Pass the Caribou Stew
By Maureen Dowd
The doomed caribou gazed calmly across the Alaska tundra at Caribou Barbie.
The female caribou could easily have escaped, since it took the Wasilla huntress six shots, two rifles and some help from her dad to bag her prey. (Giving credence to Levi Johnston’s contention that she isn’t all that proficient with guns.)
But, inexplicably, the caribou just waited to get gunned down by Sarah Palin, who came across less like a pioneer woman than Private Benjamin with her camo, her French manicured nails, her cap that says (in pink) Girls And Guns, her 72-year-old father and her TLC reality show crew.
Sarah checked her freezer at home before she flew 600 miles to the Arctic, trying to justify her contention that she needs to hunt to eat. Wasn’t it already stocked with those halibuts she clubbed and gutted in an earlier show?
“My dad has taught me that if you want to have wild, organic, healthy food,” she pontificated, “you’re gonna go out there and hunt yourself and fish yourself and you’re gonna fill up your freezer.”
Does Palin really think the average housewife in Ohio who can’t pay her bills is going to load up on ammo, board two different planes, camp out for two nights with a film crew and shoot a caribou so she can feed her family organic food?
It’s amazing that Palin patronized Neiman Marcus during the campaign. Couldn’t she have spun cloth to sew her own clothes?
Hunting seems more sporting with birds — at least they have a better chance to get away. Unless the hunter is Dick Cheney, who would shoot pheasants that were pen-raised and released from a net to make slaughtering them easier.
The poor caribou in the Arctic Circle, a cousin to Santa’s reindeer, had to die so Palin could show off her toughness to voters and try to boost ratings on her show that have slipped since its premiere. (Next Sunday, she’s dragging up nine Gosselins to go shooting and camping.)
Sarah’s view of America is primitive. You’re either a pointy-headed graduate of Harvard Law School or you’re eviscerating animals for fun, which she presents as somehow more authentic.
In movies with animals, they often have a line in the credits assuring that no animals were harmed. In “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” they should have a line at the end assuring that “almost every living creature involved in this show was harmed.”
The caribou that waited too pliantly in the cross hairs is doomed to become stew for Palin and an allegory for politics. The elegant animal standing above the fray, dithering rather than charging at his foes or outmaneuvering them, is Obambi. Even with a rifle aimed at him, he’s trying to be the most reasonable mammal in the scene, mammalian bipartisan, and rise above what he sees as empty distinctions between the species so that we can all unite at a higher level of being.
Palin’s father advises her to warm up her trigger finger. And trigger-happy Sarah represents the Republicans, who have spent two years taking shots at the president, including potshots, and tormenting him in an effort to bring him down.
The Republicans think they have hurt their quarry on the tax-cut deal, making him look weak and at odds with his party. There’s an argument to be made for what the president did, but he doesn’t look good doing it.
When all the Democrats are complaining and all the Republicans are happy, it just can’t be a good deal for Democrats.
Obama gave up on a big principle, and Democrats showed — again — they can’t win the message war. Republicans proved that, while they don’t have the House (for now), the Senate or the White House, they’re still running things.
Obama used to play poker in the Illinois Legislature, but it’s hard to believe. First, he cried uncle to Republicans standing in the corner, holding their breath and turning blue. Then, in his White House press conference, he was defensive, a martyr for the middle class.
He said he must compromise at times as he follows “a North Star.” It was odd, given that Palin uses North Star as a code name, her own “city on the hill” reference, and an allusion to God.
The president said he couldn’t stick to his guns, even though most Americans agreed with him, because Republicans feel that this is their holy grail: “the single most important thing that they have to fight for as a party.” But isn’t helping those in need rather than gilding the rich a holy grail for Democrats? Does he think for a second that the Republicans will relent and be more reasonable in two years? If he believes he can go out in 2012 and attack the Republicans when the political stakes are much higher, why couldn’t he do it now?
It’s not that hard to explain to Americans in distress that the protection of vast fortunes should not be the priority of government.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on December 8, 2010, on page A35 of the New York edition.
