holy hyperbole!
Law & PoliticsI just walked in on the RNC coverage in time to catch the bio of/commercial for Sarah Palin, the story of her life constructed to formally introduce her to the voters. It’s a fairly predictable glossy version of an all-American life: the high school basketball championship, making parents proud, marrying high school sweetheart, defeating the incumbent major, bucking the system in Alaskan politics. It ends: “When Alaska’s maverick joined America’s maverick, the world shook; the world trembled. And the world will soon be a better place.”
That’s awesome. That’s all I have to say about it, really. Those writers no doubt realized that this is just about the only rhetorical situation in which they could get away with it. Kudos.
September 5th, 2008 at 3:28 am
Oh my god, that is awesome. My favorite phrase “she even drives herself to work.” Um, yeah. Along with the majority of American commuters each workday. If you really wanted to appeal to independents and left-leaners then tell me you bike or, for heaven’s sake, snow-mobile to work. You’re in Alaska; you could snow-mobile.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Sorry, Katie, but the hyper-hyperbole of the night was won by Cindy McCain who said, “It’s no surprise that Americans are the most generous people in history.”
Where does one go from there?
How do you even measure that? One friend of mine replied, “Well, economically speaking, we are.” But generosity has never been measured in sheer output — there are too many other factors involved.
For example, when someone is cold and you offer them a blanket, it’s considered generous. When you’ve purposely contaminated that blanket with smallpox so that it infects and kills the recipient of it . . . not so generous. Genocidal, though.
September 5th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I’m sorry, but I still think causing earthquakes is a more impressive claim!