The Pile-on Is Getting Tiresome

Mr. Cavett:

All that you say in your column on Ms. Palin is true. And yet I begin to feel protective of her because of the pile-on, which you have now joined.

I don’t see how her presidency could be any worse than Bush’s were the McCain-Palin ticket elected. Could she do worse than lie the nation into a war that has killed over 4000 of our troops, maimed many more, and killed uncounted civilians? Has she called off all the regulators so that the financially greedy could rape whatever financial instrument they had access to and plunge the country into financial jeopardy? Could she do worse than endorse torture behind the scenes and continue Gitmo?

I am beginning to think that Palin’s being a woman has something to do with her condemnation. Men get away with utter stupidity as part of the male affirmative action plan and have done since the Ascent of Man with the cover excuse of “he’s just a guy.”

I know there is sexism in this trashing of Sarah somewhere if I could just track it down.

I suspect Sarah’s being beautiful is a big part of the hostility toward her. The attitude seems to be “How dare a woman that beautiful think she can have a piece of power in addition to an exquisite face and good legs? Isn’t it enough for her that she is a knockout l and shapely? That’s purely greedy on her part to want political power too.” Only men get to be greedy. Women must be self-sacrificing.

I know Palin’s reproductive attitude is awful and that she shoots baby wildlife from helicopters. But every time I see her toting Trig around on her hip as she deplanes somewhere to harangue her loving fans, I can’t feeling positive toward her. And then she has that doting, attentive husband. I know he wants Alaska to secede, but he carries Trig around as much as Sarah does without losing his masculinity or his movie-star good looks.

And to top it off, Todd is his wife’s Number One fan. How many men could stand their wives being the center of attention instead of them? Todd stands modestly in the background on stage, outdoing Cindy in self-effacement. Speaking of Cindy, why doesn’t’ the press and public pile on her? She wears tacky, gaudily expensive clothes and jewels and looks like a female android from Dr. Spock’s home town. Yet nobody criticizes her because she defers to her husband obsequiously and puts up with his infidelity with a lobbyist as recorded on the front page of the NY Times. Such a rich, servile ditz who wears her improbably blonde hair starlet shoulder length despite her being 54 years old is the country’s ideal woman.

I want you to lay off Sarah for the duration of her place in the sun. Take your snide preciosity to another target. One shrinks back to think of the caricature of herself as portrayed in the press that poor Sarah may become in the future. I hate to think of the chortling observers when she crashes and burns, and they have to look around for a new freak.

In Sara’s defense, I will correct two of your comma errors below.

The ones she resolves to splinter and bulldoze her way through upon glimpsing the opportunities, revealed from on high.

You have cut off with a redundant comma a restrictive past participial phrase. You speak of the opportunities revealed from on high, not the ones revealed from hell.

…affecting the sense, if any.

The comma after “sense” cuts off a restrictive elliptical adverbial clause (if there are any).

Give Sara a rest, sirrah.

(ms) lee drury de cesare

To a Junior Grammar Critic

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Excuse Me While I Teach Grammar to the New Preside...":

'As the object it should be, as you say, "Michelle and me," but when speaking I hear so many people make this mistake b/c they are over-correcting and not thinking.'

This is another common error. Misplaced modifiers regularly produce hilarious results. Did you mean that when you were speaking the people make the mistake (as you have written) or that the people make the mistake when they were speaking?

There is a difference here between your error and Obama's. Most of the English-speaking world knows exactly what Obama meant, but your ambiguity means that I don't know what you are trying to say.

Publish this comment.

Reject this comment.

Moderate comments for this blog.
Posted by Anonymous to Lee Drury De Cesare's Casting-Room Couch at 11:19 PM

Oh, stop it already. You are out of your depth, or you would not have fallen into a dangling modifier:"but when speaking I hear so many people make this mistake b/c they are over-correcting and not thinking."

Your "when speaking:" is a dangling modifier in a construction in which your purport to correct me for some fugitive error. You are not in this league of grammar-and-punctuation savvy, so just retire and lick your wounds, sugarbritiches. If you are interested in grammar-punctuation big-time, keep in contact with my Grammargrinch.blogspot blog.

Most people's eyes glaze over in the dicussion of grammar. Only a few of us find grammar and punctuation enthralling.

The Grammargrinch blogspot forewarns that grammar is what it is about. I have been suprised at the hits I get on that site. Its aim is newspaper writers. Newspaper writers are interested in correct grammar. They are professinal writers and should be interested. lee

Love and kisses to a grammar wannabe, lee

Possessive Before Gerund

A Political Manners Manual

By GAIL COLLINS

Published: November 7, 2008

Since Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, needs the vote, you could understand him telling Lieberman that he’s still welcome.

"Him" should be "his": possessive before gerund.

Presidential-elect Abuse of Pronoun Case

Mr. President: In your Chicago speech or maybe it was your first press conference, you said that the Bushes "invited Michelle and I [sic] to the White House."

The "I" should be "me" for object of the verb "invited."

For two years I sent you all my money saved from not buying a single dress or pair of shoes. That sacrifice requires a president who knows pronoun case. If you learned Constitutional law, you can master pronoun case.

Lee Drury De Cesare

Appositives

Commute or Relocate? In Capital, an Enduring Question

By JOHN M. BRODER

Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, came to Congress as a single man, but fell in love with a Senate professional staff member, Julia Hart, on a Congressional delegation trip to Afghanistan in 2002.

The comma after "man" splits a compound verb. "Julia Hart" is a restrictive appositive, so the commas surrounding it are superflous. Delete "a."