This will be my last RNC post.
Friday started out with the news that I might interview Henry Kissinger, a man whose deeds and intellect I’m mightily afraid of. I was given the task because I’m always the earliest low-level employee to show up. Kissinger is considered old stuff by the established journalists I was working with – none of them could spare a moment of covering McCain’s upcoming speech to talk to the aging icon.
So I got the assignment. I had about three hours to prepare for my interview, which was not enough. I was assigned to ask only questions on Palin’s foreign policy experience, to plump up another reporter’s long-ish story on it.
When I arrived outside the restaurant, only one other reporter was there – Chuck Plunkett from the Denver Post. He told me he was nervous. I concurred.
We were eventually led in. There was Kissinger, planted on a black leather couch at the farthest corner of the restaurant. I sat next to him, Chuck on my other side. You can read what happened.
It was not a great interview, certainly one of the worst I’ve done. But then, he’s my first major subject, and it didn’t go terribly. I am hoping to score some time with him while I’m in Delhi, and prepare a lot more beforehand.
Speaking to him was like communing with a large, glistening brain. His sharpness was palpable, his empathy, not so much. He smiled a couple of times and made jokes, but mainly he was all business. It struck me how uncomfortable he was speaking outside of his “field of competence,” as he put it, that of foreign policy. But as soon as I introduced it – in the form of the India America nuclear deal – he visibly perked up. His speech was actually clearer.I had his resume fresh on my mind when I arrived, but all of the things he’d done sort of fled my brain as I sat next to him. It’s near impossible to have both experiences at once – a comprehensive understanding of a person’s life and a spontaneous discussion with said person.
It reminded me of something a Cuban expat told me during an interview. He had been forced to meet Fidel Castro in the 90s, when he went there as part of a medical team. Castro drove this man’s father out of the country and changed the course of his family’s history. But as he stood in front of Castro, now an old man, he felt nothing but pity.
I didn’t feel quite pity for Kissinger, nor awe. I felt like I was talking to any other stranger, this one old and German. There are moments in the interview where it’s clear I’ve forgotten who he is (I almost ask him if he’s ever been to India). I suppose I had to do that simply to calm my nerves. Someday, I hope, there will be enough depth to my own life and personality that I need not do that.
Immediately after Kissinger, I ran down to the floor to hold a spot for my photographer. The AP and Reuters photogs share the two center spots at all of these events – it seems it’s just a convention agreed upon by the other news groups – a little unfair, maybe, but nice for me, because I got to hover around the very front section with my guy every night.
I made sure the spot was secure, then headed to the California delegate section to meet Harmeet Dhillon, a delegate who is running for a position in the State Assembly of Dist. 13 in California (which includes the proudly liberal San Francisco).
I asked her what she thought of Palin, and she was resoundingly positive. When I brought up P’s beliefs in creationism, here’s what she said:
“As a Sikh, I believe in reincarnation. I don’t think people should not vote for me because of that. We have something called a constitution and first amendment rights. What she believes is not going to affect that.”
It had been brought up at the Indians for McCain dinner: religious values are a patently good quality in a person, even if they differ in particulars from one’s own. The significance of a religious politician isn’t about policy – which as Dhillon contends, religion can’t affect – but what it says about that person’s character. Palin, who has shown by example that she believes what she says she believes, is in Dhillon’s mind, a person of character.
I brought up the camp Dhillon’s family started, at which Amardeep Singh has taught, and she nodded a curt yes.
“Amardeep knows me.”
(I should point out: she was more intimidating in person than Kissinger.) She told me as a State Assembly member, she will take a vow never, under any circumstances, to raise taxes. And she will insist that California follow federal government standards.
Her explanation of why she holds an ACLU member card was uncannily like her defense of Palin’s ultra-Christian beliefs.
“I don’t agree with everything they believe in. But I think they are an important and necessary institution for protecting religious freedom.”
I like what that statement shows she has: the ability to hold two opposing views in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function, what F. Scott Fitzgerald called “the test of a first rate intelligence.”
Dhillon and her fellow Indian-American Republicans are very clear: they know they are different from the average republican, and even from the politicians they support – perhaps fundamentally different. But they say those differences – religious, social, intellectual – will not come in the way of the shared goals these groups have. And in that way they reconcile opposing realities. Indian and Republican.
