Born Rich and Squishy

I continue to marvel at the appalling acceptance of the McCain campaign’s repeated assertions that “with Sarah Palin, parents of special needs children will have a great friend in Washington” etc. blah blah blah. For some good writing and other blog references on this disgraceful misrepresentation of Palin’s record I recommend William Peace’s blog “Bad Cripple” at:

http://badcripple.blogspot.com/

I believe that the lives of real parents and the problems that their very real “special needs” children face daily are so complex, fatiguing, socially driven, and seriously in need of assistance that I can’t accept the simplistic manipulation of these problems by a cynical political campaign.

As for John McCain: just look at his woeful record when it comes to supporting the health care of veterans.

For my money the telling thing about the McCain-istas utilization of “special needs” is that the term is divorced from the broader denomination  “people with disabilities” which means that the right wing base of the GOP can rest easy that no one at McCain-Palin is seriously proposing anything that looks like a  real social program. “Special needs” means sentimentality only. “Hey Muriel, that little special needs baby they’re holding up sure is cute!” Ah, but who in the GOP wants to think of a lifetime of physical and social struggle to get accommodations and an education for that special needs child?

I like the word “squishy” for this kind of neo-Victorian sentimentality. Translation: it’s at once soft and dead.

S.K.