The doomed caribou gazed calmly across the Alaska tundra at Caribou Barbie.
The female caribou could easily have escaped, since it took the Wasilla huntress six shots, two rifles and some help from her dad to bag her prey. (Giving credence to Levi Johnston’s contention that she isn’t all that proficient with guns.)
But, inexplicably, the caribou just waited to get gunned down by Sarah Palin, who came across less like a pioneer woman than Private Benjamin with her camo, her French manicured nails, her cap that says (in pink) Girls And Guns, her 72-year-old father and her TLC reality show crew.
Sarah checked her freezer at home before she flew 600 miles to the Arctic, trying to justify her contention that she needs to hunt to eat. Wasn’t it already stocked with those halibuts she clubbed and gutted in an earlier show?
“My dad has taught me that if you want to have wild, organic, healthy food,” she pontificated, “you’re gonna go out there and hunt yourself and fish yourself and you’re gonna fill up your freezer.”
Does Palin really think the average housewife in Ohio who can’t pay her bills is going to load up on ammo, board two different planes, camp out for two nights with a film crew and shoot a caribou so she can feed her family organic food?
It’s amazing that Palin patronized Neiman Marcus during the campaign. Couldn’t she have spun cloth to sew her own clothes?
Hunting seems more sporting with birds — at least they have a better chance to get away. Unless the hunter is Dick Cheney, who would shoot pheasants that were pen-raised and released from a net to make slaughtering them easier.
The poor caribou in the Arctic Circle, a cousin to Santa’s reindeer, had to die so Palin could show off her toughness to voters and try to boost ratings on her show that have slipped since its premiere. (Next Sunday, she’s dragging up nine Gosselins to go shooting and camping.)
Sarah’s view of America is primitive. You’re either a pointy-headed graduate of Harvard Law School or you’re eviscerating animals for fun, which she presents as somehow more authentic.
In movies with animals, they often have a line in the credits assuring that no animals were harmed. In “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” they should have a line at the end assuring that “almost every living creature involved in this show was harmed.”
The caribou that waited too pliantly in the cross hairs is doomed to become stew for Palin and an allegory for politics. The elegant animal standing above the fray, dithering rather than charging at his foes or outmaneuvering them, is Obambi. Even with a rifle aimed at him, he’s trying to be the most reasonable mammal in the scene, mammalian bipartisan, and rise above what he sees as empty distinctions between the species so that we can all unite at a higher level of being.
Palin’s father advises her to warm up her trigger finger. And trigger-happy Sarah represents the Republicans, who have spent two years taking shots at the president, including potshots, and tormenting him in an effort to bring him down.
The Republicans think they have hurt their quarry on the tax-cut deal, making him look weak and at odds with his party. There’s an argument to be made for what the president did, but he doesn’t look good doing it.
When all the Democrats are complaining and all the Republicans are happy, it just can’t be a good deal for Democrats.
Obama gave up on a big principle, and Democrats showed — again — they can’t win the message war. Republicans proved that, while they don’t have the House (for now), the Senate or the White House, they’re still running things.
Obama used to play poker in the Illinois Legislature, but it’s hard to believe. First, he cried uncle to Republicans standing in the corner, holding their breath and turning blue. Then, in his White House press conference, he was defensive, a martyr for the middle class.
He said he must compromise at times as he follows “a North Star.” It was odd, given that Palin uses North Star as a code name, her own “city on the hill” reference, and an allusion to God.
The president said he couldn’t stick to his guns, even though most Americans agreed with him, because Republicans feel that this is their holy grail: “the single most important thing that they have to fight for as a party.” But isn’t helping those in need rather than gilding the rich a holy grail for Democrats? Does he think for a second that the Republicans will relent and be more reasonable in two years? If he believes he can go out in 2012 and attack the Republicans when the political stakes are much higher, why couldn’t he do it now?
It’s not that hard to explain to Americans in distress that the protection of vast fortunes should not be the priority of government.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on December 8, 2010, on page A35 of the New York edition.
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