I worked until 2 in the morning and couldn’t sleep until 4, I was so keyed up. This past week has been exhilirating, troubling, incomparable. I would do it again tomorrow.
I flew home and was “selected” for special screening, as I have been each time I’ve traveled in the past three months. This time I asked the woman why they aren’t upfront with their policy, calling it screening for people who look Middle Eastern, rather than “randomized.” She said I’d have to talk to the airline.
Standing aside to be checked as hundreds of white people walked through, uninterrupted, I felt bad. Like I’m not a part of the country in the way they are. It brought me back to a moment on the floor when some Texan delegates laughed that the protestors clearly have nothing better to do because,
“They’re democrats! Democrats don’t have jobs.”
I turned to them.
“I’m a Democrat and I have a job,”
“Well you’re the exception, honey! If you’re a Democrat and you have a job, you’re clearly a Republican!”
I got angry. They reminded me so much of the obnoxious white Republicans I’d grown up with in Texas, simplistic in their thinking, clad in expensive clothes and alienating. I reacted. I shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have said anything to begin with.
“I guess if you’re rude, you’re clearly a Republican too.”
It was horrible. I had no journalistic integrity left. I had let my feelings escape into the reality around me, the reality I am meant only to record. So as I stood there in the airport security line, remembering that, I tried also to remember the words of Fitzgerald, to keep in mind that this is my country too, this country of Republicans and Democrats, white people and Indians and black people and Native Americans, like the Ojibwa man who would sit next to me in an hour on the plane and tell me how his tribe’s reservation land has been stolen over decades, but even so – there are fierce Republicans and Democrats and mainstream thinkers among them. That we can be different and fight and still somewhere share a purpose. I tried in my mind to hold these two opposing thoughts, and to still function.
You’re misunderstanding what I’m doing. There are two separate questions here: one is, who do I want to win the election; and the other is, what do I think of the political process. My effective answer on the first question is clear: I’m for Obama (or rather against McCain) because I want him to win the election and am doing what little I do toward that end, including encouraging people I run across in places like Michigan and Colorado and more broadly to vote for him even if they’re not fully comfortable with him. In other words, I am doing nothing that I think will keep Obama from winning (though of course I could always make mistakes in judgemeent…but calculated risk is something we live with).
My actual vote is the other part of the answer to what do I think of the political process, which is that it sucks. That’s why, registered in a safe state, I would try to push the Democratic Party more towards my beliefs and marginally help a 3rd party (hence a 3rd party vote). I voted for Nader in 2000 when I didn’t even ideologically agree with him as much as I agreed with Gore (because i was an idiot) for this reason.
Why should people in safe states throw away their votes by supporting one of the two major candidates?
So really, ideology is pretty far in the background – it may be driving the interest in having created such a strategy and support for instant runoff voting and all that, but my actual vote and more importantly my political behavior are shaped by what I think is sound strategy for having half a loaf and eating it too.
First of all Dr.A, vote whichever party you want. Second of all, since I am female, any misogyny on my part is qualified. Third, I have my issues with Obama so if you can float a viable Third Party candidate- do and I’ll vote for THAT person. Fourth, anyone remember Benjamin Harris? I believe VERY strongly in the separation of Church and State and so did the Founding Fathers (see Amend. 1) so this kind of statement does not sit well with me. Palin is supposedly not some wet behind the ears youngun’ sprung up from the backwoods. 1954 is well within her parents’ memory. And FYI, this is about the same time In God We Trust showed up on the money. If I would not accept this from a college junior, why, pray tell, would I consider this acceptable in a VP candidate who well may be president one day either though default or in an election?
52 · Zazou said
Point taken. but if I perceived you as a misogynstic male commenter in this venue, what does that say about the way you framed your argument? The whole point about Palin is that just because you’re [insert disempowered group identity here] that doesn’t mean you advance the interests’ of your group. But your response was (sincerely) priceless and I really enjoyed it. 🙂
52 · Zazou said
Claiming that men automatically have lower standards on statements that can be considered misogynistic, as compared to women, seems misandrist to me.
