Gail Collins Pens Another Incoherent Screed on Palin

Gail Collins has penned another rambling, incoherent column for the New York Times today.  It is a perfect example of how the Times has degenerated; quite sad, really.

Collins begins what seems to be a feminist rant on female politicians which of course leads her straight to Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann, two powerful, dynamic women who seem to threaten Collins.  She lauds Hillary Clinton, of course, but laments the fact that it's "not the smart and steady women" who get all the attention.  That's her segue into her screed on Palin and Bachmann.

Of Palin, Collins says:

The problem is that they’re all wow and no substance. Palin is living proof that you can be popular without having to try very hard. It appears she’s never going to respond to all the pundits who urged her to go back to Alaska and read up on current events.

I'd disagree with Collins on Palin's work ethic; I think she works very hard at what she does.  She travels all over the country giving speeches and working for conservatives.  I suspect Collins would just like for Palin to go back to Alaska, period; she really could give a damn what Palin knows about current events.

On Bachmann, Collins says:

Bachmann sounded like a combination of an ancient Roman matron preparing to send her sons off to die for their country, and one of those people who walk around yelling that enemies implant secret radios in their brains while they’re sleeping.

Again, Bachmann has done more for the conservative cause than many people out there and worked tirelessly against the unconstitutional, job-killing, deficit expanding behemoth that is Obamacare.  

Collins is perfectly free to disagree with the politics of both women, as she clearly does.  Yet her column seems to only express personal dissatisfaction from a personality standpoint.  Bachmann and Palin have the elusive "Wow!" factor that Hillary Clinton lacks.  Is it that same Wow! factor that the media said Obama had?  Because when Collins said Palin was "The problem is that they’re all wow and no substance," I thought she was talking about Obama.

Collins closes her disjointed rant with some babbling about Carly Fiorina's Demon Sheep ad and some nonsense about Tim Pawlenty and snowshoes, but in the end she just comes of as yet another disgruntled liberal jealous of Palin and Bachmann's popularity and spunk.

Collins Admires Obama's "Cool"

We had a great weekend; we went to Dallas to visit my daughter and to take The Teenager to a Mavs/Suns game. It was his first NBA game and he's a huge Steve Nash fan. The weather was great and we went out to eat and a couple of wonderful restaurants. My daughter and her husband were lovely and gracious hosts and had we really didn't want to leave. And the good news is that I will be back in June to GO SEE ERIC CLAPTON! (I'm sorry, I'll quit screaming about it sometime soon.)

At any rate, I fell out of the news loop for 36 hours or so and in today's world, well, almost anything can happen. In the car on the way over (I wasn't driving) I read the Gail Collins Op-Ed in the NYTimes entitled "Barack's Continental Coolness" and rather wish I hadn't. It is certainly another contender for Malkin's Drool Bucket Award, getting close to, but not quite achieving the level of last month's Jack Cafferty Drool Bucket Award.

Collins actually lost me in her second sentence when she said, "...let's agree that the Obamas wowed them in Europe." Let's not. I'm not convinced that they were all "wowed" and Collins offers no evidence of this, so let's agree to disagree on that one, Ms. Collins, and move on.

She then continues with the Bush-Bashing -- will it EVER stop? -- when she says "...the previous administration set the bar so low that Barack was able to get hysterical applause just by telling a crowd of students that American's don't believe in torturing people." She is referring to the town-hall style meeting Friday in Strasbourg which was packed with a favorable, hand-picked audience by the Atlantic Youth Council.

And of course, our European friends who are so anxious for us to close Gitmo have volunteered to take how many of those enemy combatants? I lost count at two.

Collins wrote, "Back home, we're just grateful that we don't have to sit on the edge of our collective seats wondering how the president wil embarrass us next." This was only the fourth sentence of the article and Collins managed to Bash-Bush twice so far. But seriously, was Collins not embarrased at all by Obama's deep bow to the Saudi king? Or his tepid response to the North Korean missile launch? She wasn't embarassed by him giving Queen Elizabeth an iPod loaded with his own speeches and a mix of show tunes? She wasn't embarrased when he got off track on the Telepromter and was literally speechless? I was.

No, Collins was impressed by his "cool." And by the fact that "Obama was the most popular guy in the gang." She points out that he knows the difference between Australia and Austria -- the only problem with that is that he didn't know Austrian isn't a language.

Collins then continues to gush over Michelle and Carla going "outfit-to-outfit" and how they both had bows on their coats. To her credit, Collins admits the fashion fuss is a bit much, but notes that it did take our minds off losing our jobs and our terrible economic situation for a little while. Thank goodness for that.

After all the Bush-Bashing and Obamagasms, Collins finally gets around to bashing Republicans in general by taking note of Friday night's congressional action on the budget resolution. She disparages the estate tax agreement as a move that would "increase the deficit while stimulating the economy approximately as much as eliminating a sales tax on square potato chips."

Note to Ms. Collins: Did you read the Porkulus bill? Or the Omnibus bill? No? I didn't think so. Neither did Congress, but neither of those do much economic stimulating either.

So if this is the kind of news I missed by being out of the loop for 36 hours, I might plan another road trip sooner than I thought. My next "road trip" is to the garbage can where I will put Ms. Collins latest column.