Giant Leaps

It's a good thing I'm not called on to be a panelist on the Sunday morning news talk shows I love so much. Because this morning Mary Matalin would've made me drop an f-bomb on live national TV.

Matalin was part of an all-female-plus George Will panel on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." At the very end of the show (just under the 42 minute mark at this clip), they spent a few minutes on the death of Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the surface of the moon. George Will said something really wonderful about how the moon landing represented a time when America was a country that could do big things, and that we want to think of ourselves as that kind of country again. Then Stephanopoulos and Jennifer Granholm mentioned Armstrong's lifelong humility about being the one man representing the work of so many. Then comes Matalin.

Here's exactly what Matalin said:
"Or, to be inspired by yourself. Because what he (Armstrong) did for a generation, including girls, he was an early feminist. He gave you the sense that in America, if you have the drive and the dream, you could be anything you wanted to be. I grew up wanting to be an astronaut, as a girl. That's the difference between conservatives and liberals. We think we can do it."

Oh, then Greta Van Susteren needs to bring Newt Gingrich into the discussion for some reason.


Here's exactly what I said, watching this:
"The f***? Yeah, with tens of billions of federal dollars, you can do it. A**hole."

What Matalin said makes absolutely no sense. What does it even mean? Is she saying that only conservatives can inspire people to do great things? Like, want to be an astronaut, but not actually put in any of the work required to be one, maybe? That "thinking" is so awesome, but the "doing" part, which might require public funding... not so much? Does Mary Matalin believe that Neil Armstrong built the lunar module in his backyard? Because I've always labored under the delusion that he received his training as a pilot from Uncle Sam, then flew a taxpayer-funded machine to the frakking moon.

What Matalin said offends me. Not as a liberal, but as a American. George Will was right. As someone born in 1980, I look at historic events like the moon landing, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement and the like with enormous pride, but also with a kind of wistful envy. I'm not naive enough to believe that my parents and grandparents lived in an idyllic America where no one ever fought. But I admire them for putting aside their differences to accomplish great things. Like Will said, I want those things for myself, and for my children. And yet here when we're talking about one of the greatest moments not just in American history, but in the history of humanity, here comes Mary Matalin to remind us of those very few places where we differ.

And Matalin was diplomatic compared to Fox News' Monica Crowley, who interrupted the "let's all feel good about that time we sent a human being to the surface of the moon" party to tweet a completely inaccurate claim that President Obama wants NASA to become an agency devoted to Muslim relations, or something? Honestly, I have no idea what she's talking about. Apparently, the NASA chief said in an interview with Al Jazeera that the agency needed to have better relations with Muslim countries (probably reasoning that an entity whose job it is to send things to orbit around the planet needs to be friends with countries at strategic spots around that same planet). Anyway, the Obama Administration disagreed. But apparently that doesn't matter to people who report the "news" in another galaxy.

So... whenever there's a mass shooting where it turns out that the shooter bought all his guns and ammo totally legally, and anyone remotely suggests that we should look at reasonable reforms to our gun laws, they're accused of politicizing a tragedy. (Which never made sense to me... If my cat repeatedly jumps on my counter to knock my antique wine glasses in the floor, and I think that I should either move my glasses or get rid of my cat, is that "politicizing"?) But, a pioneering explorer dies and more than one conservative talking head takes that opportunity to take potshots at the party that's actually in favor of public funding for education, and no one seems to notice.

Well, I did. And personally I thought that the death of a great (and as far as I know, apolitical) American was not the time to go into this... But, since Matalin and Crowley brought it up:

If a Democratic president hadn't pledged to go to the moon by the end of the 60s, and if another Democratic president hadn't made it happen... if NASA were proposed for the first time in 2012, the Tea Party wing of the GOP would go totally, epically apeshit. Taxpayer dollars for spaceships! Billions! If this is so viable, then why isn't some private developer pursuing it? If NASA were on the table today, people like Mary Matalin and Monica Crowley would be all over themselves to burn it to the ground, based on their extensive experience in... talking on TV. The woman who waxed poetic about inspiration would rip the Apollo program with the same language used to ridicule research into solar and geothermal energy - and Mary Matalin knows it.

That's the difference between liberals and conservatives. We're not arrogant enough to think there are only two of anything in the universe.