Dr. A.,
Pleased to perceive that you found my modest attempts amusing! ;)Ok, enough of the Edwardian rhetoric- feminine enough?
Anyhoo- do you think Palin is advancing the “female” cause?
And just for the record- if McCain had picked Lieberman and he had made such an asinine statement, I would have had plenty to say.
And second BTW, I, too, am a graduate of Wellesley, and Hillary had a snowball’s chance in hell of getting my vote.
51 · Dr AmNonymous said
Well, if they’re not leading a campaign to recruit other voters to this 3rd party candidate, what’s the harm in a single, swing-state voter doing so? Others might catch scent of his/her/hyr/hym’s individualist musk and become spontaneously excited?
47 · Zazou: Palin is a f-g moron (sound of me spitting tacks here)- that phrase was added in 1954 by Eisenhower, as we dragged our sorry derrieres through the Red Scare In this round of “You may think Dish TV has more HD than Comcast but you are wrong” your answer is brrrrrrrrrrrzzzzzz…INCORRECT! 1. “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” – Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address 2. You are not required by the Government of the United States to state the Pledge of Allegiance in any form, so unless you are forced to, there is no reason to invoke the establishment clause 3. The United Atheist Alliance, Unified Atheist League and the Allied Atheist Alliance want the phrase “under science” added and it is my contention that they they are correct. 4. I need to go watch the bar scene from Good Will Hunting about Ivy League education…
52 ·Zazou: First of all Dr.A, vote whichever party you want. Second of all, since I am female, any misogyny on my part is jsutified
Man I @#$%^&* hate @#$%^&* Indians
A source for the “under God” addition:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pledge_of_Allegiance#Addition_of_the_words_.22under_God.22
since when did “qualified” = “justified” ?
And Rahul, do you really “@#$%^&* hate @#$%^&* Indians?” If so, I can only imagine how you feel about another groups of “I’s” – those Italians I’m so find of….:)
That is one way to look at it, but the idea of “under God” predates the Reds by both Lincoln and Religious Fraternities in the mid to late 1800s
Well I’m just following your logic on how you can be a misogynist because you are a woman, since I’m Indian I can misindthrophize (is that a word?)…Since I’m not an Italian, it would be racist/hate speech…:)
Oh yea sorry about the qualified/justified thing…I typed out what you had written, coz I was using a shitty browser at the library and I did notice it when I re-read your post…but forgot to change it as I was multitasking between Fantasy Football and the video of the class I missed ringing in my ear…
My apologies.
Rahul…multi-tasking wow! Love it! The point I’m making is that Palin seems to think that these three little words have been official for over 200 years. The fact that they have not been is an important point- what else does she think is official like this- an official religion? Habeus Corpus is a fancy word for dead guy?
the other point is that it doesn’t matter to me if Palin is a woman- I still think she’s a moron and is going to be ghastly for women’s and minority rights, let alone the rule of law.
Anyway, glad you like Indians and Italians- you can come over any time you’re in the neighborhood.
55 · Zazou said
No, I think she’s a jackass. An anti-woman, anti-gay, pro-war, theocratic, pro-corruption, authoritarian, ideologue. Any person who doesn’t believe in abortion rights for rape survivors is and as mayor would have the police charge rape victims for their rape kits…well…i don’t really know what the word is for that. But I feel it’s better to say that, than to call her a “Barbie Doll.”
56 · Nayagan said
Well just by stating this, aren’t you? 🙂 But more seriously the harm is potentially electing psycho warmongering don’t understand economics man and thus speeding up arrival of World War III as well as the collapse of the U.S. economy (which, in my optmisim/imperialism still think is avoidable). But that’s my vantage point – other people might be willing to take the calculated risk based on different assessments, and I wouldn’t condemn them for it. Voting obviously has minimal impact compared to things like – how you encourage other people to vote, conversations, actual steps you take to support or challenge various social/economic hierarchies, etc. But it is one that we’re allowed and they don’t kill us for, so we might as well think through how to use it.
