If the hypocrisy on congressional earmarks, the strident anti-abortion stance, the lifetime NRA membership, the spouting of Christian revisionist history, the equating of geographic proximity to Russia with foreign policy expertise, and the conflation of small-town mayorship and 22 months as small-state governor with so much more awesome and directly transferrable experience than Obama can ever dream of were not enough, now there's this. Sarah Palin enthusiastically supports "hunting" by shooting wolves and bears from airplanes. It may be a step up from Cheney-style "hunting" that involves shooing functionally domesticated quail out of cages and into the line of fire, but, aside from the the fact that trophy hunting of any kind is disgusting, the airplane-assisted version doesn't even pretend to be sporting.
Wanna be a real tough Alaska guy or gal who will impress me? Get out there and kill a bear with a pocketknife. High-powered rifles with scopes from a plane? Not so much. And wolves, no matter how you kill them? Forget it. I'm really sorry that wolves who have fought their way back from the brink of extinction, caused by government-sponsored or sanctioned eradication programs, are eating so many moose that you can't just walk out your back door and shoot one without working for it a little. But when Palin offers cash incentives--$150 per set of wolf legs you turn in--for you to go airborne and eliminate the need for stealth or tracking skill just as long as you have enough ammo, she becomes, in my mind, exactly like the idiots I know in Illinois who go out on Saturdays to see how many coyotes they can shoot because the coyotes eat rabbits, which said idiots also like to eat and don't want to be out-competed for. Which is kinda hard considering that a single pair of rabbits can crank out upwards of 35 new little rabbits each year, which in turn start their jobs on the rabbit production line in about six months. If you set out to exterminate a predator like that, I hope you also go out the other six days of the week to shoot the vermin the coyotes are taking care of for you, and if you aim to exterminate wolves from Alaska you'd best get out and perform all the other roles they take care of in that ecosystem.
And if you do it from a plane? Way to go, tough guy.
Will I concede that there's anything to like about Palin? Sure. She appears to bathe regularly. Always a plus. But I have yet to hear a single goddamn policy position that makes me do anything other than scream.
1 comment:
My vote for most unnerving quote of the Repug Convention, so far goes to disgusting Fred Thompson....
"And I can say without fear of contradiction that she is the only nominee in the history of either party who knows how to properly field dress a moose ..."
Unfortunately, there's definitely an audience of lonely militia types who will be "energized" by that little tidbit.
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