Paglia gets Obama concerns right, Palin fluffing wrong

Camilla Paglia says the media blew it for not giving a serious look at Wiliam Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. I agree.

I, too took more than a cursory glance at Ayers, and at the Woods Foundation. Some of the culture-specific educational programs it funded, while not quite as far as, say, an Ebonics Academy, were iffy enough that they should have been easy-picking low-hanging fruit for McCain.

The failure to capitalize reflects more on the ineptitude of his campaign staff than him in person in debates, though. All they had to do was pull up a list of grant recipients made while Obama was also on the board, and had McCain read through a few of them, in the form of rhetorical questions: “Sen. Obama, do you support … “ (If you haven’t actually done reading for yourself about Ayers, or Dohrn, Paglia has more on the top of the jump page.)

The reality is that Obama and other board members, like most nonprofit boards, probably rubber-stamped a lot of grants.

But, then, McCain could have gone after Obama for lack of involvement, and related issues.

That was the opening on Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

IIRC, Obama talked about praising Jesus “every Sunday” at Trinity.

Well, re his claims to have never heard stuff like that out of Wright, that would make him either:
• A massive liar about hearing difficulty, or
• A similar liar about his comprehension level, or
• A whopper-teller about his memory skills, or
• Ditto on the frequency of church attendance, or
• A champion-level Sunday morning pew sleeper.

I suspect the answer is a mix of points three and four. Which of those two is greater, I’m not sure.

I don’t doubt that Obama “fluffed” his church attendance to some degree. That in turn makes me wonder how much he’s committed to expanding Bush’s faith-based principles for reasons of faith, how much for reasons of campaign politicis, and how much for yet other reasons.

This is an issue that McCain could better have handled through 527 surrogates rather than personally.

Anyway, so far, so good from Paglia.

But then, turn the cyberpage, and read down a little bit, it’s off the deep end she goes.

Comparing Sarah Palin to John Edwards? Puhleeze. You know it's about more than abstract "experience," but knowledge and a willingness to learn.

And, to claim this was ultimately all about Palin’s pro-life issues is more ridiculous yet.

So, Ms. Paglia, if you wrote this part of the column even after Palin’s “Africa is a country” statement became public, well, you've reached a new low in some sort of po-mo idiocy.