Or we can spend our time doing more useful things, but i can’t help it – i’m obsessed! 🙂
62 · Dr AmNonymous said
Wow…
Okay 1. Before 2008, States paid for the charge to administer Rape Kits to victims of sexual assault 2. Before 2008, States that didn’t pay for it had towns factor it into their own budget 3. In 2000, Tony KnownDouchebag Knowles (the corrupt fellow Republican whom Sarah Palin despised and later ran against/beat) signed in a bill that required towns in Alaska charge victims for them to recieve a rape kit. This was when Palin was mayor of Wasilla 4. The Police Chief in Wasilla (which has approximately less than 7 rapes a year), at the time, refused to show support the bill by SUGGESTING that the procedure should involve charging the victim’s Insurance Companies.
Those are the facts of the story and inspite of Nayagan’s belief that I don’t check my facts, I do (for the most part when there isn’t some more interesting sporting event or a woman occupying my attention at the same instant)…now, while the lovely folks at the DailyKOSewer and MoveOn would like you to interpret these facts as Palin showing her affinity with Knowles (a man she despised, if I didn’t say that before) and her crony police chief looking around for change with his grubby hands to break the hundred that some hurt, crying girl gave him…I would rather believe that the Police Chief of her small (as if the DNC would let us forget that) town, could not do such a thing without approval of the Mayor.
Now I will wait for someone to go to the pointless segue that McCain hated Rove and the Evangelical lobby but sucked up to them for Political mileage.
interesting take on Palin:
http://gayzetteblog.com/2008/08/29/double-take/
Hahah Zazou, thats what I thought too… The other day I was at a party at my former roommate’s house with a bunch of people who work for Obama’s campaign here in Chicago; he promptly outed me by going “So you really like Sarah Palin eh?” And he disappeared as I was left to face the barrage; I was able to explain my moderateness to everyone involved…and then someone asked the obvious “at least she is hot right?” and I go..well I can’t view my party’s nominee that way but I will say that anyone who looks a cross between Tina Fey and Megan Mullally, definitely deserves a crush.
66 · RahulD said
rahu, r u sure that was fantasy football you were multitasking?
Yes…
ha ha!
68 · RahulD said
if u say so rahul. but those ellipses seem suspicious, like some of your keys aren’t functioning for some reason…
70 · Manju said
he was transfixed by Palin’s paglian cthonic sax appeal
71 · Nayagan said
get a grip on yourself Nayagan. Palin could soon be the most powerful woman in the world, and continuing to think of her in sexualized terms will put your party in a sticky situation.
But isn’t this all a little like running for homecoming queen? And doesn’t the home team hope (or maybe assume)God in on their side?
64 · RahulD Wow…
Okay 1. Before 2008, States paid for the charge to administer Rape Kits to victims of sexual assault 2. Before 2008, States that didn’t pay for it had towns factor it into their own budget 3. In 2000, Tony KnownDouchebag Knowles (the corrupt fellow Republican whom Sarah Palin despised and later ran against/beat) signed in a bill that required towns in Alaska charge victims for them to recieve a rape kit. This was when Palin was mayor of Wasilla 4. The Police Chief in Wasilla (which has approximately less than 7 rapes a year), at the time, refused to show support the bill by SUGGESTING that the procedure should involve charging the victim’s Insurance Companies.
Those are the facts of the story and inspite of Nayagan’s belief that I don’t check my facts, I do
Hey, me too! It all comes from one source as far as I can tell, so I don’t know how we could have such different interpretations of it. Do you have another source?
<
blockquote>While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.
Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.
In the past weve charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said.
According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.
Ultimately it is the criminal who should bear the burden of the added costs, Fannon said.
Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.>/blockquote>
btw, i notice you didn’t respond to her position on abortion for rape survivors 😉 cmon, just join the dark side. we’re a lot saner! you’ll like us!
I think her stand on Rape Survivors is stupid, I support the rights of a woman (or anyone) to her/their own body and what they want to do with it, as long as they are not in a legally binding social contract (marriage/civil union etc.)
I’m assuming you’re talking about abortion here, and not marital rape? But how do you draw the distinction – legally I mean? Emotionally i can understand why it’s kind to consult your partner(s), but legally? What happened to libertarianism – doesn’t extend into intersections with feminism? 🙂
72 · Manju said
By “party” you mean…?
Oh wait, I get it. A party is a group of members, huh?