the waste energy we produce in the activities and processes we do and use daily?