In a summer season fraught with bad news and political unrest, there is at least one glimmer of sunshine ready to light up our miserable and tawdry lives. From her twitter account, Meghan McCain has announced that she will be sitting in for Elisabeth Hasselbeck while she is out on maternity leave. And obviously I couldn’t be happier for her.
Of course, this may not have much of a direct impact on my life, but that’s hardly my fault. I’ve never actually seen an episode of The View. I’ve had clips sent to me when they hit on some political hot spot of the day, but on a moment’s notice I couldn’t even tell you what network it’s on nor name all of the various hosts. It’s not that I don’t want to be a regular viewer, of course… who wouldn’t? It’s just that it airs at the same time that the Sci-Fi channel (I’m sorry…. “Syfi” … *sigh* indeed) runs marathons of Stargate Atlantis. And if I don’t keep up on the activities of the evil aliens plotting to take over our planet and report back to you, who will, eh? Who?
But I digress. I’ve never been quite sure what to make of young Meghan. On the one hand, she is starting out early in life, wanting to get involved in the political arena and take part in our ongoing great debate over matters of government. If she uses her name and fame to get more young people involved and they start showing up at the voting booth, then that’s a good thing, no matter what you may think of her opinions. Also, I tend to like her attitude by default, since she is preaching a message of a bigger tent for the GOP, where social conservatives don’t dominate the entire party and a variety of voices should be heard and more inroads could be made with minority voters.
At the same time, she always seems to come off in the media with a sort of air-headed, frivolous quality. Perhaps it’s just her tender age, a result of media editing to make her seem that way, or a combination of both. I couldn’t say for sure, but it’s hard to shake the sensation that she’s not quite as serious about it all as she might be.
Meghan is part of a rather rare and exclusive club composed of daughters of Tier One politicians who get out into the mix. She is joined by Chelsea Clinton (to a much lesser degree) and that obnoxious, loudmouthed Liz Cheney. (Has anyone ever seen Liz show up on a round table discussion and let anyone with an opposing opinion get out more than a dozen words before she interrupts them and cuts off their rebuttals?) You could call them a sort of Sisterhood of the Traveling Yahoos. Chelsea gets something of a pass on this because she only seems to show up on the campaign trail when her mom is on the ballot for something and otherwise keeps to herself.
By default, everyone should be able to get out and speak their mind about their government, so Meghan should be encouraged. Plus, work is hard to find and most of us take it where we can find it. I’m not sure how Ms. McCain’s personal finances look these days, but she’s probably not worried about sleeping in a shelter any time soon, given her mom’s enviably high profile tax bracket. But still, we all like to earn our own way, so if she can ink a book deal or get a guest hosting gig on television, good for her.
Still, I don’t think that will be enough to get me to start tuning in. But be sure to mail me the clips if she says something startling. We probably won’t have long to wait.