I studied dance for about 15 years, various disciplines, with classical ballet as my primary. Growing up I had lessons six days a week, planned to study ballet before journalism, and as a kid I even competed, once vomiting backstage in a trash can like a champ. I saw a lot in those days of privileged white suburban dance competitions. I saw stage moms who purchased false eyelashes for their girls at Sally’s Beauty Supply and linger backstage, stressing over routines more than their kids. I saw moms freak out if little Janie Smith scored higher in her jazz routine than their daughter and storm out of the backstage area leaving girls in their scary tan-flesh tights with severe ponytails and mothers holding Aqua Net cans all looking on in confusion.
Even though I’ve not competed for thirteen years, I had a flashback to those hair-sprayed school days the other night when I heard that Bristol Palin received death threats because she made it to the finals on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Dude, I thought. They finally hit that level of no-shame desperation. The left has gone all Texas cheerleader mom on Bristol Palin.
Sally Quinn rah-rah’s this outrage and her latest column reads more like dictation from a stage mom running down the Palins on behalf of liberalism.
On Bristol’s win:
Bristol had never danced and was up against some world-class dancers. That takes guts. I know. I’m a ballroom dancer myself. Dancing is my religion.
[…]
Bloggers, columnists and TV commentators jumped on the results. There must be cheating going on, they said. It was all a tea party plot. That could be the only explanation for this appalling miscarriage of justice.
Sally Quinn is such a serious ballroom dancer that she can’t tell a contest about popularity with ballroom dancing as a theme apart from a serious showcase of ballroom dancing skills.
My husband and I are “DWTS” fanatics. We plan our social life around it, often regretting invitations that fall on the night of the show. Only in emergencies would we try to TiVo.
[…]
We were having a dinner party and I made my guests leave the table to watch the final half of DWTS.
Oh dear.
Sarah Palin’s detractors point to the Christian right as the culprits here. The say groups organized voting schemes to game the system and were telling each other how to cheat when voting at ABC.com.
[…]
And though ABC says it is weeding out votes cast by cheaters, it only proves that there are groups trying to rig the voting.
I can’t tell you how much this cracks me up. There’s this story occurring right now in my hometown about massive questions surrounding voter fraud – and how the political dynasty here bucked the city board of elections to hire its security firm to police the polls in a city where dead people turn up all like “Thriller” on election day – but NO. The tea party must be cheating on a television reality show about dancing!
Perhaps Sarah Palin could say to her supporters that she hopes the stories of rigging the vote aren’t true; that she doesn’t approve of cheating and may the best person win. Whatever the reasons for this, it has left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, not only for the perception of dishonesty, but because of the perceived determination of Palin”s supporters to do anything they have to do to help their candidate.
Quite honestly, I sincerely hope the right cheats their asses off. Why? A dude shot his television because she advanced to the finals. Because she’s getting death threats (two things which Quinn conveniently left out of her column. I guess that’s commonplace in the competitions she watches.) I want Bristol Palin to win because the left is so demonstrably bigoted, so prejudiced, so hateful, they’ve attacked this girl and said she faked her pregnancy, they’ve attacked her for being a teenage mother, for being a teenage mother who kept her baby, for running down every single choice she’s made in the public spotlight – and not in the spotlight by her choice, mind you. The left bears such a hatred for her mother that they’ve been gunning for Bristol Palin long before she was cast on “Dancing with the Stars,” and long before Sally Quinn turned a more light-hearted Annie Wilkes on her in a column. Progressives have been holding “Vote Against Bristol” parties. I hope the right goes shamelessly ACORN on DWTS voting. Apparently, it matters more to the left than actual for-real voting.
Quinn does finally nail it with some sense in her ending graph:
This could be a metaphor for things to come. Sarah Palin is a force to be reckoned with and if her supporters can influence a TV show of 23 million viewers they can have more serious influence on elections. And if they can mobilize the religious right then the Democrats better pay attention and start dancing as fast as they can.
Indeed.