THE POLITICS OF CONFUSION

The question is why did John McCain do it? Yes, I know to shore up the conservative base, but didn't he ever consider the person he was putting on his ticket? Say what you want, spin it however you are comfortable, but Sara Palin is as out of her league as a little Leager joining the majors. In the debate of her life she was a child. A child who does not understand what she is saying. The teleprompter, the pumped up information, the smiles, the winks, the folksy idioms all were a cover for the fact she has risen way beyond her level of competence. She went from the back of the bus to the driver and she is not a good driver. Forget that she wouldn't answer any of the questions. Forget that she babbled on about energy like some automatron who didn't have the foggiest idea what she was saying, forget that on every rebuttal point she hit the tired old fear buttons of raising taxes and some misguided patriotism---the real issue is that she just didn't get it. She didn't understand why she was there. She had no clear idea of what she wanted to say, what she was supposed to get across--all she could do was fall back on epigrams and campaign slogans. Sara Palin is a beautiful woman who has played her looks to their logical limit; a telegenic bet that someone who looks good on television can really persuade people she can do the job. It worked at the convention. There was old John and there was beautiful young Sara. It made people forget about McCains foibles. But that only works when the audience is rigged. It only works when the house is willing to go along. Sara does not have the knowlege or experience to be Vice President, but what is most alarming, is that she doesn't have the intellect. She played her looks and charisma to become a mayor and then a govenor of a forgotten state, but you cannot do that on the national stage. You have to have a mind that will allow you to take information and produce a thesis--an ability to think not only independently, but clearly, with the insight and prescience of a leader. Anyone watching the debate, Republican or Democrat, saw not only the ramblings of a confused mind, but a frightened woman who knows she's over her head and probably just wants to catch the next plane back to Alaska.

Jacksonian Democracy and Palins Demise

When Sara Palin imploded in the Katie Couric interview it brougth up a painful question: Do we, as Americans want someone smart or dumb to run our country? We picked someone dumb for the last eight years. He made us feel safe. He made us feel like he was one of us. No one felt left out with Bush. The moron vote as it came to be known. Actually, this all goes back much further, back to Andrew Jackson. He was just a solider who became President, but what he did was he took the spoils system one step futher and put all his friends in his cabinet. Quite literally there were no politicians in Jackson's admistration and Jacksonian democracy came to be called rule by the common people. So what do we have in Palin? When Couric asked her what Supreme Court decisions did she not agree with, she had no answer. She stumbled. She talked nonsense. Suddenly the hockey mom was in the car telling junior not to forget his skates and his mouth guard and oh, you forgot your bottled water. Sara Palin had suddenly reached her level of incompentence and it was painful. It wasnt' so much that she couldnt' answer the question, it was that she didn't have the authority to say, you know what, I'm not that familiar with Supreme Court decisions, except for Roe V Wade. Instead she stumbled around because of intellectual insecurity. It was painful to watch. Now she is going to debate and maybe she will pull it out, but the cat is out of the bag and the hockey mom just can't quite get by with her sassy mouth and good looks. At the national level people dont get points for just looking good or being witty--you have to deliver something. And like the Jackson administration, people are horrified. We prattle on about rule of the common man, but we have Congress now staying up all night to pass a bailout because rule of the common man did not work out. George Bush is common in that he is not a smart man and we had decided somewhere as a nation we didn't like smart people anymore. Unfortunately for Sara Palin, the country just changed its mind and decided maybe smart people arent such a bad thing. Democracy is good in theory, but let's not get carried away. Let the hockey moms be hockey moms, and let's leave politics to someone who at least can face down Katie Couric.